Get a Grip

The eleventh studio album was the last Aerosmith record on Geffen and the last Bruce Fairbairn produced for the band before his death in 1999. It was first meant for release in 1992 with 12 songs, but Geffen A&R man John Kalodner thought it lacked variety and a radio song, so the band wrote more with collaborators including Desmond Child, Jim Vallance, Mark Hudson, Richie Supa, Taylor Rhodes, Jack Blades and Tommy Shaw. Don Henley sings backing vocals on Amazing and Lenny Kravitz on Line Up. Tyler said Get a Grip and Amazing reflected the band's history with drugs. The cover, a cow with a nipple ring and the Aerosmith logo branded on it, was designed by Hugh Syme, drew an objection from an animal-rights group, and was digitally altered.

It was their first album to reach number one in the United States, sold over seven million copies there by 1995 and over 20 million worldwide. Two of its songs won Grammys for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. Cryin', Amazing and Crazy all came with videos starring Alicia Silverstone. On 27 June 1994 the band became the first major artist to release a song, Head First, as an exclusive digital download, through CompuServe. Reviews were mixed. Mark Coleman of Rolling Stone found much of it unadventurous, Christgau called Cryin' the classic and later gave the album an A-minus, and Erlewine of AllMusic called it a studied performance.