...where the girls are green and the grass is gritty...

Here we go again...

You could say there'd be no Guns'n'Roses without Aerosmith.  Yet despite their advanced age and numerous other problems, Aerosmith has released more music since G'n'R started than Axl Rose has.  I don't remember if it was of them who said it but the band-members really don't like each other but they love being in Aerosmith.  It shows.

Obviously they have been naturally slowing down over the years in addition to band-problems and record-company issues, yet when they re-united and began the comeback, they were still working at the same rate G'n'R would reach.  It's not clear who or when, but some G'n'R members had sold drugs to Aerosmith members in earlier days and Aerosmith would still boost G'n'R's career by picking them as openers on tour.

As the tour started, Aerosmith had just gotten off drugs so there were very strict rules for G'n'R, they weren't allowed to have anything to do with their employers, I think they were even told to leave the stadium beforehand although who knows if that's true.  Joe Perry came to hang out a bit but he can do that, he's Joe fuckin' Perry and by the end of the tour, G'n'R had made it to rockstar status so obviously there was more leeway by then.  They'd been known to out-perform main acts before and Aerosmith was able to hold on, a good show from both sides.

Aerosmith's comeback had not gone well for the 1985 Done With Mirrors album, it really started the following year with Steven Tyler and Joe Perry's appearance on Run-DMC's sample of "Walk This Way," released July 4, 1986, several months before G'n'R released the Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide EP.  Near as I can tell, it was the first big hit rap song.  It certainly got them on MTV.  I won't count this because the recording didn't include Brad Whitford, Tom Hamilton and Joey Kramer which is just wrong.  That's not Aerosmith!!!😠  I'm also not counting Done With Mirrors because it isn't a great album and anyway, there was no G'n'R to be compared to.

Aerosmith:  0     G'n'R:  4

The second half of 1987 was the beginning of rock'n'roll's climax.  It basically started with G'n'R releasing Appetite For Destruction.  Def Leppard released Hysteria two weeks later, Michael Jackson released Bad three weeks after that.  The following week, Pink Floyd released their comeback, A Momentary Lapse of Reason.  George Michael would release Fame and Cher would make her comeback before the end of the year, I'm not citing them as quality music - although I do like some of Cher's songs and if I checked, I'd probably find one or two George Michael songs I liked - but they were taking rock to its next step of societal disintegration.

And Aerosmith finally came back.  Permanent Vacation had 12 songs, most of them good, and 1 non-album b-side.  I've worked out specific G'n'R song quantities previously so check those if you don't think the numbers add up.

Aerosmith:  13     G'n'R:  18

Both bands were in their prime.  G'n'R released Lies with a few new songs, Aerosmith released Pump with 10 songs, plus a bonus track.  Soon G'n'R would back Alice Cooper for a cover and Aerosmith would perform and release a cover of the Doors' "Love Me Two Times."

Because Aerosmith had a previous career, Capitol Records  was able to release their previous albums, the ones that inspired many bands.  I'm not counting them, I've heard some, probably liked them, but it's been years and I don't remember.  I think their cover of "Helter Skelter" was released as a single.

Aerosmith:  25     G'n'R:  24

G'n'R released the Use Your Illusions albums and I'm still including the b-side of a Slash interview as a song.  If it isn't counted, there's even less G'n'R material for the public to hear.  

In 1993, Aerosmith released Get a Grip which had 14 songs and 3 non-album b-sides.  The videos are what stand out the most, probably what made it their biggest hit, selling 20 million copies.  They showed a 16-year old Alicia Silverstone and "Amazing" had a preview of the upcoming internet age so this band knew where we were headed.  I saw them on that tour and liked it.

Aerosmith:  42     G'n'R:  55

A year or two later, Aerosmith started their habit of releasing greatest hits compilations that included new songs to help sales.  Increasingly most of the songs were revealed to have come from the Pump era or thereabouts but they still count and some of them are awesome.  This band had not started going downhill yet.  Meanwhile, G'n'R released The Spaghetti Incident which was definitely the end of their era.

Aerosmith:  45    G'n'R:  68

As 1995 began, G'n'R released the "Sympathy for the Devil" cover, the final whimper of one of the greatest bands ever.  In 1997, Aerosmith released Nine Lives which has problems but is still a great album.  It has 17 tracks plus 2 non-album b-sides.  The following year they released two songs on a movie soundtrack which basically is where the band started burning out.  I quite like "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing" but many Aerosmith fans don't for valid reasons.  Whatever else they're capable of, Diane Warren songs are not what we expect or want.

Aerosmith:  66     G'n'R:  69

As the millennium changed, G'n'R released a piece of annoying sound for a movie soundtrack no-one paid attention to and a live album recorded in 1993 which had the keyboard play run through a Black Sabbath number, that was all they had to show for their time.  Meanwhile Aerosmith contributed a song to the Charlie's Angels movie and released Just Push Play.  There are some great tunes on that album but it's also clear that they have no idea what they're doing anymore.  Reportedly they didn't even have all five band members in the studio together one time for the 12 songs and two b-side tracks.

Aerosmith:  80     G'n'R:  71

Aerosmith would add two songs for another compilation as well as a cover of the "Spider-Man" theme song for the first movie.  In 2004, they released an album that covered 11 blues songs and one original tune for some bizarre reason, Honkin' on Bobo.  It was nice to hear the old 'Smith style but there was no point to this.  They'd been trying to record a new album and kept basically breaking up and getting back together to try again.  This was the best they had to offer.  There would also be a live album including a Fleetwood Mac cover and a compilation album with another previously unreleased song from the Pump-era.  And Chinese Democracy finally came and went in late-2008 with nothing as entertaining as "I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing."  Or the Spider-Man theme fer cryin...

Aerosmith:  98     G'n'R:  85

By now Aerosmith was effectively done.  In 2012, they released one more album, Music From Another Dimension, which was just a mix of everything they'd done wrong in the last few decades and piecemealed from all the failed attempts to record this album previously.  All the band member got involved in songwriting which wasn't something they were known for, they continued to use modern recording technology which they shouldn't have, Joe Perry focused on multiple solo songs, they brought in all their outside songwriters and added guest-stars like Carrie Underwood who has no place on an Aerosmith album.  There was even another Diane Warren song and this one was horrible.

And somehow they included Slash.  Not as a guitar player but he drew the cover.  How does that even happen?  [Wikipedia says he did interior art.  I just spent a long time looking for my copy and couldn't find it so I'm not sure.]  Anyway, it's another 15 songs plus five bonus tracks.

A couple weeks after that album came out, Axl and his employees gave a concert in Las Vegas which was recorded and released a couple years later.  It included two covers and two songs his employees did in their other jobs.  Two years after that, he re-hired Slash and Duff and another two years later, they rereleased a 30th anniversary version of Appetite which was mostly alternate versions of previously released material, but there were two covers and three partially-finished songs.  And that's that for them.  Well, Slash and Duff still have solo careers so their fans can listen to new music, but G'n'R will only play decades-old material.

Aerosmith hasn't broken up, they just haven't done much of anything in years, but they're old.  What's Axl's excuse?

And I should note, I actually enjoyed going through my CD collection, trying to find Music From Another Dimension.  I even did some vague organizing which was fun.  I couldn't justify putting everything in order and there's still a box of stuff I didn't even start going through, but I haven't done this in ages and I hadn't realized that I kinda missed it.

Now I wonder what other bands I should compare them to.  U2 is the only one that comes to mind but I'll think about it.