From the perspective of a European, it seems unbelievable that Aerosmith debuted 45 years ago. They did though and among 70s bands, they smashed the 90s like no one else. They compete with the likes Eagles, Metallica and Bon Jovi for the title of most successful American band ever. Where do they stand then?

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It all started very slow. When the band issued its eponymous debut in 1973, it peaked at #166 inside the US Billboard Top 200. The biggest single, Dream On, went no further than #59. In 1974, the improvement wasn't obvious. The album Get Your Wings peaked at #100 and its singles failed to enter the Hot 100. Their first hit came the following year with Sweet Emotion. Although it peaked only at #36, it fueled the album Toys In The Attic to #11 and led their first 2 LPs to re-peak at the bottom of the Top 100.

Thanks to the increase of the band's profile, Dream On was reissued in early 1976. It climbed as high as #6. From March to June 1976, albums Aerosmith (#21), Toys In The Attic (#18) and the new effort Rocks (#3) sold strongly. After this peak, their albums went down, until being mostly irrelevant by 1985. By then, their albums were struggling to hit the Top 40. Their singles weren't reaching the Hot 100. Notably, during all these years they never managed to confirm their American success abroad.

Surprisingly, the band started to smash again from 1987. Maybe even more impressively, they also became a global force during the 90s. This unique trajectory is a real case of study. What's their career peak, the American blockbuster Toys in the Attic or global success Get A Grip? During which frame they sell the most, mid-70s or early 90s? On which markets they never managed to break over?

Original Albums Sales

Aerosmith (1973)

Get Your Wings (1974)

Toys in the Attic (1975)

Rocks (1976)

Draw the Line (1977)

Night in the Ruts (1979)

Rock in a Hard Place (1982)

Done with Mirrors (1985)

Permanent Vacation (1987)

Pump (1989)

Get a Grip (1993)

Nine Lives (1997)

Just Push Play (2001)

Honkin' on Hobo (2004)

Music from Another Dimension! (2012)

Original Album Sales - Comments

Pure studio album sales of 71,7 million units are no doubt impressive. The fact that Aerosmith achieved 3 10-million selling albums across 18 years is also noteworthy. Ultimately, their top seller in pure units is Get a Grip, from 1993. This album sold over 3 million units in Europe and over half a million units in both Latin America and Japan. A real global seller.

Interestingly, the band sold 28,25 million with albums from their first decade and 37,58 million with their 1987-1997 outputs. It doesn't mean that the latter era was the biggest though as early material was recycled multiple times through compilations. What's clear though is that Aerosmith had two lives.

They were different lives still. Up to 1985, their albums shifted 81% of their copies in the US alone. In most, a large part of sales abroad came as catalog sales during the 90s. As for albums issued since 1987, they sold a much more balanced 59% in the US and 41% abroad. The band fully enjoyed the mundialization enabled by the likes Michael Jackson and Madonna during the 80s.

1973 Aerosmith - 3,540,000
1974 Get Your Wings - 3,880,000
1975 Toys in the Attic - 10,180,000
1976 Rocks - 5,350,000
1977 Draw the Line - 2,740,000
1979 Night in the Ruts - 1,510,000
1982 Rock in a Hard Place - 1,050,000
1985 Done with Mirrors - 930,000
1987 Permanent Vacation - 7,590,000
1989 Pump - 10,520,000
1993 Get a Grip - 13,360,000
1997 Nine Lives - 6,110,000
2001 Just Push Play - 3,120,000
2004 Honkin' on Hobo - 1,310,000
2012 Music from Another Dimension! - 520,000

Physical Singles Sales

As a reminder, the weighting is done with a 10 to 3 ratio between one album and one physical single.

1973-76

Although these 4 albums have been issued in 4 distinct calendar years, nearly all these singles were sold during the 12 months axed around July 1976. Both top 10 hits in the US, Dream On and Walk This Way sold over 1,9 million globally combined. This includes various reissues, although Run DMC's sampled version of the latter is added to the Orphan tracks.

