Tracking Aerosmith‘s career trajectory from the beginning to the end of the ’80s reveals one of the most remarkable comebacks in rock history. The band was washed-up and left for dead at the turn of the decade, with Joe Perry having quit in 1979 and Brad Whitford following suit in 1981. Drugs and dysfunction had hobbled the one-mighty rockers, and they watched their album sales plummet as a new crop of bands rose up to usurp them. After reaching their nadir on 1982’s Rock in a Hard Place, Aerosmith reunited with Perry and Whitford and began the long, difficult process of mounting a comeback. T…