Aerosmith

Few comebacks in rock and roll history have been as amazing as that of Aerosmith. Their triumphant return to the charts in the '80s not only rekindled the band's earlier success, but also significantly surpassed it. With their top 20 hits "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)," "Ragdoll," and the top 10 power ballad, "Angel," the group proved they had even more fire left in their fight than anyone could have imagined. Leaving behind its reckless lifestyle, the band sacrificed none of their rowdy rock and roll. "Ragdoll" and "Love in an Elevator" built upon Aerosmith's raunchy blues approach to hard rock, complete with singer Steven Tyler's howl in the best form of his career. Big Ones includes these rockers along with the spooky Grammy-winner "Jamie's Got a Gun," and the slower but still hard-edged "Crazy." Other high points of the new and improved band are reflected in "The Other Side" and the anthem "Eat the Rich." --Steve Gdula

While not their strongest recording, Aerosmith's self-titled debut gave a taste of the musical path that the band, and much of the rest of hard rock, was to follow for the rest of the 1970s and well into the 1980s. Although the awkward social commentary of "Movin' Out" and the swinging cover of Rufus Thomas's "Walking the Dog" have largely been forgotten, two standards emerged from Aerosmith: "Dream On," a prototypical power ballad with its keyboards and string arrangement, and "Mama Kin," which contains one of the most recognizable riffs in hard-rock history. Though Aerosmith would record better albums--both before and after their drug-induced implosion--their debut serves as a kind of road map to much of post-'60s rock & roll. --Genevieve Williams

While not quite as exemplary of the Boston quintet's '70s sound as Toys in the Attic or Rocks, Get Your Wings was impressive both in terms of its material and its measurable improvement over Aerosmith's debut. From the R&B inflected "Same Old Song and Dance" to the power-rock "Woman of the World" to the rollicking cover of "Train Kept a Rollin'," Wings showed the band solidifying their sound and really taking flight for the first time. --Genevieve Williams

Even before their second fling with the pop mainstream, Aerosmith were one of Top 40's favorite hard-rock bands, so ubiquitous--and so funky--that Run-D.M.C. were vociferous fans. Their '70s output included at least three classic albums (Aerosmith, Toys in the Attic, and Rocks). This disc collects unstoppable singles into a horny, howling little piece of archaeology that makes even weak links like "Kings and Queens" sound great. And the truly great stuff here--"Sweet Emotion," "Last Child," "Dream On"--runs the gamut of style and feeling from swaggering freak-flag-flying to power-ballad roots that display a genuine ache. Your Aerosmith collection shouldn't end here, but this red-and-white bomb is a great place to start. --Rickey Wright

They'd soon crash, and hard, thanks to their own excesses. But Rocks captures Aerosmith at a crazily driven peak of creativity; anyone who heard it and continued to dismiss them as mere Stones clones was just being willful. This is blues rock cranked up to '70s stadium level, the sound of the Trans Am, or maybe the Porsches several of these guys (surprisingly) remember driving. The psychic battering they would succumb to on the next year's Draw the Line is foreshadowed in Joe Perry's "Combination," but he and Steven Tyler also celebrate the rock-star mythos on "Lick and a Promise." The party-fueled tension, the tension-fueled party. --Rickey Wright

Originally released in 1975, this was Aerosmith's breakout recording. Listeners only familiar with their more recent, post-comeback material may be surprised; like their other albums from the 1970s, Toys has a strong blues inflection, as indicated by their cover of "Big Ten Inch Record," which also shows that Aerosmith has never lacked raunchiness or innuendo. There's also the original (pre-Run-D.M.C.) version of "Walk This Way," and the classic "Sweet Emotion." This is classic Aerosmith at its gritty, streetwise best; they may have been derivative, but it really doesn't matter, then or now: it's all in good fun. --Genevieve Williams

2002 compilation featuring 30 tracks from their years with Columbia & Geffen. Hologram cover. 2002.