Maps of Music

Get Your Wings (1974)

Where the lyrics of Get Your Wings take you, and where it was really made.

Aerosmith's second album was produced by Jack Douglas, and according to Douglas the band lacked the guitar skill for some solos, so outside players recorded them.

Key places

Recording at the Record Plant, New York (1974)

Recording site The Record Plant — The album was recorded at the Record Plant in New York City between December 1973 and January 1974. The last song written for the album came out of sessions in Studio C there. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Get Your Wings: second studio album by American rock band Aerosmith
• Released in March 1974
• First album produced by Jack Douglas, who produced the band's next three albums
• Three singles released, none reached the singles charts
• Issued in stereo and quadraphonic versions
• Certified triple platinum by the RIAA

Background

• The debut album came out in January 1973 with little fanfare
• The band toured extensively to build a fanbase after the weak debut
• The group took a break in December 1973 to record the follow-up
• Several songs predated the sessions, including the Yardbirds cover 'Train Kept A-Rollin''
• 'Spaced' and 'Lord of the Thighs' were written during the sessions

Recording

• Recorded at the Record Plant in New York City, December 1973 to January 1974
• Jack Douglas produced; Jay Messina engineered the sessions
• Douglas had engineered the debut of The New York Dolls before this project
• Douglas invited outside guitarists and a saxophone player to play on some tracks
• The Brecker Brothers played horns on 'Same Old Song and Dance'

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• Formed in Boston in 1970 by Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Tom Hamilton, Joey Kramer, and Brad Whitford after the Jam Band and Chain Reaction merged.
• The name was suggested by Joey Kramer, who had seen the word "aerosmith" in his school notebooks.
• Their first gig was at Nipmuc Regional High School in Mendon, Massachusetts, on November 6, 1970.

Members

• Current lineup: Steven Tyler (lead vocals), Joe Perry and Brad Whitford (guitars), Tom Hamilton (bass), Joey Kramer (drums).
• Perry and Whitford left in 1979 and 1981 and returned in 1984; the original five were reunited from 1984 onward.
• Tyler and Perry are the main songwriting team, nicknamed the "Toxic Twins".

Career

• Debut album in 1973 and Toys in the Attic (1975) and Rocks (1976) established their blues-based hard rock sound.
• The 1986 Run-D.M.C. collaboration on "Walk This Way" revived their career, followed by Permanent Vacation (1987), Pump (1989), and Get a Grip (1993).
• "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" (1998) was their only Billboard Hot 100 number one.
• Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001; sold more than 150 million records worldwide.
• Retired from touring in 2024 after Tyler's vocal injury; released the EP One More Time with Yungblud in 2025.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Contemporary reviews were mostly positive
• Rolling Stone's Charley Walters praised the LP, writing that the guitar chords propel each number
• Billboard reviewer called the music derivative, but said the band's rock vision could succeed with the right producers
• Robert Christgau wrote that the band were heirs to the Grand Funk approach, loud and cunning enough to please listeners

Reappraisal

• AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine, in a retrospective review, called the album the point where Aerosmith became songwriters and their first classic
• Ben Mitchell of Blender saw the same shift, with the band locking into a trademark dirty funk sound
• Martin Popoff called the album a rich, inspired and consistently entertaining rock 'n' roller

Records

• Certified triple platinum by the RIAA
• Three singles released; none reached the singles charts

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Douglas insisted that Tyler sing in his natural voice on this record, a change from the debut album
• The title 'Lord of the Thighs' punned on William Golding's Lord of the Flies, and critics disliked the literary reference
• According to Douglas, the clarinet at the start of 'Pandora's Box' was played by a union engineer
• The crowd noise at the end of 'Train Kept A-Rollin'' came from a wild track from The Concert for Bangladesh that Douglas had worked on
• Douglas said the big challenge was that Joe Perry and Brad Whitford were not yet the guitarists they wanted to be, so he brought in outside players
• In 2014 Perry said the band was better than the record they were making

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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