This Hip are one of those bands that I like, but only their singles. If you have their best-of, you truly own everything you need to by the band. I’ve had a few full albums of theirs over the years, and the filler is utterly forgettable. I do like those singles, though, but the constant “We’re Canadian! Pay attention to how Canadian we are!!!” bothers me in any act that prizes geography over everything else.
I’ve heard that the whole “We’re Canadian!” thing is why the Tragically Hip never caught on south of the border.
Aerosmith
To me they sound like a bunch of high school kids!
And to all those Aerosmith fans, the band is called AERO-Smith!
It is NOT Arrowsmith!!!
Thank you! Thank you! I’ve wanted to get that beef off of my chest for some time. 
You might be fighting a losing battle — in one of Stephen King’s early novels (I think it might have been the trimmed down The Stand), he uses Arrowsmith incorrectly as the name of the band. Maybe his editor’s to blame?
People here on the SDMB seem to all know better. There have been at least a couple recent threads referencing the band, and everyone spelled it correctly. And a quick search of the boards didn’t turn up anyone spelling it “Arrowsmith.” (I found quite a few threads with “Arrowsmith” in them, but most were referencing the (correctly spelled) Sinclair Lewis novel.)
Literary side note: If it was The Stand King has a built in excuse. That world, like others, is one of the many side branches of the realities that center upon the Tower in King’s multiverse. It is pretty explicitly not the “main” one that King (also a character) lives in. So in that particular… strand… of reality (visited by the protagonist of the Gunslinger novels) it may well be Arrowsmith.
And I like individual Aerosmith songs, but I agree that the vocals evoke a love it or hate it. I don’t hate it, but I can see why other people would.
I’m not referring to the spelling,but phonetics. the people who read, see, recognize the band’s name ‘Aerosmith’ being spelled as such, but pronouncing it as “Arrowsmith”.
Added note, just for the heck of it: I like the band…but, their earlier stuff. After 1979, they’re dead to me.
If the correct pronunciation of the band’s name is not “AIR-oh-smith” (which is pretty much the only way I have ever heard it pronounced, in 50 years), please educate us. (FWIW, if I had to pronounce the word “arrowsmith,” I’d pronounce it exactly the same way.)
Weird Al.
He’s a super nice dude, but his music just isn’t funny to me. It’s also not enjoyable to listen to.
Yeah, in my Great Lakes dialect here in Chicago, “aero” and “arrow” are homophones. I’m not even entirely sure what the difference can be. Looking at Merriam-Webster online and comparing pronunciations of “aeroplane” and “arrow,” the difference is in the second syllable, a schwa vs a “long o.” But surely that can’t be it. I’ve never heard anyone say “AIR-uh-smith.”
Now, dictionary.com gives me a hint that it is the first syllable that is different, which my dialect doesn’t distinguish. One is supposedly a plain “short a,” and the other is the diphthong in “air.” I’m assuming it’s related to the Mary-marry-merry merger. @Brickbat, are you from a place that pronounces “Mary,” “marry,” and “merry” differently?
Same here. Same as marry, Mary, merry. All the same, differentiated by context.
I found this video interview, probably from sometime in the mid-to-late '80s (i.e., just after the “Walk This Way” collaboration with Run-D.M.C.), with Steven Tyler and Joe Perry. Tyler says the band’s name several times, and it sounds, to my ears, somewhere between “AIR-oh-smith” and “AIR-uh-smith.”
WTF? Are you implying that I’m making the exact opposite claim? You’re claiming that Aerosmith pronounced “Air-o-smith” is the only way you’ve ever heard it pronounced. It is they way I pronounce it too, and I believe to be the proper way ( homosphones notwithstanding ). I’m claiming I have indeed heard others pronounce it as “Arrowsmith”, to my annoyance.
I’m saying that, to my Midwestern ears and accent, “Aerosmith” (AIR-oh-smith) and “arrowsmith” would be pronounced the same way. I suspect we’re dealing with regional pronunciation differences.
So, how do these people who annoy you pronounce the band’s name like “arrowsmith,” but in a way that sounds different from “AIR-oh-smith?”
I’m with @kenobi_65 - when I hear/say Aero (such as aerospace) it is nigh-identical to arrow. I mean, if I’m super careful in enunciation, there is a slight “w” from lip-shaping with Arrow, but in a compound word? I can’t tell the difference.
Born in MASS, lived most of my life 6-50 in the US southwest, mostly NM and CO if it helps in terms of regional dialect and pronunciation.
That must be it. Boiling it down a bit further, are the words by themselves “Aero” and “Arrow” ( as in the bow-driven projectile ) pronounced the same in your area of the midwest?
Yes, they are. Which begs the question: what is the difference in pronunciation in your area?
Their output declined badly in the latter half of their run. The first three albums are absolutely terrific and there are still a lot of excellent singles on the next few, but after that it’s just like a band trying to be the Tragically Hip.
And so in a way, the Hip are, to me, both sides of this question. For eight to ten years they were insanely great, producing a wild number of wonderful songs, and for another 15, they were widely regarded as a national treasure even though none of their music was actually very good and I couldn’t make it through many of those later albums more than once. “Road Apples” is one of the greatest rock albums humans have ever recorded; “Now For Plan A” does not have a single song that can be described as interesting, original, well written, or anything else positive - and yet it sold like hotcakes, 'cause “Tragically Hip.”
Musicians run out of ideas at some point.
Let’s see: From my northeastern ( but not New England ) and eastern seaboard immersion.
“Aero”, the first syllable rhymes with the word “yeah”.
“Arrow”: this is going to be tough trying to compensate for regional differences. First syllable “Ah”, but not the wider open mouthed “ah” one does when the doctor says “open wide”, if that makes any sense, which it might not.