10 Rock Bands That Bounced Back From Bad Albums
5. Permanent Vacation - Aerosmith
The massive fallout between Aerosmith in the late '70s is the stuff of rock legend at this point. After making some of the most foundational hard rock music known to man on albums like Rocks, the massive drug intake of Steven Tyler and Joe Perry combined with their personality conflicts led to Perry quitting the band. Once they managed to reunite though, the magic still wasn't quite there yet.
As much of a fireworks show as it should have been, Done With Mirrors started to bottom out in the mid '80s, having all of the punch of an Aerosmith album without the crossover appeal. Taking one of the biggest gambles of their career, Permanent Vacation saw Tyler and Perry working with other songwriters for the first time, which struck gold when they hooked up with Desmond Child for singles like Dude Looks Like a Lady and Angel.
Launching them into the next decade, other tracks like Rag Doll made Aerosmith stars on MTV, delivering their high energy performances from the '70s into some of the greatest music videos of the day. This did come back to bite them in the ass though, with the outside songwriters starting to tear away at their sound at the start of the '00s. It might have been a mixed blessing in retrospect, but if the biggest crime of this album is a ballad like Angel, you're still doing a damn fine job.