Aerosmith (1973) - 321,000 equivalent albums

Dream On - 1,070,000

Get Your Wings (1974) - 30,000 equivalent albums

Same Old Song and Dance - 30,000
S.O.S. (Too Bad) - 10,000
Train Kept A-Rollin' - 60,000

Toys in the Attic (1975) - 339,000 equivalent albums

Walk This Way - 870,000
Sweet Emotion - 230,000
You See Me Crying - 30,000

Rocks (1976) - 288,000 equivalent albums

Back in the Saddle - 360,000
Last Child - 460,000
Home Tonight - 140,000

1977-85

From 1977 to 1985 the band failed to produce hits. Their largest success was the cover of the Beatles' song Come Together which belongs to the Orphan section. Extract from their 4 LPs listed here sold less than a million combined.

Draw the Line (1977) - 155,000 equivalent albums

Draw the Line - 360,000
Get It Up - 5,000
Kings and Queens - 150,000

Night in the Ruts (1979) - 57,000 equivalent albums

Remember (Walking in the Sand) - 190,000

Rock in a Hard Place (1982) - 0 equivalent album

No physical single released.

Done with Mirrors (1985) - 9,000 equivalent albums

Shela - 30,000

1987-97

At half a million units, Dude wasn't a ground-breaking smash. It was the song that put them back into the map though. One year earlier, the Run DMC altered Walk This Way made the band cool again. Nevertheless, it wasn't a given at all that new material was going to do well until Dude. Angel followed that way, hitting #3 in the US, their highest charting single up to that point. These songs were also their first to make the UK charts.

For the next 10 years the band was going to do well. All their singles did well. None got truly massive, but they all sold decently and supported greatly their parent albums. The era Get a Grip remains their most productive singles-wise with more than 2,4 million sales.

Permanent Vacation (1987) - 528,000 equivalent albums

Dude (Looks Like a Lady) - 530,000
Angel - 850,000
Rag Doll - 380,000

Pump (1989) - 507,000 equivalent albums

Going Down/Love in an Elevator - 670,000
Water Song/Janie's Got a Gun - 490,000
Dulcimer Stomp/The Other Side - 130,000
What It Takes - 400,000

Get a Grip (1993) - 732,000 equivalent albums

Eat the Rich - 50,000
Livin' on the Edge - 410,000
Shut Up and Dance - 30,000
Cryin' - 1,050,000
Crazy - 470,000
Amazing - 430,000

Nine Lives (1997) - 345,000 equivalent albums

Falling in Love (Is Hard on the Knees) - 680,000
Hole in My Soul - 150,000
Pink - 320,000

2001 onwards and orphan songs

From 2001, the second golden age of Aerosmith started to slow down. The physical singles market did so too. Consequently, subsequent eras produced very few sales in that format.

Then, we reach orphan singles. A pair of them are interesting. The first is the career-changing Walk This Way sample by former superstar rapper Run DMC. The song peaked at #4 in the US, #8 in the UK and #9 in Australia, all career highs for the band. The single moved 830,000 units. It fails to impress against the juggernaut I Don't Want to Miss a Thing though.

That song, included into the various artists soundtrack Armageddon, became their biggest hit in 1998. It topped the US Hot 100 for 4 weeks, also hitting the top in Australia, Germany, Norway, Switzerland and Austria among others. It sold a healthy 2,55 million units, far and away their highest seller in this format.

Just Push Play (2001) - 71,000 equivalent albums

Jaded - 230,000
Fly Away from Here - 5,000

Honkin' on Hobo (2004) - 0 equivalent album

No physical single released.

Music from Another Dimension! (2012) - 0 equivalent album

No physical single released.

Orphan - 1,269,000 equivalent albums

Come Together - 480,000
Chip Away the Stone - 120,000
Walk This Way (Run DMC) - 830,000
Blind Man - 230,000
Walk on Water - 10,000
I Don't Want to Miss a Thing - 2,550,000
Girls of Summer - 10,000

Digital singles sales

1973-85

As a reminder, the weighting is done with a 10 to 1,5 ratio between one album and one digital single.

The popularity of Dream On, especially in the US, remains massive. The song is one of the most downloaded from the 70s at nearly 3,5 million units. Walk This Way is a solid runner up at 2,44 million units. All versions have been combined. Then Sweet Emotion is big too. It sold 1,47 million so far. The last two songs are nearly as big in the US, but the former has a wider appeal globally.

