Cool Concert and Album Ads of the 70s

Written by on January 9, 2016

YouTube has done a great service in preserving the kind of stuff that used to disappear forever before there was anyplace to put it. For example, there are thousands, maybe millions, of hours of TV commercials on YouTube–and some of the most interesting ones are for record albums and concerts.
There’s a two-minute spot for the 1978 Styx tour. Its length makes it a little unusual–I am not sure where it was intended to air, although maybe Styx’s management thought it was worthwhile to buy two-minute ads in key markets where the band was playing. In any case, viewers were urged to prepare for guys with awesome hair and a lead singer in a vest and tie. See it here. 
In 1978, Bruce Springsteen released the album Darkness on the Edge of Town, his first album in three years. The TV spot for the album is fun to watch because Bruce and his sax man, Clarence Clemons, both look so young, but a friend of mine points out that the tone of the ad has very little to do with darkness. See it here. 
Steely Dan’s 1978 album Aja is a favorite of mine, and the TV ad was extremely cool–and inscrutable, as Steely Dan frequently was. See it here. 
I’ll be back with more of these the next time I disappear down a YouTube rabbit hole, which could be any minute now. 


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