Yesterday we talked about a terrible chimera produced by mixing two genres. In order to soften the impact a little let’s have a look at an example where doing that went just fine:

Originally released by Aerosmith in 1975, “Walk This Way” was a fairly successful rock song, one of a number of hits that gained them some traction. But it wouldn’t be until ten years later, when Run-D.M.C. covered the song, creating a cornerstone for the subgenre of “Rap Rock” (which would have a good go up to the early noughties, when it kind of trickled out), that the song really came to shine. While half of Run-D.M.C. had never even heard the name “Aerosmith” and none of them knew the song or lyrics in it’s entirety, they just so happened to freestyle over the first few seconds of the song during their shows. But when Rick Rubin pulled out the song while working on their album “Rising Hell” and proposed to do a proper cover he met quite some resistance.

They were in a for a surprise themselves, when the song – which they had not intended at all to become a single – eventually started to get lots of airplay on urban and rock stations. In the end, it would mark a comeback for Aerosmith as well, who at that time were at the brink of being disbanded, but were able to follow up with a number of multi-platinum albums.

If you have followed the course and done your homework, you should by now spot the reference to Michael Jackson’s “Black or White” at the beginning.