Train Keeps a Rollin', Off the Tracks and Into a Deep Ravine

Apparently, in the U.K., "bobbing on bobo" translates as the oral sex act. Since their latest is billed as "Blues done Aerosmith- style," it's no shocker that the '70s cock-rock holdovers should truck in sexual euphemism for a title. Sadly, Aerosmith missed 2003's official "Year of the Blues" partay and so will lack the dregs of the mysterious (white?) crowd who watched Scorsese's underwhelming PBS series and rewarded John Mellencamp (!) a number-one blues album. Despite flanking "last great standing" B.B. King at the Grammys, Steven Tyler and Joe Perry provide only blooz mummery, embodying the genre's decline through literal adherence to its legacy of black-male sexual expression.

Now these ears and eyes are forever fond of Tyler (and his daughters—Chelsea sings herein); I envision Tyler pater as being witty at dinner, a great dance partner. And I enjoy his sartorial élan. Still, this suspicious move into another moribund genre resembles the frustrated strivings of a band uncertain of how to exist After Rock. Yet embattled Negritude's "bottomless" cultural source can no longer provide exogamous succor. While "Stop Messin' Around" is a game attempt at gutbucket, Tyler clearly cannot grow old gracefully: "I don't buy into the idea that you're not supposed to rock and roll after a certain date." Hypothetically, he'd have to duel superior Ronnie Dunn at the Crossroads.