Aerosmith & The 1990s

The band finished up the Pump tour in 1990. On February 21, 1990, the band appeared in an infamous "Wayne's World" sketch on Saturday Night Live and performed their recent hits "Janie's Got a Gun" and "Monkey On My Back". On September 18, 1990, the band's performance on MTV's Unplugged aired. That same year, the band was also inducted to the Hollywood Rock Walk. In 1991, the band appeared on The Simpsons episode "Flaming Moe's" and released a box set entitled Pandora's Box.

The band took a brief break and began recording their follow-up to Pump in 1992. Despite significant shifts in mainstream music at the beginning of the 1990s, the band's 1993 follow-up to Pump, Get a Grip, was just as successful commercially, becoming their first album to debut at #1 and racking up sales of 7 million copies in a two-year timespan. The first singles were the hard rocking "Livin' on the Edge" and "Eat the Rich". Though many critics were unimpressed by the focus on the subsequent interchangeable power-ballads in promoting the album, all three ("Cryin'", "Crazy" and "Amazing") proved to be huge successes on radio and MTV. The music videos featured then up-and-coming actress Alicia Silverstone; her provocative performances earned her the title of "the Aerosmith chick" for the first half of the decade. Steven Tyler's daughter Liv Tyler was also featured in the "Crazy" video. Get a Grip would go on to sell more than 7 million copies in the U.S. alone with over 20 million copies worldwide.

Much of the mainstream success of Get a Grip involves how the band changed their sound and made it more commercially accessible. This was partly achieved when the management and record company brought in a variety of professional songwriting collaborators to come in and help make nearly all the songs on Get a Grip have a more commercial appeal, a trend which would continue until the early 2000s. However, this led to constant accusations of selling out that would continue throughout the 90s. In addition to Aerosmith's grueling 18 month world tour in support of Get a Grip, the band also did a number of things to help promote themselves and their album and appeal to youth culture, including the appearance of the band in the movie Wayne's World 2 where they performed two songs, the appearance of the band and their music in the arcade game and video game Revolution X, performing at Woodstock '94, using their song "Deuces Are Wild" in The Beavis & Butt-Head Experience, and opening their own club, The Mama Kin, in Boston, MA in 1994.

1994 also saw the release of the band's compilation for Geffen Records, entitled Big Ones featuring all of their biggest hits from Permanent Vacation, Pump, and Get a Grip, as well as three new songs, "Deuces Are Wild", "Blind Man", and "Walk on Water", all of which experienced great success on the rock charts.

Aerosmith signed to Columbia Records again in the mid-1990s, but they still had to complete two contractual albums for Geffen before recording for the new label...this was later achieved by the label releasing numerous compilations. The band took time off with their families before working on their next album, Nine Lives, which was plagued with personnel problems, including the firing of manager Tim Collins, who according to band members nearly caused the band to break up. The producer of the album was also changed from Glen Ballard to Kevin Shirley. Nine Lives was released in March of 1997. Reviews were generally mixed, and Nine Lives initially fell down the charts, although it had a long chart life and sold double platinum in the United States alone, fueled by the singles, "Falling in Love (Is Hard on the Knees)", the ballad "Hole in My Soul", and the crossover-pop smash "Pink". It was followed by another massive tour (the 2+ year-long Nine Lives Tour), which was plagued by problems including lead singer Steven Tyler injuring his leg at a concert, and Joey Kramer suffering second degree burns when his car caught fire at a gas station. However, the band also experienced a major up in the biggest hit of their career, and their only #1 single to date: "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing", the love theme from the 1998 film Armageddon, in which Steven Tyler's daughter Liv starred. The song stayed on top of the charts for four weeks and was nominated for an Academy Award. The song helped open Aerosmith up to a new generation and forever solidifed the band's song as a slow-dance staple. 1998 also saw the release of the double-live album, A Little South of Sanity, which was culled from performances on the Get a Grip and Nine Lives tours. The album went platinum shortly after its release. The band continued with their seemingly-neverending world tours promoting Nine Lives and the "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" single well into 1999.

In 1999, they were featured in the Disney-MGM Studios at Walt Disney World (and later in 2001 at Euro Disney in the Walt Disney Studios Park) ride, Rock 'n' Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith, providing the soundtrack and theme of the ride. On September 9, 1999, Steven Tyler and Joe Perry reunited with Run-D.M.C. and were also joined by Kid Rock for a collaborative live performance of "Walk This Way" at the MTV Video Music Awards, a precursor to the Girls of Summer Tour. The band celebrated the new millennium with a brief tour of Japan in 2000.