The 500 - 123 - Run DMC - Raising Hell

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by New York-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

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Album #: 123
Album Title: Raising Hell
Artist: Run DMC
Genre: Hip Hop, Rock Rap
Recorded: Chung King Studio, New York, New York

Released: May, 1986
My age at release: 19
How familiar was I with it before this week: Quite
Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at #209, Dropping 86 places
Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Walk This Way

Album cover for Run-DMC's, Raising Hell.

Raising Hell was the third record from American Hip-Hop pioneers Run-DMC. It became their second of two records to make The 500 chart. Their self-titled debut at #242, and I wrote about it in October, 2023. In that post, I shared some information about their history and my earliest exposure to the hip-hop genre.

Album cover for Run DMC's self-titled first release.

Although Run-DMC had been recording since 1983 and began releasing albums the following year, my friends and I remained unaware of the trio until they swamped our radars with their genre-bending re-make of Aerosmith’s 1975 hard‑rock song Walk This Way. To say Run-DMC’s version took over the summer and early fall of 1986 would be an understatement. It was unavoidable. The track blasted from car radios and battered cassette decks slung over the shoulders of high-schoolers and pre-teens. It seemed to air on Canada’s MuchMusic television station almost hourly, becoming indelibly stamped on my memory. To this day, when I hear it I am transported back to 1986 when the song  became a significant piece of my mental soundtrack.

Album jacket for the single, Walk This Way, by Run DMC

With time and maturity, I can emphatically declare I now prefer the Run‑DMC version over the original by Aerosmith, although as teenagers my friends and I weren’t nearly so generous. We mistakenly believed the hip‑hop trio from Queens was “stealing” the earlier riff we loved.

As self‑styled rockers growing up in the predominantly white city of London, Ontario, we were generationally and geographically removed from hip‑hop. We didn’t recognize it as a rising art form, nor did we understand the concept, or legality, of borrowing and interpolating riffs and samples from the works of others.

As we edged toward our twenties, I think we felt a bit threatened, even left behind, by this new sound. To us, the song seemed as though Run‑DMC was trying to cash in on a great piece of someone else’s achievement. We considered it wrong and unfair. However, I would later learn that the “borrowing” is permissible and compensated.

A screen capture from the Walk This Way video. In the shadowy
background is Jason, "Jam Master Jay" Mizell. At front, from left
to right are Joseph "Run" Simmons, Steven Tyler, Darryl "DMC"
McDaniels and Joe Perry on guitar.

Truth be told, the picture does not reveal the whole story about the recording. Two members of Aerosmith – singer Steven Tyler and guitarist Joe Perry – actually needed a Walk This Way collaboration far more than Run-DMC. It would serve to revitalize their careers. In 1986, Aerosmith was struggling. Badly. By the mid‑’80s, the group were starting to be seen as washed-up, "has-beens". They were battling declining sales, internal instability, and addiction issues. Their recent albums were underperforming, they had lost cultural relevance, and the band was no longer a major commercial force.

Aerosmith's 1985 release, Done With Mirrors, was a commercial
failure for the once reliable group.

Conversely, Run‑DMC were entering 1986 on the verge of a historic breakthrough. They were already hip-hop’s hottest group, and culturally ascendant. They had strong sales from their first two albums – the aforementioned debut and King of Rock from1985 - had made them a global hip-hop phenomeno. Their third album, Raising Hell, was already shaping up to be a major success. Run‑DMC did not need rescuing and, rumour has it, they nearly declined the opportunity to record the Aerosmith cover.

Members of Run DMC and Aerosmith in the studio, on
March 9, 1986, when Walk This Way was recorded.

I've been trying to figure out why I now like the Run-DMC version of Walk This Way better, and I think it comes down to the guitar playing of Perry and the incendiary solo that finishes the five-minute song. Comparing the guitar solo in Aerosmith’s 1975 Walk This Way to Perry’s re-recording for Run‑DMC’s 1986 crossover smash is a bit like comparing two eras of music history.

