How Britney Spears Felt When She Sang ‘Walk This Way’ With Aerosmith
Britney Spears turned some heads by covering Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way” with the one and only Steven Tyler. She revealed what the experience was like. Interestingly, “Walk This Way” was a hit twice.
What Britney Spears thought of performing Aerosmith’s ‘Walk This Way’
In her 2023 memoir The Woman in Me, Spears recalled an incredible career moment. “I was performing at the 2001 Super Bowl halftime show alongside Aerosmith, Mary J. Blige, Nelly, and NSYNC,” she remembered. “Justin [Timberlake] and the rest of his band had special gloves that shot fountains of sparks!
“I sang ‘Walk This Way’ wearing a sexy version of a football uniform, with shiny silver pants, a crop shirt, and an athletic sock on one of my arms,” she added. “I was brought to Steven Tyler’s trailer to meet him right before the show, and his energy was incredible: he was such an idol to me. When we finished, the stadium lit up with fireworks.”
Britney Spears said she was ‘almost single-handedly keeping some magazines in business’
The “Womanizer” singer put “Walk This Way” into the greater context of her career. “The halftime show was just one of the seemingly endless good things happening for me,” she wrote. “I landed the ‘most powerful woman’ spot on the Forbes list of most powerful celebrities — the following year I’d be number one overall. I learned that tabloids were making so much money off photos of me, I was almost single-handedly keeping some magazines in business.”
Spears was one of the biggest celebrities on earth for a time. She was so big that the controversies surrounding her personal life and her effect on young girls only made her more famous. Her public struggles in 2007 changed her public image forever.
Aerosmith’s ‘Walk This Way’ was a hit that changed everything for rap and rock
“Walk This Way” is one of Aerosmith’s most iconic songs because it became a hit twice. The original version of the song reached No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100, staying on the chart for 17 weeks. The tune appeared on the album Toys in the Attic, which might be the most beloved album of the band’s career. Toys in the Attic hit No. 11 on the Billboard 200 and stayed on the chart for 128 weeks. It lasted on the chart longer than any other Aerosmith record.
Aerosmith famously rerecorded the song with new rap verses by Run-D.M.C. That version of the song was popular as well, charting at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and staying on the chart for 16 weeks. The later version of the song appeared on the album Raising Hell. That record peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and spent 71 weeks on the chart. While the Run-D.M.C. redux of “Walk This Way” was a hit, the real legacy of the track is that it helped usher rap-rock into the mainstream. It also helped a lot of rockers see the autistic value of rap music.
Whether we are talking about Spears or Run-D.M.C., “Walk This Way” has had an incredible legacy over the years.
