1986 Powerful Hit, a Cover of Their Own Rock Song, Revived Legendary Band Aerosmith’s Career

In 1986, a rock-rap fusion song hit the airwaves and immediately made, well, waves. The powerful hit, Run-D.M.C.‘s “Walk This Way,” was a cover of Aerosmith‘s song of the same name, which was written by Steven Tyler and Joe Perry and first released in 1975 on the band’s album Toys in the Attic (peaking at No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100).

Recorded on March 9, 1986, by trailblazing rap/hip-hop legends Run-D.M.C., the band couldn’t have known at the time that acting as a featured artist on a cover of their own song in a completely different (and new at the time, at that) genre would actually revive their career, but that’s exactly what happened. Thanks to the hit, Aerosmith experienced a fresh wave of hype after somewhat taking a backseat to a newer generation of rockers and steadily declining sales since their ’70s heyday.

In fact, at the time, Aerosmith reportedly didn’t even know what “rap” was, according to The Guardian. The band’s then-manager Tim Collins was confused at the request to remake the single when he received a call from 22-year-old producer and entrepreneur behind the now-legendary record label Def Jam, Rick Rubin.

But Rubin had sold Aerosmith the idea as “a great crossover opportunity for both groups,” per the news outlet, and it paid off for both parties. The intense music video for the track, essentially a screaming match between the two groups, instantly took rap music and Run-D.M.C. into MTV mainstream, serving as a stepping stone to becoming a major part of pop culture history.

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The single broke barriers: it became the first rap single on Billboard’s Top 10, peaking at No. 4; its parent album, Raising Hell, became rap’s first platinum and multi-platinum LP, and Run-D.M.C.—comprising Joseph “Run” Simmons, Darryl “DMC” McDaniels, and Jason “Jam Master Jay” Mizell—became the first rap act on the cover of Rolling Stone.

As for the effect on Aerosmith, the collab made them appeal to a whole new audience. The smash earned them a spot on the contemporary hits radio format for the first time and achieved a different sort of crossover—one that couldn’t have come any other way than by bridging the gap between a trio of hip Black kids reinventing music to fit their lifestyles and a rock band whose time in the limelight seemed to be close to a curtain call. “It also made them a truly global band for the first time: Aerosmith, who had previously meant next to nothing in the UK, were suddenly household names,” The Guardian noted.

Forty years later, the hit remains a timeless party anthem for a diverse set of music lovers. On Spotify, “Walk This Way” by Run-D.M.C. has received nearly 320 million streams, while on YouTube, the video has been viewed over 146 million times.

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