On This Day in 1994, Aerosmith Helped Kick off a New Era of Music Consumption

On June 27, 1994, Aerosmith and its label, Geffen Records, would help kick off a new era of music consumption, changing the way audiences obtain their favorite tracks and albums forever. In the age of Spotify, TikTok, and an endless supply of other streaming and downloading options, a world in which getting your music from the internet wasn’t the norm seems almost as antiquated as, say, gas lamps and horse-drawn buggies. But back in 1994, the move was revolutionary.

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Some praised the move. Others warned of its devastating implications for the record industry. But no matter whether you approved or disapproved of Aerosmith ushering in the next wave of online music consumption, neither side could have had any idea how right (and wrong) they truly were.

Aerosmith Kicks Off New Era Of Music Consumption

Let’s go back, dear reader, to 1994. Computers were bulky and relatively rudimentary. Sometimes, they even got an entire room in the house, if that household was well-off enough to do so. The internet was even more novel. Social media had yet to dominate the global zeitgeist. MP3.com still had years to go before it would go live. What did exist at the time, however, was the Internet Underground Music Archive, which primarily catered to undiscovered indie bands as a way to get their music to more listeners without the help of major record labels.

But that didn’t mean the major record labels weren’t checking out what was going on in the underground scene. Jim Griffin, CTO of Geffen Records, was one of those curious observers. Eager to hop on the online bandwagon, he helped Aerosmith kickstart a new era of musical consumption by making an unreleased track from the band’s Get A Grip sessions available for free download on CompuServe. Those who wished to download “Head First” could do so by typing “GO AEROSMITH” in their CompuServe command line and waiting about an hour and a half for the 4.3MB .wav file to download onto their computer. What a time.

At a time when Aerosmith dominated the rock ‘n’ roll airwaves with hits like “Janie’s Got a Gun” and “Dude (Looks Like a Lady)” (not to mention their wealth of hits from the 1970s, like “Dream On”), their willingness to make their music available to the public for free was groundbreaking. “If our fans are out there driving down that information superhighway, then we want to be playing at the truck stop,” frontman Steven Tyler said, per Classic Rock.

Public Reception Was About As Divided As You’d Imagine

When Aerosmith changed the face of music consumption forever by being the first major label artist to offer their music for free via online download, neither critics nor fans of the move would have any way of knowing just how significant this musical shift would become. Some accused Geffen Records of making their download time so long on purpose. (Anyone who downloaded anything pre-2010 knows that this is hardly the case. That was simply the way of life in the early days of internet downloads.) For whatever it’s worth, the label refuted this rumor, saying they were trying to turn people on to the new technology, not push them away, like some people accused them of doing.

Those more positive intentions had their downfalls, too. Critics condemned the move, suggesting that a switch to online musical consumption would be the death knell for record labels. Even Geffen Records used the publicity stunt to highlight potential downfalls regarding artistic compensation in addition to trying to stay ahead of the technological curve. “We did it because it can be done and is cool and fun,” Geffen Records marketing director Luke Wood told the New York Times in 1994. “But also to show there’s these other issues involved, like how do you collect copyright fees?”

Just over three decades later, we’re still running into the same issues of how to compensate artists fairly while also keeping up with the largely online musical landscape. Now, you can pull up an Aerosmith song on virtually any streaming platform and listen to it in a matter of seconds. No download time, no saving it to a specific folder, just click, and you’re diving “Head First” into the era of musical consumption that Aerosmith helped establish.

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