A truly inventive Aerosmith album, still suffused with a gloriously raspy sense of the blues, but quietly evocative in its timbre and approach. It showed Tyler working out lyrics that were so much more than simple cars and girls fodder, 'Adam's Apple' theorizing that creation could quite possibly have occurred with an alien mothership landing on earth and setting the wheels of the human race in motion. 'Sweet Emotion' throbbed slowly into life, 'Big Ten Inch Record', a salty R&B work-out, while 'You See Me Crying' was heightened and given body by a warm orchestration. A clear steeple of great work amid a skyline of repeating successes.

According to Jack Douglas, "Aerosmith was a different band when we started the third album. They'd been playing Get Your Wings on the road for a year and had become better players - different. It showed in the riffs that Joe [Perry] and Brad [Whitford] brought back from the road for the next album. Toys in the Attic was a much more sophisticated record than the other stuff they'd done." In the band memoir Walk This Way, guitarist Joe Perry stated, "When we started to make Toys in the Attic, our confidence was built up from constant touring.

Aerosmith:
Steven Tyler (vocals, harmonica);
Joe Perry (guitars);
Brad Whitford (guitars);
Tom Hamilton (bass);
Joey Kramer (drums)

Additional personnel includes:
Scott Cushnie

Recorded at the Record Plant, New York.