Earlier this year, UltimateClassicRock.com did a ranking of the fifty greatest American bands of all time. As with any such list, there were plenty of head-scratching decisions. For instance, though Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers landed in the number 2 spot, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band didn’t even make the list.
The Velvet Underground was laughably under-ranked at 27. And though I am a huge Steely Dan fan, having them ahead of bands like Nirvana, Ramones, and Metallica strikes me as indefensible. But I want to give UCR credit for one thing. They had Aerosmith ranked at number five.
That seems about right to me. Now that the bad boys from Boston are calling it quits – at least as far as touring goes – I’d like to offer a brief tribute. The UCR list has them behind the Beach Boys, Petty, Van Halen and Credence Clearwater Revival. I’d move them ahead of CCR, who only lasted as an album-releasing band for about five years but would probably have a couple other lower-ranked bands in the top five. No matter what, Aerosmith is without question one of the ten greatest American rock bands of all time.
Where should Aerosmith rank among the best American bands ever?
That really shouldn’t be in dispute, but it is. No American band has sold more albums worldwide than Aerosmith. No major American band has lasted as long with the same core lineup. Still, there have always been complaints. In the beginning, during their exceptional mid-‘70s run, they were called a poor man’s Stones.
And quite frankly, they pretty much were. With a flamboyant frontman who co-wrote their blues-based rockers with the lead guitarist, they did seem to be following very carefully in the footsteps of Mick and Keith.
But if you come close to matching one of the two or three greatest rock bands of all time – and do it over a long span of years – that by itself pushes you way up the list of all-timers. When you consider that Aerosmith re-invented itself after bottoming out in the early ‘80s, and became even more successful, then you have to consider that they deserve a spot alongside those all-timers.
That’s exactly where the trouble begins for a lot of critics. They went pop. They sold out. Ignore that much of the music was still outstanding. It wasn’t as bluesy. They released – gasp! – power ballads. And those power ballads committed the ultimate sin by soaring up the mainstream charts.
I’m being a little too callous toward those who knock Aerosmith down on their own lists because there is a better case to make against them. They released a lot of mediocre-to-bad material. Unlike the Stones, whose lesser material can be attributed to the sheer amount of music they put out over many decades, Aerosmith only released fifteen albums.
That may be a lot of music, but when you consider that they did it over a forty-year span, it isn’t quite as impressive. The Stones released almost twice as many albums (it’s hard to pinpoint the exact number of Stones releases due to the differing British and American versions of their early albums.)
Even Aerosmith’s fans will admit that the three albums released in the 21st century can’t hold a candle to their earlier work. Still, their worst albums have gems. “Street Jesus,” from their largely-reviled final album, Music From Another Dimension, is a fine rocker. Their album of covers, 2004’s Honkin’ on Bobo, would be a towering achievement for any band not named Aerosmith.
Even if you allow that those final three are lesser versions of what came before, and even if you frown on their brief lineup interregnum which resulted in 1982’s Rock in a Hard Place, it still leaves you with eleven albums that range from very good to stone cold killers.
Aerosmith arrived in the early ’70s, at a time when rock & roll was experiencing the first signs of middle-aged spread. The genre that had been so vital in the late ‘50s, and so revolutionary and experimental throughout the ‘60s, was showing signs of stagnation.
To be sure, there was still a lot of outstanding music waiting to be unearthed, but now that rock was mainstream, corporate America was looking to cash in – and that is never a good thing for an art form. By the end of the decade, tired arena rock would replace down-and-dirty blues rock. Yacht rock would be born – though none of us knew it at the time.
Aerosmith provided a bulwark. Those first four albums – Aerosmith (1973), Get Your Wings (1974), Toys in the Attic (1975), and Rocks (1976) – yielded an embarrassment of riches. “Walkin’ the Dog” and “Movin’ Out.” “Same Old Song and Dance” and “Train Kept a’Rollin’.” “Walk This Way” and “Big Ten Inch Record.” “Back in the Saddle” and “Rats in the Cellar.” That only scratches the surface.
Personal problems, largely fueled by rock-star-level substance abuse, led to a coarsening of the product in the late ‘70s, and eventually resulted in the departure of both guitarists. It may have seemed as if the magic was gone in one brief decade. 1982’s Rock in a Hard Place could have been the end.
But something miraculous happened. Erstwhile guitar players Joe Perry and Brad Whitford returned to the band in 1984. 1985’s Done With Mirrors suggested a return to form. Its opener – “Let the Music do the Talking” – seemed like a manifesto. They followed it with Permanent Vacation in 1989 and soared back to the top. This is where some long-time fans feel they veered off the path of old-school blues. “Rag Doll” and “Dude (Looks Like a Lady)” were a bit too pop for some purists. But there is no denying how effective it all was.
They would perfect this new sound, which blended blues rockers with more radio-friendly ballads, on the next three albums, and scored their only number-one albums with Get a Grip and Nine Lives as the millennium drew to a close. Though they scored a lot of number-one singles on the Rock charts, they had their only mainstream number-one in 1998, with “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” from the movie Armageddon, which starred Tyler’s daughter Liv.
I’ll admit that I am not a fan of the sensitive, ballad-singing Steven Tyler, but I would also suggest that songs like “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” and “Crazy” are orders of magnitude better than similar ballads from similar hard rockers.
In between the re-formation in 1984 and the drop-off of the early 2000s, there were two other releases that cemented Aerosmith’s spot near the top of any list of greatest American rock bands. 1991’s Pump was not universally acclaimed, but it was loved by enough music fans to climb to number five on the mainstream album charts.
I would argue it is the equal of their stand-out early albums. It covers a lot of ground. It rocks. It gets serious. It gets sentimental. It ranges from the sophomoric testosterone of “Young Lust” to the heartbreaking “Janie’s Got a Gun.” It has the outright fun of “Love in an Elevator” and maybe the best power ballad they ever recorded in “What It Takes.” There is not a weak track on the album.
And then there is Run-DMC’s cover of “Walk This Way” in 1986, which provided a huge boost for both bands and became one of the first major crossovers between rock & roll and hip hop. I don’t know exactly where to rank it, but it is one of the most important single releases in the history of both genres.
Steven Tyler has been shrieking out rock classics for fifty years and now his voice has finally given up the struggle. The band announced that they would no longer tour, though they did not rule out possibly producing more music at some point.
Aerosmith has had the same core lineup for forty years now. Tyler, Joe Perry, Brad Whitford, Tom Hamilton, and Joey Kramer have a record of longevity that is only surpassed by the Stones. As they retire from performing, it seems they are still trailing after the Glimmer Twins. But honestly, is that such a bad place to be?