Apart from these 3 songs, there isn't much that remains relevant nowadays among these tunes.

Aerosmith (1973) - 545,000 equivalent albums

Dream On - 3,490,000
Remaining tracks - 140,000

Get Your Wings (1974) - 33,000 equivalent albums

All tracks - 220,000

Toys in the Attic (1975) - 626,000 equivalent albums

Walk This Way - 2,440,000
Sweet Emotion - 1,470,000
Remaining tracks - 260,000

Rocks (1976) - 54,000 equivalent albums

Back in the Saddle - 260,000
Remaining tracks - 100,000

Draw the Line (1977) - 12,000 equivalent albums

All tracks - 80,000

Night in the Ruts (1979) - 5,000 equivalent albums

All tracks - 35,000

Rock in a Hard Place (1982) - 3,000 equivalent albums

All tracks - 20,000

Done with Mirrors (1985) - 6,000 equivalent albums

All tracks - 40,000

1987 onwards and orphan songs

Eras Permanent Vacation, Pump and Get a Grip have a whopping 6 singles around a million sales in digital formats. Cryin' is in the lead but the remaining ones are all fairly close. Additionally, they include 4 more songs which combine for over 1,6 million units. This period was highly prolific for these rock legends. None of these songs reached the status of their main 70s smashes though.

None except I Don't Want to Miss a Thing. An outstanding catalog seller, this song totals 5,76 million sales up to date. It has very healthy sales everywhere, even in countries where it hasn't done that well upon release like France.

All in all, the band is up to more tan 25,5 million digital sales.

Permanent Vacation (1987) - 483,000 equivalent albums

Rag Doll - 910,000
Dude (Looks Like a Lady) - 1,120,000
Angel - 1,110,000
Remaining tracks - 80,000

Pump (1989) - 309,000 equivalent albums

Going Down/Love in an Elevator - 590,000
Water Song/Janie's Got a Gun - 980,000
What It Takes - 270,000
Remaining tracks - 220,000

Get a Grip (1993) - 527,000 equivalent albums

Livin' on the Edge - 350,000
Cryin' - 1,370,000
Crazy - 1,150,000
Amazing - 400,000
Remaining tracks - 240,000

Nine Lives (1997) - 93,000 equivalent albums

Hole in My Soul - 100,000
Pink - 360,000
Remaining tracks - 160,000

Just Push Play (2001) - 68,000 equivalent albums

Jaded - 310,000
Remaining tracks - 140,000

Honkin' on Hobo (2004) - 24,000 equivalent albums

All tracks - 160,000

Music from Another Dimension! (2012) - 24,000 equivalent albums

What Could Have Been Love - 100,000
Remaining tracks - 60,000

Orphan - 1,020,000 equivalent albums

Come Together - 590,000
I Don't Want to Miss a Thing - 5,760,000
Remaining tracks - 450,000

Streaming Sales

Streaming is made up of audio and video streams. Our CSPC methodology now includes both to better reflect the real popularity of each track. The main source of data for each avenue is respectively Spotify and YouTube. As detailed in the Fixing Log article, Spotify represents 157 million of the 272 million users of streaming platforms, while YouTube is pretty much the only video platform generating some revenue for the industry. Below is the equivalence set on the aforementioned article:

Audio Stream - 1500 plays equal 1 album unit
Video Stream - 11,750 views equal 1 album unit

Equivalent Albums Sales (EAS) = 272/157 * Spotify streams / 1500 + YouTube views / 11750

Streaming Part 1

Incredibly inconsistent but also truly impressive. The first records of Aerosmith all contain tracks that are under 1 million streams on Spotify, which is quite weak. Streams of Dream On, Walk This Way and Sweet Emotion are insane still. The former is the biggest. As I'm writing these lines, it has now topped 200 million on Spotify alone. Walk This Way is nearly as strong while Sweet Emotion is closing in 100 million.

In terms of equivalent album sales from streams, Toys in the Attic leads at 357,000 units. Aerosmith comes second at 254,000. Then, the lack of hits from Get Your Wings damages it a lot as it stands at 19,000 units only.