Joe Perry (1986)

The original Perry guitar solo on Walk This Way, found on Aerosmith’s Toys in the Attic (#229 on The 500) is longer, looser, and unmistakably rooted in the band’s  blues‑rock swagger. It has a raw, improvisational grit typical of their mid‑’70s peak. By contrast, Raising Hell producer Rick Rubin has said  the Run‑DMC version needed a tighter, more streamlined solo. It had to be "one that could live inside a hip-hop arrangement without derailing its rhythmic momentum."

Album cover for Aerosmith's Toys In The Attic record. (#229 on The 500).

And that intentional refinement wasn’t accidental. Rubin pushed Perry hard during the 1986 session. As Rubin recalled, Perry’s first attempt didn’t cut it. Rubin told him directly that he didn't think it was great. Punctuating the criticism by saying; "I feel like you could do better!’’ It was only after that blunt assessment that Perry delivered the final take, one that was shorter, sharper, and engineered to serve Rubin's radically new context.

Rick Rubin (1986).

From Perry’s perspective, the collaboration was far more than a re‑recording session. He later described the remake with Run-DMC as “a high point” for Aerosmith and “an artistic spark” during a period when their career had stalled. Perry’s solo wasn’t just a performance; it was part of a cultural moment that helped relaunch Aerosmith and blasted hip-hop into the mainstream. Well, not the mainstream of my teenage circle of friends. It would be some time before we came around to accept...and now love...the collaborated version between two future Hall of Fame groups.

The 500 - #176 - Rocks - Aerosmith

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: #176
Album Title: Rocks
Artist: Aerosmith

Genre: Hard Rock, Heavy Metal

Recorded: Wherehouse, Waltham, Mass. and Record Plant (New York City, N.Y.)

Released: May, 1976

My age at release: 10
How familiar was I with it before this week: Very

Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at #366, dropping 190 spots
Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Back In The Saddle

Rocks was the second record from Boston-based, hard rock band Aerosmith to appear on The 500 list. In January, 2024, my appreciation for the group was made evident in a post about their third record, Toys In The Attic, which also made the list. Most of my high school chums were devotees of the quintet, which comprised Steven Tyler (vocals), Tom Hamilton (bass), Joey Kramer (drums), and guitarists Joe Perry and Brad Whitford.

Aerosmith (1978) (l-r) Tyler, Hamilton, Perry, Whitford and Kramer

Both records were in regular rotation at house parties I attended, as was their Greatest Hits collection, released in 1980. Enjoying critical and commercial success while selling out arenas across North America, it seemed that "The Bad Boys of Boston" were riding high on a wave of good fortune that would carry them comfortably through the eighties. However, behind the scenes, things were falling apart. Guitarist Perry summed it up well in his 2014 autobiography and in many interviews, saying;  "Originally, we were musicians who dabbled in drugs. By the early ‘80s, we were drug addicts who dabbled in music".

In early 1982, stories began circulating among my friends about the group's disastrous decline -- failed marriages, drug busts and even riots at concerts when the group was too drunk or high to play. There were even rumours that Hamilton was so drunk at a show in Cleveland that he fell off the stage and knocked himself out cold. By the time the group released their seventh record, Rock In A Hard Place, in August, 1982, Perry and Whitford had quit the band. The group that had often been called, "America's Greatest Rock and Roll Band" became a joke to me and many friends.

Rock In A Hard Place album cover (1982).

In retrospect, we could have been kinder and understood that the five musicians were struggling with addiction. However, we were, like many teenagers, more interested in making each other laugh than concerning ourselves with the personal problems of other people. My buddy, Paul Dawson, and I would try to outdo each other by singing parodies of their lyrics and creating satirical titles for classic Aerosmith songs whenever they entered our purview.

• Back In The Saddle became "Back On The Bottle", 
• Draw The Line was modified to "Draw The Line, So I Can Snort It",
• Walk This Way featured us pantomiming a member stumbling drunk and falling flat on his face. 

