1998 Power Ballad, Sole No. 1 Hit For Aerosmith, Topped The Charts 28 Years Ago Today

"Armageddon" is one of those sci-fi movies that would've flunked science class, but some successful chemistry turned its theme song into a massive hit. Maybe it was an emulsion, a mixture of things that normally don't blend, like oil and water. Or Aerosmith and a syrupy love song. Aerosmith had done power ballads before, but "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" triggered a different kind of reaction. The song exploded to the top of the charts and stabilized there for four weeks in September 1998.

The songwriter, Diane Warren, didn't have gritty rockers in mind. "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" was originally written for a pop diva like Celine Dion. As Warren told Rolling Stone, she "never in a million years thought Aerosmith would do it. I kind of thought a female vocalist would end up doing it." Aerosmith wasn't convinced it would work, either. When the band first heard a bare-bones piano demo, drummer Joey Kramer had his doubts. He admitted to Classic Rock, "I kind of knew it was a hit, but I didn't really like the song. I didn't think that song was us."

But both Kramer and Warren were happy to be proven wrong. Warren described her original version to The Ringer as "kind of softer, kind of pretty." Then Aerosmith's Steven Tyler got hold of it. "Hearing Steven on that song  ... it had power and passion," Warren said. "It was a million times better than I could've imagined it."

When Aerosmith finally scored a No. 1 single with "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing," the band didn't exactly break out the champagne. Guitarist Joe Perry told Rolling Stone that he was with Steven Tyler when their manager called to share the news. "We looked at each other and said, 'Holy s***! That's great, but I thought for sure we had a number one in there somewhere.' And then we just put the phone down and went back to what we were doing."

After decades of rock-star excess, the remarkably casual reaction makes some sense. By the time that call came in 1998, Aerosmith had already sent seven songs to the Top 10, including other power ballads like "Angel" and "Dream On." Two albums, "Get a Grip" and "Nine Lives," had reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200. The band was actually on the "Nine Lives" tour when "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" came out, and the song's success helped keep the tour going. "We continued to tour off that song for another year," Kramer told Classic Rock. "That was welcomed by the band."

Not everyone welcomed it, though. Plenty in the Blue Army, the name Aerosmith's biggest fans call themselves, dislike the song. Their reasons range from the band didn't write it to it's a movie song to it's not the real Aerosmith. But as former MTV executive Tony DiSanto explained to The Ringer, "It just felt like it was gonna be a hit whether you liked it or not."