Aerosmith, one of rock’s most enduring giants, are about to do something they haven’t done in over a decade: release brand-new music. And in a move that feels both unpredictable and yet completely in line with their history of chaos-into-greatness, they’re doing it alongside one of modern rock’s most divisive stars, Yungblud.
A teaser video has already landed online, featuring Steven Tyler and Yungblud huddled around a studio mic, belting the climax of a track called My Only Angel. It ends with Yungblud planting a kiss on Tyler’s cheek, the two of them grinning like misbehaving teenagers. “Nice! Good! F***in’ A!” Tyler exclaims, followed by Yungblud’s ecstatic “F***ing great, man!” Tyler caps it with a half-preacher, half-rock-god “S**! Hallelujah!”
This isn’t just novelty. It’s their first new material since 2012’s Music from Another Dimension!. Steven Tyler hasn’t exactly been absent from recording studios, his last effort being a guest spot on Dolly Parton’s Rockstar in 2023, but Aerosmith themselves had gone silent. Their 2024 farewell tour was abruptly ended by Tyler’s vocal cord injury, a setback that seemed to spell the band’s end. Yet here they are, defying their own curtain call, teaming with an artist whose entire aesthetic is built on disruption.
For Aerosmith, this is legacy maintenance with a twist. Yungblud, fresh from high-profile appearances at Black Sabbath’s Back To The Beginning and the MTV VMAs, is at once a controversial choice and the most logical one imaginable: a bridge between generations, a performer just reckless enough to match Tyler’s lifelong flair for the dramatic.
Meanwhile, guitarist Joe Perry has been stoking speculation about one final Aerosmith gig. “We’re talking about it,” he admitted in July, acknowledging the impossible task of creating a definitive setlist for such a moment. “I know there’s gotta be at least another Aerosmith gig.” Whether or not that happens, the release of My Only Angel proves that Aerosmith are not finished. They’re mutating again, just as they always have, into something nobody expected.
This isn’t a nostalgia trip. It’s a reminder: Aerosmith only stop when Aerosmith decide to.