Paul was far better at these ridiculous bits of satirical improv than I, often reducing me to tears with his comedy chops. His clever word play on our shared digital messenger thread still makes me chuckle.

My favourite photo of Paul from the
early 80s. He always found (and still finds)
the comedy in everything.

Fortunately, there was a glorious third act waiting for Aerosmith when they became sober in the mid-eighties. They released an impressive string of multi-platinum-selling albums and chart-topping hit singles that began with Permanent Vacation in 1987. Perry and Whitford had returned to the line-up and the band employed songwriters with "pop music" sensibilities. It was the right decision for them, as they amassed a new generation of fans. Their pop-metal and syrupy ballad sound was not for me, though.

Album cover for Permanent Vacation (1987).

Even Saturday Night Live took the mickey out of the band when the comedy ensemble satirized Aerosmith’s mid-’90s hits in a sketch featuring Adam Sandler as Steven Tyler and Jay Mohr as Joe Perry. In the skit, presented as a faux-commercial for a 1990-1994 Greatest Hits Record, Sandler poked fun at the familiar and formulaic sound of the songs Cryin', Crazy and Amazing -- eventually, pitching "new" songs including the ridiculously titled, Crazy Amazing Cryin-Amazacrazy. The video can be seen here.

Sandler as Tyler and Mohr as Perry in the 1994 SNL sketch.

In May, 2023, the group announced a Farewell Tour. However, after 74-year-old Tyler suffered vocal chord damage in September, the shows were postponed for a year. In August, 2024, it was announced that all shows would be cancelled and the band retired. It seems that Father Time had caught up with the leather-lunged Tyler (aka The Demon of Screamin'), and he was unable to recover from his throat injury.

Steven Tyler in 2023.

I regret not seeing Aerosmith perform live despite many opportunities. In 1990, a group of friends invited me to join them at a concert at Toronto's Skydome and support the band’s tenth record, Pump. Looking back, I am surprised I declined because I didn't mind the album and had it on CD for years. Still, it never measured up to those early records, including this week's album, Rocks.

The 500 - #229 - Toys In The Attic - Aerosmith

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: #229
Album Title: Toys In The Attic
Artist: Aerosmith
Genre: Rock, Hard Rock, Blues Rock
Recorded: Three Studios, Hollywood, California, U.S.A. 

Released: April, 1975
My age at release: 9
How familiar was I with it before this week: Quite

Is it on the 2020 list? No
Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Sweet Emotion

While mental illness is less stigmatized than it was in my youth, society has, for the most part, recognized that mental disorders are endemic and that we should reframe our language to project more compassion and kindness toward those afflicted.

That said, I am also fascinated by language and, in particular, idioms, colloquialisms, idiosyncratic or cultural jargon. When encountering unusual terms or expressions I am delighted even if I bristle with discomfort. It's much like experiencing a bit of dark comedy that, although offside, is perfectly constructed,

Consider the following:

• Meshugenah (Yiddish for insane) is just a fun word to say.
• Bats in the Belfry is a 19th Century U.S. expression for someone eccentric. The clever turn of phrase paints an interesting metaphorical picture.
• As does the title of this week's record, Toys In The Attic -- a relatively new term taken from a 1960 play of the same name by Lillian Hellman.
  

My favourite language distortions come from Cockney Rhyming Slang (CRS), a vernacular developed in the working-class East End of London, England, in the mid-19th Century. Lore has it that to be a Cockney, you must live within the sound of Bow Bells – that is, within earshot of the famous bells of the historic Church of St. Mary-le-Bow (founded 1080). The phrases of this curious and colourful dialect are constructed by replacing the final word of an expression with an unrelated rhyming word. More confusing still, the final rhyming word is eventually dropped. CRS is an idiosyncratic construct better explained by example.

Confused?

The lexicon is deliberately bewildering. Historians are still debating the origin of CRS. It likely started as a linguistic game among East End residents that morphed into a way locals could communicate privately with each other – perhaps for traders to collude in the marketplace, or as a way for criminals to baffle law enforcement when nefarious plans were afoot. Another plausible reason is to confuse the King’s men. You can hear the odd rhyming slang in the British television series East Enders.

