***1/2

There’s nothing really wrong with Get a Grip. It marked the peak of Aerosmith’s commercial success, spawning four hit singles, tons of regular MTV rotation for their many music videos, and millions of copies sold. For mainstream Rock radio, Get a Grip was the best album Aerosmith ever. But for the rest of us, it’s hard not to get painfully bored across its 12 tracks and hour-plus running time. Half of those 12 are great songs including hits worthy of their heavy rotation (“Cryin’,” “Crazy,” Amazing”) and furious riff-heavy Rock n’ Roll (“Eat the Rich,” “Get a Grip,” “Fever”). The rest of the album, though, is filled with nothing worth mentioning. Songs like “Flesh” and “Shut up and Dance” aren’t necessarily bad, they just bring nothing to the table when considering Aerosmith’s gargantuan number of songs that scratch the same itch much more efficiently. It’s possible that all of the song doctors were beginning to overstay their welcome. It’s possible that Aerosmith were starting to run out of steam again. But the finished product of Get a Grip is much more Draw the Line than Pump. Take your pick.