Steven Tyler American Idol rumors boost Aerosmith FM radio airplay
August 16, 2010 by Bill Palmer · 1 Comment
Time will tell what impact the rumors of Steven Tyler joining American Idol as a judge, if true, will have on the future of his band Aerosmith. But in the short team at least, the storyline appears to be having a positive effect on Aerosmith’s popularity and exposure – and not simply because the band’s name is being mentioned in the headlines so frequently of late. Aerosmith has seen its songs in rotation on FM radio for a generation, even though the band hasn’t had a new hit song (or even released a new album of mainstream material) for nearly a decade. But this past weekend, I spent a total of about six hours on the road, the majority of it tuned into various FM radio stations in the multiple markets that I passed through. And what I found was seemingly all Aerosmith, all the time.
Based on my own (admittedly fading) memory, I’d say that Aerosmith songs were easily being played three times as often this past week as they have been during any other time I’ve sunk myself into long-term radio listening in the recent past. As usual, the classic rock stations were playing the Sweet Emotion-era stuff, while the pop forty stations were more focused on Crying and What It Takes. But stations seemed to be digging deeper into the Aerosmith catalog, playing songs I hadn’t heard on the radio in years, and doing so with such frequency that if I weren’t a fan of the band, I might have even been annoyed by it (actually it’s the contrary; call me old-school, but when Aerosmith comes on, I crank it up).
It’s not as if every local DJ suddenly and independently got the idea to start playing more Aerosmith; most of these “local” stations are owned by the same handful of soul-destroying conglomerates, and so this is more about a few stiffs in suits deciding somewhere in a board room that more Aerosmith should be played on the radio across the country for as long as the names “Steven Tyler” and “American Idol” are appearing in the same headlines. But if it serves to help properly introduce Aerosmith to a younger generation, then so be it. After all, when I was in high school and Aerosmith had their (second) big comeback in the early nineties, we were only vaguely aware that they were an older “seventies” band making a comeback. If anything, we started with Get A Grip and then some of us worked our way backwards to the classic stuff. With Aerosmith not having made a radio-suitable album since about 2001 (Honkin’ on Bobo doesn’t count in that regard), there hasn’t been that new bridge to hook the younger generation – but perhaps the Idol tie-in is it.
After all, as crazy as it seems to someone who’s just old enough to remember back when Paula Abdul was the coolest, trendiest pop singer out there once upon a time, a lot of today’s younger audience had no idea who she was until she appeared on Idol. Of course by that time her pop career was officially over, whereas last I checked, Aerosmith is still selling out major concert venues as we speak. What effect Tyler’s twice-weekly appearances on American Idol would have on Aerosmith’s ability to go on tour, let alone finally make a new record, is unclear. But if it helps introduce one of the most important rock bands of all time to a bunch of teenagers in a positive way, them I’ll for Steven signing on as an Idol judge. After all, just the mere rumor of it has already helped improve FM radio.
Review: Altec inMotion Classic
September 23, 2009 by Beatweek · 4 Comments
New in iProng Labs: a hands-on review of the inMotion Classic portable stereo system for iPhone and iPod, available for $149 from Altec Lansing…
review by Bill Palmer
When Apple appends the word “classic” to the name of one of its products, it’s typically an intentional death knell: the gradual phase-out begins immediately, and there will be no significant upgrades to the product in the mean time. But apparently Altec Lansing has a different definition of the word, as the new “inMotion Classic” (also known as the iMT620) includes a number of revisions and enhancements despite having largely the same feature set on paper as its predecessor, the iM600.
Not that the two look anything like each other. Gone is the all-black, rounded corner design of the iM600 in favor of Altec Lansing’s current favored trapezoidal styling of black and silver with gold trim, with the clearly defined line giving the illusion that the Classic is smaller when it’s really about the same size as its predecessor (actually about an inch wider left to right). The biggest functional change is that the old flip-out dock has been replaced a recessed one, and the unit now stands upright thanks to a swing-out arm that acts as a stand (and can also be folded straight up and used as a carrying handle). Perhaps it’s this simplification that allowed room in the budget for other new features. The bundled remote control now includes the ability to navigate up and down your iPhone’s or iPod’s menus. And the LCD screen, which was kind of a waste on the iM600 because it only displayed the track info from FM radio and not from songs playing on your iPod, now rectifies that. It still misidentifies your iPhone as an “iPod” but that’s being picky.
Audio quality is marginally improved on the Classic. It wasn’t immediately noticeable when I put the Classic and iM600 side by side, but it became more apparent when I got to songs that were more bass-heavy. I wouldn’t suggest ditching your iM600 in favor of the Classic based on the slightly improved audio quality alone; it’s the other features that make this a significant upgrade.
In fact, perhaps surprisingly, the Classic pretty much wipes the floor with Logitech’s new competing S315i, which is twenty dollars cheaper but doesn’t come all that close on audio quality and doesn’t come with a remote, or offer a built-in radio or an LCD screen or a built-in handle. However, the Classic falls down significantly in comparison to the S315i in one area: battery life. Both products include a built-in rechargeable lithium battery. But while the S315i offers ten hours of battery life (twenty in “reduced audio quality” mode), the Classic offers a comparatively meager five hours – and that’s with the Classic being about twenty percent thicker front to back than the S315i. It’s not quite as head-scratching as Altec’s slightly larger MAX, which only offers 3.5 hours of battery life, but it’s still unfortunate that the Classic offers only half the battery life of its primary competitor, when it otherwise outpaces it in just about every way.
And that alone keeps the Classic from being a five star product, despite the fact that overall it’s the best portable iPod/iPhone system at the sub-$150 price point to ever hit the market.
There’s one other issue with the Classic which initially threw me off and eventually grew to feel like a very minor thing, but worth mentioning if for no other reason than future reference: the on-board control buttons, which were semi-randomly split between the top surface and the docking well of the old iM600, have been smartly all placed on the top of the Classic. However, they’ve been centered in such a way that the two buttons you’re likely to use most often during playback, volume up and volume down, are directly behind the docking well. With a shorter device like an iPod nano they’re still visible, but my iPhone stood tall enough to hide them, at least when I had the Classic sitting at eye level. And so the first few times I reached for the volume I absent-mindedly rammed my fingers into my iPhone. Within my first day with the unit I’d gotten very used to accessing them easily, and I’m a klutz to begin with. But the six topside buttons really should be split left and right of the dock on the next iteration of this product. Ultimately, however, I felt that this wasn’t something that should affect the product’s rating, particularly since the new button layout does make more sense than the previous iterations’ scattershot placement.
Consider the Logitech S315i if you place battery life above all else. But otherwise, Altec Lansing’s Classic is your winner for portable systems at this price point – by a long shot.
Learn more about the inMotion Classic at AltecLansing.com.