Streaming Part 2

Rocks is critically acclaimed. It is noted 5 stars by Allmusic guide while the Rolling Stone Magazine has listed it at #179 in their all-time greatest albums list. Still, no hits, no party. Only 2 of its songs reach 1 million streams on Spotify or YouTube. It's a clear evidence that at the end of the day it is the hits that draw users to their parent albums. It has a mere 23,000 EAS from streams.

Both Draw the Line and Night in the Ruts have similar results at an even lower scale. They are definitely dead meat right now on Aerosmith's catalog. They are under 10,000 EAS combined.

Streaming Part 3

As mentioned inside this article about artist's peak, there is no real momentum that tells us which albums will suddenly do better than expected. Streaming figures of Rock in a Hard Place and Done with Mirrors prove that Aerosmith were really into a hole by 1985. After 5 consecutive albums with no real hit, Permanent Vacation did wonders. In terms of EAS from streams, it tops all 5 combined by nearly 3 to 1. Dude remains the biggest hit from this era. It registered more than 40 million streams on both Spotify and YouTube. Then come Angel and Rag Doll. Their figures aren't massive, but good enough to break the 6 digits mark in terms of EAS for the album.

Streaming Part 4

Nearly all singles from these albums are at 10 million streams or more on Spotify. It's quite impressive from an old band to get proper, valid hits with new songs 20 years deep into their career. The biggest of them are Crazy and Cryin', both close to 70 million on Spotify. They have a combined 680 million on YouTube.

Then these albums contain plenty of songs with 10-30 million streams. While that doesn't break records, it grants healthy EAS for all of them. Nine Lives stands on 71,000 units, Pump is at 85,000 while Get a Grip leads the way on 291,000.

Streaming Part 5

Jaded performed well and remains popular up to this day with a decent 22 million figure on Spotify. It is the only good indicator from this table though. No other single really did well. Those songs are at best forgotten, in reality they have never been known in first place.

Streaming Part 6

Orphan tracks of Aerosmith include a lot of unknown outtages and then one stunning beast. I Don't Want to Miss a Thing is one of the biggest 90s hits to this day. The track has 228 million streams on Spotify and 574 million on YouTube. That's good enough for 312,000 EAS from this song alone!

Full Length related record Sales

It sounds fairly logical to add together weighted sales of one era - studio album, physical singles, downloads, streams - to get the full picture of an album's popularity. For older releases though, they also generate sales of various live, music videos and compilation albums.

All those packaging-only records do not create value, they exploit the value originating from the parent studio album of each of its tracks instead. Inevitably, when such compilations are issued, this downgrades catalog sales of the original LP. Thus, to perfectly gauge the worth of these releases, we need to re-assign sales proportionally to its contribution of all the compilations which feature its songs. The following table explains this method.

How to understand this table? If you check this example, these figures mean Greatest Hits sold 14,470,000 units worldwide. Then, the second statistics column means streams of all the songs included on this package add for 622,202 EAS.

The second part at the right of the table shows how many streams are coming from each original album as well as the share they represent. Thus, streaming figures tell us Aerosmith songs are responsible for 39% of the Greatest Hits tracklist attractiveness. In other words, it generated 5,596,000 of its 14,470,000 album sales. Eventually, we apply this methodology to all compilations.

Compilations - Columbia Years #1

These compilations, live albums and videos were released by Columbia on the back of the band's early hits. Several of them sold very well, most notably Greatest Hits which is close to 14,5 million units globally. More than 12,5 million of them come from North America.

All these packages were fueled by the 3 expected songs - Dream On, Walk this Way and Sweet Emotion. Considering how many of these sales originated from songs of Toys in the Attic, it could have been an easy Diamond album in the US.

Compilations - Columbia Years #2

It is important to notice that Aerosmith moved from Columbia to Geffen in 1985. When they achieved major success for the latter label, Columbia started to recycle their early hits. They came out with a pricy box set in 1994 during the wave of Get a Grip. Box of Fire sold very well considering its price. It included pretty much everything Columbia had issued up to that point.

