These posts celebrate the movie trailers, movie posters, commercials, print ads, and other promotional material that stand as their own works of art. 

I can assure you that college radio programmers required no heavy-handed promotional coercion when They Might Be Giants release their sophomore album, Lincoln, in the fall of 1988. Even so, it was a fine reassurance that trade publication advertisements for the release from the oddball, wildly creative duo eschewed the usually bland band photo or rote rendering of the album cover. In keeping with the cleverness of the band, Lincoln was touted with a succession of images offering a reminder of other things that had carried the same name over the years, such as the tunnel and the log, and the promise of “18 new songs to rock your world from a couple of guys named John.” It’s an incredibly simple ad. It’s also one of the only ones from my college radio days that I still remember, over thirty years later.

Other entries in this series can be found by clicking on the “Art of the Sell” tag.