Playlist Special: Top Artists Pick Their Personal Top 10
"I always got labeled a Mick Jagger lookalike, a wanna-be, and I fucking hated it," says Tyler. "Then I realized Mick was the baddest boy on the block. I learned from the Stones – and from Janis Joplin – that it's not about hitting the notes, it's about having style."
- 1."I'm A King Bee" | The Rolling Stones, 1964
Slim Harpo wrote this. I'd done it in bands in, like, '64 and '65, but when the Stones did it, it was so much better and different.
- Listen: Steven Tyler's Top Rolling Stones Songs
- 2."Brown Sugar " | The Rolling Stones, 1971
This is probably the best rock & roll song short of anything written by Chuck Berry.
- 3."Rip This Joint" | The Rolling Stones, 1972
When I went to my first rehab, at a place called Hazelden, I brought Exile on Main Street on cassette. I remember waking up the first morning there and realizing I hadn't been sober once for the past 12 or 15 years, from LSD to heroin and cocaine and acid. The only way I could get a buzz at that point was to listen to "Rip This Joint."
- 4."Get Off of My Cloud" | The Rolling Stones, 1965
It's all about those drum fills. I like songs that have a stop – what I call a wet spot. Little moments like those are what you remember forever.
- 5."Something Happened to Me Yesterday" | The Rolling Stones, 1967
Anything Keith sang on always killed me, and this one is so fucking cool.
- 6."Hot Stuff " | The Rolling Stones, 1976
The song just goes on and on, but it was such a fucking great groove, right?
- 7."Memory Motel " | The Rolling Stones, 1976
Mick can't sing, but he's one of the best fucking singers in rock & roll.
- 8."The Spider And The Fly" | The Rolling Stones, 1965
This was the kind of song that inspired me to start writing my own lyrics. When Mick sings, "She was common, flirty, she looked about 30" – that was my kind of lyric. It jumped into my ears.
- 9."She Said Yeah" | The Rolling Stones, 1965
When I was younger, in all of the bands I was in, way before Aerosmith, we would open sets with "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?" and end with this one. I loved all the reverb and Keith's guitar.