Cockney is similar to the cryptic argot known as "Thieves' Cant" which dates back to the Elizabethan Period (1558-1603). It could be spoken or written with simple shapes similar to cuneiform.

Written Thieves Cant (or The Hobo Code).

So, how were bizarre, eccentric, idiosyncratic people identified in Cockney Rhyming Slang?

Well, the last name of actor Patrick Swayze, is often substituted for the word "crazy". But, there is an expression that is even trickier and is based on the expression "Nobody's watching the television" to refer to someone who seems to make behavioural choices without any forethought. In Cockney Rhyming Slang, this might be phrased as, "He's completely custard!" See explanation below.

While it is unkind to disparage someone struggling with their mental health, perhaps you can understand why I find the history of the colloquialisms fascinating. I've debated introducing an activity to my classroom. I would invite students to perform a “deep dive” on an idiom and then present their findings to the class. The idea came from a segment in a podcast I enjoy called Where Did It Come From?  I mentioned this last year and a musically gifted Grade 7 student named Sameed (who, enviably, has perfect pitch) wrote me a jingle -- which could be used to introduce each presentation, much like a stinger is used to introduce a segment on a radio broadcast.

A Book of Idiom Origins I have in my classroom.

Speaking of idioms, this week’s album, Toys In The Attic was the third studio release from American hard rock band Aerosmith. It became their breakout commercial release, selling nine million copies. It featured three chart-topping singles – Sweet Emotion, Walk This Way, and the power ballad, You See Me Crying. I'll admit, the record and band intimidated (yet fascinated) me in 1975. I was nine then and the music I liked (and knew my parents would approve of) was the soft rock found on the AM radio dial. Captain and Tennille, Barry Manilow, Elton John and Donny & Marie were my cup of tea.

Top Pop Hits of 1975.

However, I took the school bus home with plenty of teenagers who talked vociferously about edgier fare, including Bob Segar, Bad Company, The Doobie Brothers, KISS, Alice Cooper, Ted Nugent and Aerosmith. Sometimes, I bravely tuned the family stereo to the FM dial and listened to Detroit radio. Sweet Emotion was the first Aerosmith song I remember hearing. Guitarist Joe Perry makes use of a talk-box, a bit of electronic wizardry that allows the musician to "shape" the sound of their guitar notes by singing through a plastic tube that extends to a foot pedal that can be turned on and off. Much like Cockney Rhyming Slang, it is better understood when seen and heard.

Talk Box (l) and Joe Perry placing the tube in his mouth to use it.

The sound was haunting, mesmerizing and slightly sinister. Just hearing it felt subversive. To add to my confused sense of rebellion were the lyrics, including the following two stanzas

"Some sweat hog mama with a face like a gent,
Said my get up and go, must've got up and went.
Well I got good news, she's a real good liar,
'Cause the backstage boogie sets your pants on fire.

I pulled into town in a police car.
Your daddy said I took it just a little too far.
You're telling her things but your girlfriend lied.
You can't catch me 'cause the rabbit done died.
Yes it did."

I'm not sure if I was more concerned about the "sweat hog mama with a face like a gent", incendiary trousers that were victim to "the backstage boogie" or the fact that a rabbit had expired.

Album cover for Sweet Emotion - Limited Edition Single.

Chatter around the schoolyard postulated that "a dead rabbit meant someone was pregnant". I was skeptical but later learned it was accurate. The idiom “the rabbit died” came from a scientific procedure called The Rabbit Test, a bioassay (animal-based test) used in the 1940s to determine pregnancy. Unfortunately for the rabbit, the test required an examination of its ovaries, resulting in the big-eared creature’s demise -- regardless of the results.

Regardless, the idiom lives on ... and so does my love of them...You might say I'm Patrick Swayze for a clever idiom and its origin.