Bell System - Youth Radio Commercials
Posted on April 7, 2008 by Milan
Hidden in a nice pile of odd 45's found at the Amsterdam fleamarket, was this green, square flexi record. I really don't know why this made it to my house, must have been dirt cheap. Anyway, I've been very happy with this piece of advertisement history ever since. The 5 ads that are on it, each 60 minutes, are rather heavy material. Since this was probably aimed at college radio at the time of 1969, the tracks try very hard to be hip, freaky, psychedelic and cutting edge. Now I am not particularly fond of advertisments and in daily life I tend to avoid them if possible, but this particular stuff is in a league of it's own. Let's start with the best one, a pretty effective electronic impression of what I remember a bad trip was like. A wasted boy and girl state their names over a bed of what sounds like communication hell, with the brand name "Bell System" coming in and out of the void. They seem to be lost and in search of each other or of something else that's familiar. In my opinion this collage is quite accomplished. Of course this is advertisment so the whole thing ends in safe waters when the girl apparently sobers up enough to state the corny catch phrase "to communicate is the beginning of understanding".
Listen to Bell System's Bad Trip
It's that last phrase that's the refrain to the song that's featured on a couple of the other tracks. This corporate tune could have been a song from Zappa's "We're only in it for the money" so it remains to be seen how cutting edge this actually was in 1969 since it's clearly a parody of itself. Anyway, the attempt of this song to create some sort of community feel around their product is pretty bizarre (if not annoying).
Listen to “hip” tune
Last track of the flexi is quite a beautiful "good old times" style song of which I advise you to not listen to the lyrics. The girl singing is very nice and comforting, but hey, a "groovy chick" who sings about how she's always talking about her great love, the Bell System, is pretty off puting. I for one would kick her out of my… eh commune.
Listen to old time song
The remaining two tracks are more radical collages with wasted hippy impressions adding to the commercial confusion. One starts with a heavy voice stating: "This is an electronic entertainment". Now I'm sure this must have been sampled in some dance hit, no? Otherwise I must sell this for a thousand dollars on Ebay.
Filed under: 45's and 7's, Electronic, Instructional / Educational, Psych / Prog
3 Comments to “Bell System - Youth Radio Commercials”
Yeah ha ha, it’s the Uncle Meat of advertisement.
is this the whole record or just part of it?
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WOW.
Alexander Graham Bell would be prou… err, freak the fuck out.
THE SYSTEM! THE SYSTEM!
I’ve been to this point, this ad firm nailed it.