Aerosmith's fifth album was released at a time when the band was at the height of its '70s fame (hence the Al Hirschfeld-penned caricature on the album cover) and caught in an exhausting album-tour-album cycle made worse by intense personal problems within the band. Despite this chaos, the boys from Beantown rebounded with a record that contained songs thick in the usual sexual innuendo ("Get It Up"), a resurrected blues cover from the pre-Aerosmith days (Kokomo Arnold's "Milk Cow Blues"), and some of Joe Perry's finest slide guitar playing ("Draw the Line"). Another Perry highlight is "Bright Light Fright," a jagged number penned and sung by the guitarist that was inspired by the reckless energy of the Sex Pistols.
The bulk of DRAW THE LINE finds Aerosmith maintaining its trademark hard-rock swagger on powerful numbers like the incendiary shuffle "Sight for Sore Eyes," the sweeping "Kings and Queens," and "Critical Mass," a harp-driven nugget overflowing with backwards-masked guitar.
Recorded at The Cenacle, Aromnk, New York and The Record Plant, New York. | Aerosmith:
Steven Tyler (vocals, piano);
Joe Perry (guitar);
Brad Whitford (guitar);
Tom Hamilton (bass);
Joey Kramer (drums)
Additional personnel:
Paul Prestopino (banjo);
Stan Bronstein (saxophone);
Scott Cushnie (piano);
Karen Lawrence (background vocals) |
Album - Billboard (North America) | Year | Chart | Position |
|---|
| 1978 | Pop Albums | 11 |
Singles - Billboard (North America) | Year | Single | Chart | Position |
|---|
| 1977 | "Draw the Line" | Pop Singles | 42 | | 1978 | "Kings And Queens" | Pop Singles | 70 |
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