Every other story in The Boston Globe is about Aerosmith
Cover of Toys in the Attic
No, I’m not from Boston. And, no I’m not a big Aerosmith fan, either (post “Toys in the Attic,” anyway). So maybe I’m just not the target audience, but as someone who often looks at The Boston Globe to see what’s going on in that part of the world, I have to wonder why it is that the paper feels the need to publish so many articles on the band. In recent weeks I’ve read about a summer of bad luck. About how Stephen Tyler, the dude who sometimes looks like a lady, is also looking old (and he is old, after all). About the band members who the band discarded. About a supposed rift among band members who weren’t discarded. About Aerosmith’s drummer getting married. Today’s speculative piece is on whether or not the lead singer has quit. And that gave way to another sycophantic set of blurbs with photo gallery “Aerosmith through the years.”
Yes, the new media landscape has lowered The Globe’s fortunes. The internet is making them, and every other newspaper (save The Wall Street Journal) less relevant and profitable. But really, is the way to recapture market share to become the official website of a band that hasn’t really been very good for an awful long time? How many more summer movie power ballads does this world need at this point?
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It’s more than just the new media landscape that’s been bearing down on the Globe – for a solid chunk of the year, the very future of the paper was up in the air, with the New York Times threatening, well, to do just about anything they wanted with the paper. And even though the Times made the decision to keep the paper, the Times Co’s ownership of the Globe has, over the years, sort of made the Globe redundant.
It’s also made the Globe really focus its energies on the local… In fact, the Globe’s localized blogs have been expanding, and it’s coverage of Kennedy’s death was just about as in-depth as you could imagine. So, considering a large chunk of the Globe’s main coverage over the past few years has been sports (the Sox, Celtics and Patriots championships no doubt helped the paper out a bit), something like a musical institution like Aerosmith is – for better or worse – a local news story with a lot of pull.
Also, 10 more summer movie ballads should do the trick!