On This Day in May 1993, Aerosmith Earned Their First No. 1 Album With ‘Get a Grip’

In 1993, Aerosmith released their 11th studio album, Get a Grip. It was their first since Pump in 1989, and they broke into the 90s with their first No. 1 debut on the Billboard albums chart. Additionally, Get a Grip went on to become the band’s best-selling studio album.

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The album itself featured high-profile collaborations like Lenny Kravitz and Don Henley. Both provided backing vocals, Kravitz on “Line Up” and Henley on “Amazing.” Other collabs included Desmond Child, Jack Blades, and Tommy Shaw. Worldwide, Get a Grip sold 20 million copies, with 7 million of those in the U.S. alone.

Aerosmith recorded a plethora of songs in the winter and fall of 1992. Many of them went on to become B-sides or later releases. “Don’t Stop,” “Head First,” and “Can’t Stop Messin’” came out as B-sides at the time, for example. “Devil’s Got a New Disguise” was featured on their 2006 album, and “Lizard Love” appeared in the 2003 animated film Rugrats Go Wild. These songs date back to the 1992 Get a Grip sessions.

Aerosmith Achieves Chart Milestone in 1993 with Get a Grip

In addition to their chart milestone, Aerosmith also became one of the first bands to offer a song as a digital download. In 1994, the B-side “Head First” was offered as a 4-megabyte WAV file, exclusive to CompuServe users.

According to a 2014 retrospective from Vice, around 10,000 users downloaded the song in the first week. Downloading the three minute and 14 second song took anywhere from 60 to 90 minutes due to most users accessing it through a modem. Imagine trying to get an entire album at 1994 download speeds, you’d age 20 years before the halfway point.

There are a few tracks on the album that deal with the band’s past drug abuse. These include “Get a Grip” and “Amazing.” A 1993 review in the Los Angeles Times featured a quote from Steven Tyler about those songs.

“We were saying you can point it back to some of those old beliefs about the crossroads and signing up with the devil, that you can look at the drugs as that,” he said. “It can be fun in the beginning but then it comes time to pay your debt, and if you’re not sharp enough to see that it’s taking you down, then it really will get you.”

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