10 Unusual Music Collaborations That Should've Never Worked
3. Aerosmith & Run DMC - Walk This Way
The one that started it all. Along with the Beastie Boys, this song is what started the rap rock trend in the mid 1980s. It’s easy for hip-hop heads to look back on this as being corny or cheesy, but at the time of release it was boundary pushing.
Aerosmith’s relevance was weaning at the time and although Run DMC were young, hip and cool, the wider American public still saw hip hop as a relative novelty, not as the art form it is. It took literal walls being broken down in the music video for some to acknowledge this.
The importance of this song culturally cannot he understand. Released in July of 1986, later that very year America had its first ever Hip Hop number one album. Licensed To Ill by the Beastie Boys. A rap rock album in its purest form.
This wouldn’t have happened without this unprecedented collaboration. The musical landscape of popular music in the following years may have been very different if it hadn’t been for the success of this song.