“Fever” by Aerosmith

The mighty Aerosmith needs no introduction, but there is a deep track on their massively successful album, “Get A Grip” that deserves highlighting.

“Get A Grip” became Aerosmith’s first #1 album in 1993. Despite the grunge takeover, this traditional rock record spawned four top 40 singles and went platinum 7 times.

Aerosmith was one of the few classic rock bands that sustained a string of hits during the 90s after grunge put most glam/hair band/hard rock bands to bed. The four singles released from “Get A Grip” that hit the Billboard Top 100 were all power ballads and doctored by hit-makers who knew how to make something radio-friendly.

The strategy worked well, but as a consequence there are some great rockers on “Get A Grip” that went overlooked. One of the best is “Fever”, a rousing rocker in the finest Aerosmith tradition that needed no tweaking by so-called “song doctors”.

In a rather unexpected move, country superstar Garth Brooks later covered this Aerosmith tune as “The Fever”, with altered lyrics. In an even more unexpected move, Steven Tyler will be releasing a country album this year.

Despite the album’s success, and the many others in Aerosmith’s impressive catalogue, the band never hit #1 on the singles chart until 1998 with “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing”, written by Diane Warren for the Bruce Willis movie “Armageddon”.  Incidentally, Steven Tyler’s daughter Liv co-starred in this movie.