(...)kicking aerosmith does it again and again

whether your a die hard fan or a new listener...you will love this cd with all of the best songs of aerosmith who are by far one of the last few REAL hard rock bands around who can still get down and dirty

****1/2 - a really good latter-day overview

"Young Lust - The Aerosmith Anthology" chronicles Aerosmith's Geffen-years from the mid-eighties onward.

Gathering 34 singles, album tracks and live cuts, it offers a fine retrospective, and it manages to include almost all of the best songs from Aerosmith's last six studio albums. This is pretty much all that the casual fan will need.



Having said that, I would have preferred a leaner version of "Amazing" to the orchestrated one included here, but the acoustic rendition of the hit "Livin' On The Edge" is really good, and Run-DMC's take on the sublime hard rock song "Walk This Way" is included, too.

The live versions of "Dream On" and "Sweet Emotion" are sort of pointless, though, and those two should have been left off in favour of two or three more songs from the band's Geffen years, but the selection is generally very good, and small flaws like those I just mentioned don't really ruin the overall impression.



The MTV-staples "Dude (looks like a lady)" and "Love In An Elevator" are here, as well as power ballads like "Angel", "Cryin'", and "Crazy", the underrated blues shuffle "Hangman Jury", the melodic (and disturbing) "Janie's Got A Gun", and several other smashes like "The Other Side", "What It Takes", and the hard rockers "Eat The Rich", "Head First", "Let The Music Do The Talking", "Rag Doll", and "My Fist Your Face".

"Young Lust" also includes and excellent version of the Door's "Love Me Two Times", as well as "Deuces Are Wild", "Blind Man" and "Walk On Water", the three previously unreleased songs from Aerosmith's earlier Geffen compilation, "Big Ones".



This well-annotated double disc compilation is the best available overview of Aerosmith's latter-day output. Get this one, and the excellent box set "Pandora's Box" for the 'Smith's seventies classics, and you're set!

Young Lust

Particularly if you don't have any of their other albums, or if you have giant gaps in your mid-years Aerosmith collection, this is a great anthology. It includes a lot of odds, ends, and B-sides from their other albums, plus the greats, like Elevator, Ragdoll, Dude Looks Like a Lady, and the Run DMC Walk this Way. There's also a four song live segment, and while the live Dream On and Fallin' in Love are fabulous tracks, I think the live Sweet Emotion is weaker than the studio. Because this is a one-label anthology, it's missing most of the comeback hits (Pink, Don't Wanna Miss a Thing, Jaded, etc.) which is a real disappointment. Still, a great listen and well worth the money.