During his drug-addled, hard-rocking days, he functioned adequately as a sort of faux Mick Jagger. I'm happy to hear that he's clean and sober now, but his music and that of his band has become sheer, unadulterated crap, albeit sheer, unadulterated SUCCESSFUL crap. Which says far more about the state of the music industry than it does about Tyler or Aerosmith. Not to say that one needs to take drugs in order to make music that has merit, but, let's face it, Barry Manilow could be doing the stuff Aerosmith is now, with less idiotic facial contortions and screeching. You have to wonder if Manilow started taking hard drugs, would his music become as hard-edged and entertaining, if derivative, as Aerosmith's used to be way back when?