Compilations - Geffen Years

Both Big Ones and 20th Century Masters sold large amounts while containing almost exclusively hits from 1987 to 1993. Sales of the former help to understand how massive Permanent Vacation, Pump and Get a Grip really were.

The live release A Little South of Sanity was the first to merge together Aerosmith's careers under both Columbia and Geffen. It had 3 main flaws though which limited its sales. First, it is a live album, which aren't really popular in some of the key markets for the band like the US and Japan. Second, it was a 2-CD set, way too expensive for a live record. Third, it missed I Don't Want to Miss a Thing, the song that everyone would have expected to buy in an Aerosmith record in 1998.

Then came Young Lust in 2001 which had pretty much the same flaws. Promoted as a compilation, it was a Geffen package. They only owned rights to include the live versions of Dream On, Walk This Way and Sweet Emotion. Plus, they didn't got the rights of I Don't Want to Miss a Thing still.

Compilations - Career-spanning sets

O, Yeah! was the first true career spanning compilation of the band. In spite of relatively low initial sales considering how many people already owned most of its songs, it naturally became a perennial catalog seller. A few years later, Devil's Got a New Disguise mostly replaced it, then The Essential.

All these compilations are boosted by hits from Aerosmith, Toys in the Attic, Get a Grip and then the Orphan section. Obviously, this one became way better represented since the arrival of I Don't Want to Miss a Thing.

Compilations - Additional Minor Material

Full Length related records Sales – Summary

Here is the most underestimated indicator of an album’s success – the amount of compilation sales of all kinds it generated. Due to the dependency of sales of the original studio albums on these releases, they are a key piece of the jigsaw.

Toys in the Attic leads this section. It created the value of 15,3 million sales of compilations. That's huge. Aerosmith is a strong second at 11,4 million. Get A Grip completes a huge trio at 9,5 million.

Albums Permanent Vacation and Pump are also great additions to their catalog, both generated roughly 3 million sales of compilations. So did I Don't Want to Miss a Thing since its 1998 release.

Greatest Hits (1980)

Big Ones (1994)

BONUS: Total Album (all types) Sales per Country

• America

  • US - 77,570,000
  • Canada - 7,455,000
  • Argentina - 570,000
  • Brazil - 1,440,000
  • Mexico - 520,000

• Asia - 9,780,000

  • Japan - 7,065,000

• Oceania

  • Australia - 865,000
  • New Zealand - 170,000

• Europe - 14,980,000

  • UK - 3,220,000
  • France - 975,000
  • Germany - 3,260,000
  • Italy - 1,035,000
  • Spain - 870,000
  • Sweden - 480,000
  • Netherlands - 545,000
  • Switzerland - 440,000
  • Austria - 295,000
  • Finland - 165,000

• World - 116,080,000

Please note that some of the countries totals may be slightly incomplete when the figure is N/A for minor releases. Countries with too much missing information to be precise enough are listed as N/A.

AEROSMITH CAREER CSPC RESULTS

So, after checking all the figures, how many overall equivalent album sales has each album by Aerosmith achieved? Well, at this point we hardly need to add up all of the figures defined in this article!

[xyz-ips snippet="updatedCSPCalbums"]

Conclusions

Aerosmith may not have their Appetite For Destruction, they do have two monster albums which combined for a terrific 51 million equivalent album sales. After closing in numbers, Toys in the Attic edges ahead of Get a Grip by only 2 million. They both continue to register all-around sales with consistent streams, downloads, some pure units and then healthy compilation sales.

At 16 million Aerosmith is a strong bronze medalist. By 1975 very few would have guessed that it was going to do so well in the long run. Furthermore, both Pump and Permanent Vacation top 10 million quite comfortably.

Already out of their personal top 5 Rocks and Nine Lives are still big successes with nearly 7 million equivalent album sales a piece. Below them, sales drop quickly although Get Your Wings is still very respectable at 5 million.

