The 1988 Aerosmith song that the band initially hated: “Too wimpy”
There’s usually a dividing line between Aerosmith fans regarding where everything went wrong.
While the ‘Bad Boys from Boston’ were known for producing some of the greatest rock and roll of all time in the 1970s, their pivot towards mainstream success has been an extremely mixed bag for every fan ever since the end of the 1980s. Steven Tyler was more than happy to flex his singing chops on a grander stage, but the rest of the band felt that making the leap with ‘Angel’ was going too far.
At the same time, are we just going to ignore the ballads that Aerosmith had before their comeback hit? Sure, there had been a lot of uptempo rockers that catapulted them to fame, but it wasn’t exactly a mistake that the majority of 1970s rock fans were blasting songs like ‘Dream On’ on the radio as well.
Because in truth, the band had always flirted with that softer side, even if it was buried beneath layers of grit and swagger. The difference in the late 1980s wasn’t that Aerosmith suddenly discovered ballads, but that they began leaning into them as centrepieces rather than side notes, bringing them to the forefront of their identity.
That shift is where the tension really lies for longtime fans. It wasn’t just about tempo or style, but about intent. What once felt like a natural extension of their sound started to feel calculated, as though the band were aiming for a different kind of audience altogether, setting the stage for the divide that would follow.
Even on the band’s celebrated output, there would usually be a slower tune to lighten the mood, like throwing the song ‘Home Tonight’ onto the album Rocks. Compared to the other Aerosmith slow-burners, this was the first time the band featured every purist’s worst enemy: professional songwriters.
While the idea of bringing in a glorified song doctor usually sets off alarm bells for many people, working with them didn’t seem like the worst idea in the world. Their previous album, Done With Mirrors, sunk like a stone, and there was no word on whether that career resurrection was actually going to happen.
If they were going to bring in another member of the songwriting team, they lucked out when they got Desmond Child. The man had written fantastic tracks for Kiss and Bon Jovi, so why not let him come to the table with a few melodies of his own? ‘Angel’ sounded pretty enough, but Tom Hamilton never wanted to be seen with it when they recorded it.
Hamilton thought that ‘Angel’ didn’t really deserve to be on the album Permanent Vacation, telling Behind the Music, “I think ‘Angel’ crossed the line. The song was just too wimpy. Too corny and soppy. But then, after it had been out for a while, tough guys in leather jackets came up to me, saying, ‘Yeah, play that ‘Angel’, man. Love that.’ So there goes my argument.”
At the same time, Hamilton had a major point about the group taking things too far. Sure, ‘Angel’ lit up the charts and gave the band a new lease on life, but it was a slippery slope compared to where they would be going in the 1990s. It was a bridge to their later sound, but if you went back in time and told fans that the band that made songs like ‘Walk This Way’ would one day play ‘I Don’t Want To Miss a Thing’, you’d probably get a lot of strange looks.
That’s not to say that every mainstream song they made is terrible. They were certainly different, but looking at the band as a whole, some of them tend to feel like Steven Tyler’s solo projects instead of the band that people have loved for decades. If they had decided to stay the course, though, chances are we wouldn’t have to fault them for making something like Just Push Play later.
