12 Most Hated Hard Rock Albums (From Great Bands)
3. Rock In A Hard Place - Aerosmith
When people bring up hard rock in the 1970's, Aerosmith are almost synonymous with the genre. While bands like Led Zeppelin were defining the sound of bombastic hard rock overseas, this gang from Boston kept the music low to the ground with an insistent groove that was unmatched.
Though the band had been on shaky ground on albums like Draw the Line, nothing could have prepared them for what ensued afterward. After a stalemate with singer Steven Tyler, guitarist Joe Perry abruptly left the band to pursue a solo career. The band were able to finish up the album in progress in Night in the Ruts, but their followup Rock In a Hard Place really started to show the fallibility of rock's greatest band.
The truth of the matter is that Joe Perry was the glue that held Aerosmith together, with his rock star persona giving a great yin/yang rapport with Tyler's antics. Without his riffs driving the song, the album sounds like a band with one of their puzzle pieces missing. The sessions were so bad that even guitarist Brad Whitford left the fold, leaving the band without their trademark guitar sound. Aerosmith would eventually be given new life when Perry and Whitford returned, but this album shows one of the darkest times the band would ever face.