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Two of rock’s biggest names \u2014\u00a0Aerosmith<\/a>\u00a0and Bruce Springsteen<\/a> \u2014 both released their debut albums\u00a0to little fanfare on Jan. 5, 1973.<\/p>\n And\u00a0although the Boston-based hard rockers’ self-titled album<\/a> eventually eclipsed Springsteen’s\u00a0Greetings From Asbury Park. N.J.<\/a><\/em>, the Boss initially had way more industry support behind him.<\/p>\n Truth be told,\u00a0neither Aerosmith\u00a0nor Springsteen captured their raw, ragged, rock ‘n’ roll essence on their debut albums. Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry<\/a> lamented the “thin and sterile” sound of their self-titled LP in the band’s 1997 autobiography\u00a0Walk This Way<\/em>.<\/p>\n “We were uptight, afraid to make mistakes,” Perry recalled.\u00a0“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.”<\/p>\n READ MORE:<\/strong> Aerosmith Albums Ranked Worst to Best<\/a><\/p>\n Likewise, Springsteen’s\u00a0Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J.<\/em> presented an astute, folksy singer-songwriter cut from the Bob Dylan<\/a> cloth \u2014 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.<\/p>\n “He liked it but he had just one question: ‘Where’s the guitar?'” Springsteen wrote in his 2016 memoir\u00a0Born to Run<\/em>. “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.”<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n “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<\/em>. “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\u00a0despite<\/em> Columbia.”<\/p>\n Perry had a similar\u00a0recollection in his 2014 memoir Rocks: My Life in and Out of Aerosmith<\/em>.\u00a0“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.”<\/p>\nHow Aerosmith and Bruce Springsteen’s Debuts Failed to Capture Their\u00a0Raw Power<\/h3>\n
How Bruce Springsteen Overshadowed ‘Unwanted Stepchild’ Aerosmith<\/h3>\n