Two of rock’s biggest names — Aerosmith and Bruce Springsteen — both released their debut albums to little fanfare on Jan. 5, 1973.
And although the Boston-based hard rockers’ self-titled album eventually eclipsed Springsteen’s Greetings From Asbury Park. N.J., the Boss initially had way more industry support behind him.
How Aerosmith and Bruce Springsteen’s Debuts Failed to Capture Their Raw Power
Truth be told, neither Aerosmith nor Springsteen captured their raw, ragged, rock ‘n’ roll essence on their debut albums. Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry lamented the “thin and sterile” sound of their self-titled LP in the band’s 1997 autobiography Walk This Way.
“We were uptight, afraid to make mistakes,” Perry recalled. “No one was hounding us. It was pressure from within ourselves, so much pressure that the record came out sounding thin and sterile. We were total novices with no idea what to go for.”
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Likewise, Springsteen’s Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. presented an astute, folksy singer-songwriter cut from the Bob Dylan cloth — good for public consumption but not an accurate representation of Springsteen’s raucous live show at the time. The Boss’ friend, early roadie and bouncer “Big Danny” Gallagher, said as much when he first heard the record.
“He liked it but he had just one question: ‘Where’s the guitar?'” Springsteen wrote in his 2016 memoir Born to Run. “I was the fastest guitar player alive … in Monmouth County, and there was no guitar to be found on my record. No one locally had heard this new and very different material I’d been writing. I’d made the conscious decision to double down on my songwriting skills; I felt this was the most distinctive thing I had going.”
How Bruce Springsteen Overshadowed ‘Unwanted Stepchild’ Aerosmith
Springsteen’s pivot to mellower, more introspective songwriting made him the clear favorite at Columbia Records, which released both his and Aerosmith’s debut albums.
“Aerosmith’s album was released the same day as Bruce Springsteen’s. For every dollar they put into Aerosmith, they put a hundred into Springsteen because he fit into the folksier CBS essence,” former Aerosmith manager David Krebs said in Walk This Way. “Aerosmith was like an unwanted stepchild because Columbia had never had big success with hard rock, which was more Atlantic’s thing. So Aerosmith was a band that, in the early stages, happened despite Columbia.”
Perry had a similar recollection in his 2014 memoir Rocks: My Life in and Out of Aerosmith. “Unlike Aerosmith, Springsteen was tailor-made for Columbia,” he wrote. “He came out of the Dylan tradition. The label publicists had a field day promoting him. The public was ready for a rock hero with Bruce’s look and sound. We got the idea that Columbia didn’t think the public was ready for us.”
READ MORE: Bruce Springsteen Albums Ranked Worst to Best
Consequently, Asbury Park got far more love from the music press than Aerosmith. While Rolling Stone‘s Lester Bangs wrote highly of the former, the music magazine ignored the latter.
“If the release of a record is the birth of a band, ours was a stillbirth,” Perry recalled. “We kept running to the newsstand to pick up Rolling Stone and read a review. But Rolling Stone never ran one. It’s one thing to have your debut criticized; it’s even worse to have your debut ignored. We were pissed.”
Aerosmith’s Debut Album Eventually Beat Springsteen’s — but It Took Years
Despite the promotional differences, the truth is that neither Aerosmith nor Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. performed particularly well — at first. The former stalled at No. 166 on the Billboard 200 in 1973, while the latter eventually peaked at No. 60.
But after the success of their third album, 1975’s Toys in the Attic, Aerosmith’s debut enjoyed a surge in sales thanks to its single “Dream On,” which was reissued in late 1975 and became a Top 10 hit the following year. The renewed success pushed Aerosmith to No. 21 on the Billboard 200, and the album ultimately went double platinum — as did Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J.
That would take years, though. In the meantime, Aerosmith and Springsteen kept charging ahead, working on new music and touring rigorously, building the fan bases that would launch them to superstardom in just a few years.
Top 40 Debut Rock Albums
You get only one shot at a first impression.
Gallery Credit: Ultimate Classic Rock Staff
