Aerosmith, The Goose and the Golden Egg, and The RIAA

Personally, I am a pretty big fan of the band Aerosmith. Not only do I like their music but I love the way they pop back into popularity almost every decade.  I feel that the reason they have success at doing so is because they try new things.  Examples include:

• Doing a music video with Run DMC
• Guitar Hero which did so well there was an Aerosmith version

I recently happened on one I didn’t know about.  Did you know that they were the first band to be on CompuServe?  Like 20 years ago when we didn’t even really have an Internet as we know it today and it took like 60 to 90 minutes (not a typo, in those days downloads were measured in hours).  10,000 users downloaded it in the first 8 days. The most interesting thing I noticed about the article is that it seems that the RIAA didn’t actually go after CompuServe!

What I would like to see is the RIAA take a few tips from the legendary band but no, instead they killed MTV with license fees, did the same to Guitar Hero and now are doing the same thing with streaming music services.  Quoting the article first mentioned

Steven Tyler had the money quote in the press release: “If our fans are out there driving down that information superhighway,” he said, “then we want to be playing at the truck stop.”

I doubt it will happen though as the goons at the Racketeering Idiots Association of Absurdity will more likely want a toll booth at every intersection.

Here is the song that was all the download rage 20 years ago.

Related articles

• Toasting the 20th Anniversary of the First ‘Exclusive’ Digital Download (motherboard.vice.com)
• Today In Pop Music: June 27 – Aerosmith Becomes The First Major Bands To Let Their Fans Do This (kool.cbslocal.com)
• RIAA Peppers Google With Its 50 Millionth Pirate Link Takedown Request (hothardware.com)
• RIAA Revamps Gold & Platinum Certifications: 100 On Demand Plays = 1 Sale (hypebot.com)