Aerosmith
"Eat the Rich"
Get a Grip
Up to this point, I've been focused on alternative music from the 90s, but after hearing this song today, I thought it'd be interesting to take a look at something slightly more mainstream.
Years before Aerosmith were best known for being "the band the guy from American Idol was in", they were actually a relevant, popular rock band. Which in 1993 was pretty special, given that they were 20 years into their career. Like Pearl Jam are today. Wow.
However, instead of re-releasing their entire back catalog and holding a gigantic birthday party for themselves, Aerosmith did what they knew best and made a record. A fairly decent record that got a lot of airplay. Unheard of, given their age. These were the same music consumers that shunned Guns N' Roses for being old and stodgy, and their first album had come out only 6 years prior.
"Eat the Rich" is the collaboration of Tyler, guitarist Joe Perry and Jim Vallance, who was a professional songwriter that had written "Rag Doll", "The Other Side", and "Deuces Are Wild" from the Beavis & Butthead Experience album.
It was a different time.
Easily the most rock of the singles from Get a Grip, "Eat the Rich" features a signature Joe Perry guitar riff backed by some pretty Dave Grohl-esque drumming from Joey Kramer, who is really pounding the shit out of the skins, for an Aerosmith song.
But this was a new Aerosmith, a cool, sexy one as their record label would have you believe. They wore black, didn't button their shirts and looked pissed off. And it worked, as Get a Grip sold over 7 million copies it's first 2 years of release.
"Eat the Rich" peaked at #5 on the Mainstream Rock chart, but was the album's least successful single, thanks to the mega-success of their video trilogy of "Cryin'", "Amazing" and "Crazy" in which Steven Tyler's daughter Liv and her friend Alicia Silverstone danced around in their underwear and teased Steven Dorff.
It was a different time, indeed.
Back to "Eat the Rich", as you can hear (and see) from the above video, Aerosmith (and/or their management) were trying hard to fit in with the current youth alternative movement. However, there's something hugely amiss with the song - its message. Aerosmith are hardly the first rock band to rally against the upper class, but at this point in their careers, Aerosmith were the upper class. They were probably the richest people they knew. So if the song's orders were to be carried out to their most literal interpretation, Aerosmith would be committing cannibalism, or even worse, self-cannibalism. That's just gross.
It's rare for a band to make it to the two decade mark, as Aerosmith did with the release of Get a Grip, but it's even more rare to be relevant at the time. U2 marked their 20th anniversary with the release of All That You Can't Leave Behind, their 2nd most successful album. R.E.M., however, released Around the Sun, an album I still haven't heard. So the success of this album, and this song, is fairly significant.
Unfortunately for "Eat the Rich", the song hasn't really aged well. It became a big live hit for the band, one they play constantly on tour, but when you hear it today, it sounds more dated than other songs released at the same time. Additionally, the lyrics are very much a 90's sentiment, as the Alternative Revolution was very much born out of a socioeconomic backlash and not just a artistic one. While these same anti-upper class feelings remain in less mainstream music, the popular music of today is more about assimilation when it comes to class struggle than rebellion.
Of course, the song's dated feel may be a psychological effect as well, since the members of Aerosmith are now SIXTY years old and no one ever made important, relevant rock music at that age.
But you don't have to, because you're still rich from back when you did.
Whatever.
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