Comments on: When music advertising’s aim was true

By: Paul Gorman

Paul Gorman — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:40:59 +0000

Hi Mark
Good to hear from you.
What a great point you make about what would now be pigeonholed as the early 90s trash aesthetic.
When I lived in LA at the time, one of the things I really got into was the visuals emanating out of Get Hip/Crypt/SFTR (as well as their great music which was such an antidote to the prevailing atmosphere).
I guess it was this rougher graphic style (as exemplified by the great Art Chantry) which was smoothed out by the faux-indie likes of Matador and Sub Pop (though on their day they still did great work).
Add to that the great likes of Eugene Arthole for Damaged Goods/Vinyl Japan/Hangman coming over from Blighty and suddenly I realised that these all had Barney in common - THAT’s why I paid for all of his albums etc to be kept in storage!

By: Mark Lungo

Mark Lungo — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:30:00 +0000

Thanks for sharing this material with us, Paul! I’m convinced that the Riviera and Bubbles’ clever campaigns helped pioneer the smartass advertising style used by American postpunk labels such as Sub Pop and Matador. I hope you can post more ads from the “This Year’s Model” series, as well as more Radar ads in general.

By: Paul Gorman

Paul Gorman — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 08:37:31 +0000

Hi Joly
Thought I’d keep it polite!
Did you do any badges? Don’t recall off the top of my head/in the groggy early morn.
Sure someone will be along to inform and correct me.

By: Joly MacFie

Joly MacFie — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 05:38:45 +0000

> Meanwhile retailers were provided with in-store cut-outs of the back cover shot;

“Provided” is too mild a word. The tag team of T. Razor and K. Vinyl used practically mobster tactics IIRC.

By: Paul Gorman

Paul Gorman — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:10:34 +0000

Hands down Will.
Consider what else was going on. Within a 20-week radius of My Aim Is True coming out Sex Pistols, The Clash, Iggy and Bowie (the latter two with two albums) all released the defining records of their career.
God what a time to be a popular music fan. Of course I bought them all and was not only bowled over by the music but impressed with various aspects of their design, promotion etc.
Iggy, Bowie and The Clash provided great copy but were sometimes let down by their visuals, and the Pistols and Malcolm had the lock on press, providing a story filled with content, but not even they and Jamie Reid could match the sustained way in which this advertising campaign rolled out, propelled of course as it was by Costello’s presence and amazing songs which really kicked in once the Attractions were on board.
That, with Nick Lowe’s production, Jake’s fearlessness and Barney’s brilliance, provided one of the most almighty rides in popular music for at least the next four years, wouldn’t you agree?
Apart from, maybe, someone whose initials were ID?

By: Rebecca and Mike

Rebecca and Mike — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:54:41 +0000

hello there,

it’s interesting to assess Barney’s work as campaigns (something which is often difficult to do because finding all the pieces is not easy). we haven’t dropped a comment into your blog for a while, so thought it was about time we shared some more info to add to all this! don’t worry though, we’ll keep it down to edited highlights and avoid boring everyone to death LOL.

one of the exciting things about the ‘My Aim Is True’ campaign, was also the custom and personalised stickered sleeve that went out in response to the ‘Help Us Hype Elvis’ inserts - certainly a key item of that particular part of the story.

and the advert series for ‘This Years Model’ went beyond being a 3-part series (as you mention in your post above), it will delight and confound (a frequent experience in our own Barney Bubbles research) to hear that this series had at least 6 parts, with the additional title-themes of ‘Pop Stars’, ‘Cars’ and ‘Personalities’, all of which contain as many in-jokes as the three pictured above.

(similar too for the Devo ad series pictured a few kilometres lower in this blog!)

also just had a quick question about the Chilli Willi ‘vibrator’ ad… do you think that this advert actually ran in Let it Rock? we know the artwork is marked up for this publication, but we’ve never been able to find it in the magazine, or indeed in any other magazine.

By: Will Birch

Will Birch — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:28:42 +0000

Fabulous reconstruction of a great campaign, It’s not only about the music, is it? The music is the most important thing but if the people are not drawn in, inspired, motivated to investigate, then the music will sadly not flourish. Is this the best ‘hype’ of credible artistry in living memory?