How to get this toxified cash cow back on her feet again? How about a novelty single with some of those rap kids? It was Rubin’s idea: He was producing Run-DMC’s third album, Raising Hell, and wanted one track that would go beyond the group’s current audience and reach into the suburbs. That he keeps the tone more or less even as he toggles back and forth is to his considerable credit.Īerosmith in the mid-’80s was in the dopey doldrums communication had broken down between lead singer Steven Tyler and guitarist Joe Perry, the music was crap, and the air was thick with substances. (Also: alerted the world to the skills of the producer-impresario Rick Rubin.)Īs Edgers traces the arcs of Run-DMC and Aerosmith toward their wacky intersection in Manhattan’s Magic Ventures studio, he is basically writing a book in two genres: a conventional rock biography (the kind of book in which the lead singer passes out onstage while the band is playing “Reefer Head Woman”), and a cultural history of early hip-hop. And its blockbuster crossover appeal-the first almost-hip-hop to tickle the ear of the mainstream rock fan-demonstrably reformatted pop culture. The conditions of its production were, haphazardly and downtown New York–ishly, kind of an aesthetic crucible. However you feel about “Walk This Way” the song-and it’s no “Like a Rolling Stone” it’s no “Sweet Emotion” it’s no “Sucker MC’s”-as a nexus of forces, it gives and keeps on giving. Read: 1991-the most important year in pop-music history And the question with a book like this-a book that zeroes in on a particular happening or art moment and then extrapolates boomingly outward-is always: Is there enough there? Enough action at the core, that is, and enough concentrically moving energy to prevent the narrative from collapsing in on itself as it stretches to book length? The answer in this case, I am happy to report, is yes.
After ‘Walk,’ it became a nation, a genre that would soak itself into virtually every element of culture, from music and film to fashion and politics.”Ī grand claim, Geoff Edgers. “Before ‘Walk’ struck in 1986,” writes Edgers, “hip-hop was a small underground community of independent labels and scrappy promoters. So at least argues the Washington Post staffer Geoff Edgers in his new book, Walk This Way: Run-DMC, Aerosmith, and the Song That Changed American Music Forever. But it happened-in retrospect it had to happen-and with 1986’s goofy, clankingly enjoyable “ Walk This Way,” rap music was big-banged into being as mainstream entertainment. Genius, right? Let’s go! Aerosmith, corroded rock behemoths in a slump, were sort of dazedly into it Run-DMC, coming into their power as hip-hop’s first superstars, were sullen and wary. It was, like many great breakthroughs, both a brilliant idea and the worst idea you’ve ever heard: Get Run-DMC and Aerosmith in the studio together, force them to perform a hybrid, rap-boosted, ebony-and-ivory version of an Aerosmith hit from the ’70s, and then make a video about walls coming down, etc.
0 kommentar(er)
