I really hate Aerosmith. No band causes me to change the radio faster than when I hear the first few notes of any Aerosmith song.
Unfortunately, of the many genres of music I enjoy, “classic rock” is one of the few you can find on the radio dial. And no matter where you go, it’s universal: classic rock radio is horrible.
Why?
Let me take a step back and explain why I listen to the radio at all. My daily driver is a 2002 SVT Focus. I love it, but it was born in the days after cassette, and before the dominance of the iPod. As such, there’s no way to connect an iPod, satellite radio, or any other 21st century audio source. Not without ripping out the head unit.
For that matter, I only spend, on average, 10 minutes in my car a day. NPR gets depressing, I’m not hip enough to consistently enjoy KCRW, and sometimes I’m bored with the CDs on hand. So I turn on either JACK FM (terrible for many reasons), or 100.3 “The Sound,” a reasonable hodgepodge of “rock,” mostly of the “classic” variety.
In that that 10-minute window, there will always, always be at least 1 Aerosmith song. Barf. So what is that, 6 Aerosmith songs an hour? 144 Aerosmith songs a day? They’ve recorded 15 albums and some 170+ songs total, so that’s the entire catalog every 30 hours or so? Of course, you never hear the new stuff, or even most of the old stuff.
And that is the core of the problem.
Look, I’m not saying Aerosmith is a bad band. I’m sure they're all very talented musically. If you like them, hell, even if they’re your favorite band, good on ya. My problem is this: I grew up in Boston.
There were three choices for music as a rock-oriented youth in Boston in the 80s and 90s: 107.3 WAAF, 104.1 WBCN, and 100.7 WZLX. It seemed that the music programmers for these stations thought, Hey! It’s Boston! Aerosmith is from Boston! Boston people must like Aerosmith! So daily programming consisted of 60% Aerosmith, 35% Boston (the band), and 5% “Edge of Seventeen” by The Goat (why that song, I don’t know, but FFS it plays CONSTANTLY EVERYWHERE).
So whatever interest I may have had with Aerosmith in my youth was rapidly beaten out by punishing overexposure. Overexposure not to the entire Aerosmith catalog mind you, but to the same 4 or 5 songs all the time.
Here’s what I don’t understand: with nearly 50 years of “classic rock” to draw from, or at least music that could logically be played on a “rock” radio station, why is there so much Aerosmith? Perhaps a wider question is even better: Why do you hear the same songs from the same bands all the time?
If you listen to any rock radio station, and if there’s a DJ (rare, I know), and they say “Hey, we’ve got so-and-so coming up!” how much would you put down that you know which song they’ll play. Surely Eric Clapton has recorded more than 3 songs? Did Queen? David Bowie? Didn’t Journey... yeah, OK, no, they really did just record two songs. But for everyone else, why does classic rock radio have to be the world’s worst greatest hits album, stuck on repeat?
Do radio stations think so little of their audience that they assume people will be upset hearing a song they haven’t heard a billion times before? Would anyone be saddened if they heard “More Than a Feeling” just once a week instead of once every other day? Or if they heard “One of These Days” instead of “Money”? Or if they never heard Foreigner ever again. Ever.
It’s not even the point if you like the bands playing, my question is, surely there are other songs you enjoy from that band?
Sadly, though, this is a lost cause. With audiences dwindling thanks to satellite radio, Pandora, and so on, radio stations have to go even harder for the lowest common denominator. They’re not like cable/satellite TV stations that can attract a big piece of a niche pie. “Classic Rock” radio is already a niche, and it they start playing Gram Parsons, Buffalo Tom, Bob Dylan, and The Sex Pistols, I might love it, but an audience of one doesn’t pay the bills.
So when it comes down to it, radio sucks, it will only get worse, and I am arrogantly the best DJ in the world (for me).
But I still hate Aerosmith.
"I’m sure there all very talented musically."
I'm sure there is where you lost me.
Do you ever happen upon an article that reaches down in your soul and connects with you? You sir are a genius. I have been having this inner dialog in my car for the last ten or fifteen years. Aerosmith was always the band that made me jump for the dial, if I had to suffer through a second of "Jamie's got a gun" or that song that shrieks "girl before I met you I was F I N E " I would always vomit in my mouth a little. When I was younger I always said I liked the drug use years of Aerosmith but the post drug use drivel is so bad it has ruined it for me. Oh and thank you for reassuring me I/m not the only one saying where is my rock variety? "One of these days" instead of money? You sir are a musical genius.
@wattsk69 Ha! Thanks.
If you were listening to Boston radio in the 80s, hearing Led Zeppelin play "Stairway To Heaven" must make you want to tear your ears off.
Blame the RIAA! They CHARGE radio stations (remember when it was the other way around??) per song for royalty rights. So now, ClearChannel pays for 200 songs (about) each month, and THAT is your playlist. Yup. 200 songs. Listen to the radio for a day and make a list of the songs you hear. I guarantee those same songs are repeated EVERY SINGLE DAY, sometimes 2 or 3 or 4 times a day! Want better song selection? Time to rip out that head unit and start streaming!