Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/7Jw02PXdmrunZlr4mk64oT?si=fc8ae748f9ef44fd

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74mV9qwlCgg

Chalk one up for Aerosmith. The band that too many saw as imitators of the Rolling Stones have trumped the English band with their latest release, it's got the energy of hard rock in a way nothing on "Hackney Diamonds" does.

Then again, where do you put the Stones these days, which slot? They're not Top Forty, they appeal to the oldsters who always bought their records.

But Aerosmith... Wasn't Steven Tyler supposedly retired? But then he's singing here and there, like at the Ozzy tribute, where YUNGLBUD appeared in his breakthrough moment.

You start to feel it, a name keeps coming across the transom, and it reached fever pitch for YUNGBLUD after that July show.

Not that the average person knows who YUNGBLUD is, BUT THAT'S JUST THE POINT!

Hell, I didn't even know this single was out until I was reading Ryan Downey's Substack newsletter which told me it had gone to number one. HUH?

But Active Rock is a backwater. It very rarely cross-pollinates with the Spotify Top 50. This is not the era of MTV, where all genres sat side by side.

As for Active Rock... It's HARD ROCK! Bang your head for real rock. And I'd like to tell you to tune in an Active Rock station but unless you're a dedicated fan, you're going to be turned off by most of the material. It derives from Metallica more than Led Zeppelin. It's noisy and angry, JUST LIKE MY ONLY ANGEL!

I guess that's the point. Consciously or unconsciously Aerosmith and YUNGBLUD didn't make a song for everybody, but those in the Active Rock ghetto.

How do I know it's a ghetto? According to "Billboard," "My Only Angel" had only two million streams last week and it went to number one on the Hard Rock Songs chart. To put that in perspective, Laufey's song "From the Start" sits at #50 in the U.S. Spotify Top 50, with 520,502 streams A DAY! And that's only one service!

Now hard rockers have shot themselves in the foot, they've agitated ad infinitum against streaming, and it is now hurting them. Scratch a hard rock listener and they'll tell you streaming sucks and it doesn't pay.

But it does... At least more than no listens at all!

Then again, how big a sphere is hard rock in today's world?

I guess that's one of my points. One thing about Steven Tyler, HE CAN SING! (Well, at least historically and here, how often and how well on the road...I don't know.) And that separates him from almost everybody else on the Active Rock chart. And that means if you were a fan of the old hard rock, which was heavy but not necessarily fast and screaming, you might like this.

And if it were the old days, MTV would have played "My Only Angel."

Is it the best track I've ever heard? No. But the litmus test is whether you want to hear it again, and I did.

Having said that...

This is music made for old school stereos. With POWER! And clarity. This stuff doesn't sound good on earbuds.

I listened first via Spotify on my Genelec computer speakers. The chorus stood out, but the verses blended together in noise.

So I fired up Qobuz and listened in hi-res and suddenly the vocal was more prominent. Ditto on Amazon hi-res.

But still...

This is when I fired up the big rig. With enough power to wake up the neighborhood. And when the sound came out of the speakers...

This was the experience of yore, being surrounded by music, having the noise of life squeezed out.

So...

"My Only Angel" is niche. Everything is niche today. Even Taylor Swift. There's mania over her new album, but do you care? Do you care about Alex Warren? K-pop?

If you read the music trade press you do. Where the major labels have manipulated the charts into irrelevance. Hell, the newspapers that still exist don't even publish the top ten anymore, because WHO CARES?

So we read about this label exec and that promoting pop and hip-hop dreck that makes it to the Spotify Top 50, but has no meaning.

But Aerosmith is from a different era. The second generation of rock, influenced by and taking off from the first, the Beatles and the Stones. When the goal wasn't brand extension, but sex and drugs. Sure, you wanted to make money, but the music and the lifestyle were superior.

So...

Check out "My Only Angel." If you don't like it, no biggie. You don't like most stuff and neither do I! But don't be under the illusion that anyone cares about your opinion, that you don't like stuff. The bottom line is...do some people like something enough for its makers to have a career?

And everybody knows that it's about careers. More than momentary hits. If you've got a catalog of albums that fans adore, even if most tracks are unknown by most, then you can tour forever. And in today's world, starting from zero, if you build it on the road and it grows...it never falters, because it's not hit dependent.

So that's the world we live in today. One of the Weeknd and Sabrina Carpenter and the rest of the acts with press and attention who oftentimes work with producers like Max Martin where the act is fungible. That's right, Max can create a hit with ANYBODY! A modern day Mutt Lange. So when you have a hit with him... I'd like to see you do it with someone else!

But although Aerosmith has worked with different producers, one thing is for sure, it's about them, they are in control, they always sound like themselves.

And "My Only Angel" sounds like Aerosmith.

This would have been a big deal in the pre-internet era.

As for working with YUNGBLUD...this doesn't look like rockers making disco tracks in the late seventies, but a marriage of the old and new while sticking to your roots.

This collaboration may not be featured in all the news outlets printing what PR people serve up to them, but the truth is today's world is all about word of mouth, spreading. That's what happened with YUNGBLUD. How far will the word on "My Only Angel" spread? I DON'T KNOW! But that doesn't matter, because the metrics have changed, it's almost a return to the early seventies when having an AM hit was unnecessary to have cred and a career. You're making your music for your audience. You want to satiate them. Not necessarily giving them what they want, but with them in mind. You don't need cowriters, you don't need remixes, you don't need to polish the turd into slickness, you can leave it rough such that...

When you go to the show and they play this music you nod your head and smile and feel good.

This is the essence of the rock experience. When it was about what was in your ears as opposed to what was on screen, big time production.

I don't want to oversell "My Only Angel"...I'll just say in an era when most classic rockers have given up making new music, believing no one cares, and others are making new music that's a far cry from the old, Aerosmith has somehow delivered just what they used to. "My Only Angel" is not a retread, it's new, but it sounds like the band. And YUNGBLUD is just a dollop of guacamole upon the chip.

This is the future.

Instead of thinking about everybody, think about yourself and your audience and career. Stick to your guns.

And BE GOOD!

And that's a very high bar for most to hurdle.


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