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On April 20th, 1993, Aerosmith released their 11th studio album, Get a Grip. To celebrate the iconic record’s anniversary, here are 23 things you might not know about it:
1.Get a Grip originally had 12 tracks, but the label thought it lacked variety and needed a radio-friendly song, so they sent the band back into the studio.
2. The album cover features a cow’s udders, with one of them pierced and sporting an earring. An animal rights group objected, but the band explained the image was computer-generated.
3. Seven songs from Get a Grip wound up charting on at least one of Billboard’s charts.
4. “Livin’ on the Edge” went to number one on the rock chart and stayed there for nine weeks.
5. “Livin’ on the Edge” tackles many social issues including racism, religion, the state of the world and more, but the lyrics say that even with all that, it’s still worth living in this world.
6. “Livin’ on the Edge” references the Yardbirds song “Mister You’re a Better Man Than I.”
7. “Livin’ on the Edge” was inspired by the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
8. Towards the end of “Livin’ on the Edge” are four loud beats from a bass drum. Steven Tyler has confessed to stealing that drum from his high school.
9. Weird Al Yankovich parodied “Livin’ on the Edge” with his song “Livin’ in the Fridge.”
10. The sexually-suggestive lyrics to “Shut Up and Dance” feature many double entendres like “sex is like a gun: you aim, you shoot, you run.”
11. Styx's Tommy Shaw and Night Ranger's Jack Blades co-wrote “Shut Up and Dance.”
12. “Cryin’” has been certified gold and sold over 600,000 copies.
13. Most people remember that Alicia Silverstone starred in the video for “Cryin,’” but the clip also featured Stephen Dorff as well as Josh Holloway of Lost.
14. There’s an unconfirmed story that for the video for “Crazy,” producers cast a woman they had seen in a Pantene commercial to star opposite Alicia Silverstone. That woman was Steven Tyler’s daughter, Liv Tyler. They apparently had no idea her father was in the band.
15. The song “Fever,” which is about how the band members have given up drugs in favor of sex (“the buzz that you be gettin’ from the crack don’t last, I’d rather be OD’in on the crack of her ass”), peaked at number five on the rock chart.
16. Country singer Garth Brooks covered the song “Fever” in 1995 and called it “The Fever.”
17. Lenny Kravitz provided back-up vocals on the song “Line-Up.”
18. “Amazing” is about Steven Tyler’s troubled life and his drug abuse in the late 70s and early 80s.
19. The lyrics in “Amazing” mention the band’s 1987 comeback album, Permanent Vacation.
20. Don Henley sings back up on “Amazing.”
21. At the end of “Amazing,” a radio can be heard tuning into a recording of Lucky Millinder’s song “Who Threw the Whiskey in the Well.” Over the song, Steven Tyler says, “So from all of us at Aerosmith to all of you out there, wherever you are, remember: the light at the end of the tunnel may be you. Good night.”
22.Get a Grip is Aerosmith’s most successful studio album, selling over 20-million copies worldwide, 7-million of which were in America.
23. The band earned two Grammys off the album, the 1993 award for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or a Group with Vocal for “Livin’ on the Edge” and the same trophy in 1994 for “Crazy.”