230 - Bonnie Raitt - Nick of Time

Nick of Time is a fine listen, but I never quite shook the feeling that the album is a collection of "your mother's style of blues rock." Don Was put such a smooth polish on these songs, that they seem perfectly made for broadcast on soft rock and Secretary AC stations across the country. Bonnie does rock some, but never enough to rock the boat.


Songs I Knew I liked: "Thing Called Love" and "Have a Heart"

Songs I Now Like: "Cry on My Shoulder" reminds me of Wendy & Lisa.

Songs I Can Go the Rest of My Life Never Hearing Again: Honestly, I wouldn't feel sad if I never heard any of the songs on Nick of Time I didn't list in the above two categories.

229 - Aerosmith - Toys in the Attic

I tend to listen to two or three albums on the Rolling Stone Top Albums list at a time. There are times that the group of albums I listen to seem related other than their presence on the list. Sometimes two albums of the same/similar genre are listened to together. Other times I'll have a complete box set of songs for one artist and a slim greatest hits collection from another artist together. This time around, I had the soft, smooth blues-pop of Bonnie Raitt's Nick of Time paired with Aerosmith's Toys in the Attic. Where Bonnie and Don Was polished the blues to the satisfaction of yuppie America, Aerosmith infused large doses of blues into hard rock. Where Bonnie had me a bit bored, Aerosmith got me all charged up.

Toys in the Attic jumped right of the speakers with the title track opening up the album. Steven then demonstrates to the listener the depth of his love of sex and the use of double-entendres, inuendos, and 12-year-old sex humor. It is sleazy fun that at worst will result in eye rolls. The album is then wrapped up in what 10ish years later would be called a power ballad.


Songs I Knew I liked: "Walk This Way" and "Sweet Emotion"

Songs I Now Like: "Toys in the Attic"

Songs I Can Go the Rest of My Life Never Hearing Again: "Big Ten Inch Record"