The career total of Aerosmith is at 130,0 million equivalent album sales so far. This number puts them a few millions behind both Metallica and Bon Jovi. No doubt they lost these units with I Don't Want to Miss a Thing which didn't came out from one of their studio album nor compilation. Instead, it powered the Armageddon soundtrack up to more than 7 million sales. This wouldn't have been enough to dislodge the Eagles has the most successful American ever still. Their total of 171 million equivalent album sales remains a good 25 million ahead of anyone else.

To go deeper...

Thanks to our new ASR (Artist Success Rating) concept, we know that their sales represent 31.94 million times the purchase of their full catalog. Coupled with her total sales, it translates into an ASR score of 365. Interestingly, this puts them ahead of Metallica and Nirvana, but below Dire Straits and Bruce Springsteen.

Additionally, the following sections list their most successful songs as well as their records and achievements.

As usual, feel free to comment and / or ask a question!

Sources: IFPI, Spotify, YouTube, Discogs, Chartmasters.org.

AEROSMITH' BIGGEST TRACKS

The list is compiled in album equivalent sales generated by each song. Therefore, these figures are not merged units of singles formats. Instead, it includes weighted sales of the song's physical single, download, ringtone and streaming as well as its share among sales of all albums on which it is featured.

1. 1975 - Aerosmith - Walk This Way [Toys in the Attic] - 17,270,000
2. 1973 - Aerosmith - Dream On [Aerosmith] - 15,240,000
3. 1993 - Aerosmith - Crazy [Get a Grip] - 9,940,000
4. 1975 - Aerosmith - Sweet Emotion [Toys in the Attic] - 8,600,000
5. 1993 - Aerosmith - Cryin' [Get a Grip] - 8,360,000
6. 1987 - Aerosmith - Dude (Looks Like a Lady) [Permanent Vacation] - 5,880,000
7. 1989 - Aerosmith - Water Song/Janie's Got a Gun [Pump] - 5,310,000
8. 1989 - Aerosmith - Going Down/Love in an Elevator [Pump] - 4,540,000
9. 1998 - Aerosmith - I Don't Want to Miss a Thing [Armageddon: The Album] - 3,650,000
10. 1976 - Aerosmith - Back in the Saddle [Rocks] - 3,630,000
11. 1997 - Aerosmith - Pink [Nine Lives] - 3,530,000
12. 1987 - Aerosmith - Angel [Permanent Vacation] - 3,190,000
13. 1993 - Aerosmith - Amazing [Get a Grip] - 2,980,000
14. 1989 - Aerosmith - What It Takes [Pump] - 2,590,000
15. 1987 - Aerosmith - Rag Doll [Permanent Vacation] - 2,510,000
16. 1974 - Aerosmith - Same Old Song and Dance [Get Your Wings] - 2,390,000
17. 1993 - Aerosmith - Livin' on the Edge [Get a Grip] - 2,070,000
18. 2000 - Aerosmith - Jaded [Just Push Play] - 1,980,000
19. 1976 - Aerosmith - Last Child [Rocks] - 1,830,000
20. 1977 - Aerosmith - Kings and Queens [Draw the Line] - 1,330,000

Records & Achievements

• At 16,046,000 EAS, Aerosmith is one of the 10 most successful albums from 1973.
• At 26,830,000 EAS, Toys in the Attic is the 3rd most successful albums from 1975.
• At 12,105,000 EAS, Permanent Vacation is one of the 10 most successful albums from 1987.
• At 14,376,000 EAS, Pump is one of the 10 most successful albums from 1989.
• At 24,381,000 EAS, Get a Grip is the 3rd most successful albums from 1993.
• At 15,240,000 EAS, Dream On is the most successful song from 1973.
• At 17,270,000 EAS, Walk This Way is one of the 5 most successful songs from 1975.
• At 24,381,000 EAS, Get a Grip is the 2nd most successful album ever by an artist aged 45 or more.
• Aerosmith is one of the 2 acts who topped 15 million EAS with eras separated by 20 years or more.
• At 200 million, Dream On is the 14th most streamed track from the 70s on Spotify.
• At 228 million, I Don't Want to Miss a Thing is the 23rd most streamed track from the 90s on Spotify.
• From 1993 to 2004, Aerosmith recorded 7 albums in a row with 80,000 or more first week sales in Japan.

NB: EAS means Equivalent Album Sales.

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