Aerosmith

Aerosmith is the debut studio album by the American rock band Aerosmith, released on January 5, 1973, by Columbia Records. "Dream On", originally released as a single in 1973, became an American top ten hit when re-released on 27 December 1975. The album peaked at number 21 on the US Billboard 200 album chart in 1976. Background After entering a partnership with Frank Connelly, David Krebs and Steve Leber invited members of two record labelsAtlantic Records and Columbia Recordsto view an Aerosmith concert at Max's Kansas City. Clive Davis, the president of Columbia, was impressed with the band and Aerosmith signed with Columbia in the summer of 1972. Although lead singer Steven Tyler had been in several previous groups, most of the band members had never been in a studio before. The band was heavily influenced by many of the British blues/rock bands of the 1960s, including the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, the Yardbirds, and Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac. Composition "Dream On" was also written by Tyler and became Aerosmith's first major hit and classic rock radio staple. The single peaked at number 59 nationally but hit big in the band's native Boston, where it was the number 1 single of the year on the less commercial top 40 station, WVBZ-FM, number 5 for the year on highly rated Top 40 WRKO-AM, and number 16 on heritage Top 40 WMEX-AM. The album version of "Dream On" (4:28, as opposed to the 3:25 1973 45rpm edit) was re-issued late in 1975, debuting at number 81 on January 10, 1976, breaking into the Top 40 on February 14 and peaking at number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 national chart on April 10. Columbia chose to service Top 40 radio stations with a re-issue of the 3:25 edited version, thus, many 1976 Pop Radio listeners were exposed to the group's first Top 10 effort through the 45 edit. The song is famous for its building climax to showcase Tyler's trademark screams. It was written on piano but the recording contains a two-guitar arrangement, with guitarist Brad Whitford explaining to Guitar Worlds Alan Di Perna in 1997, "The idea was just to transcribe what Steven was doing with his left and right hands on the piano." The song is composed in the key of F minor.