Advertising

Though they weren't around for long, Advertising managed one brilliantly eccentric album, 1978's Jingles. The punk-era Cambridge pop band formed in 1976 around Tot Taylor and Simon Boswell, both of whom strummed and sang. Taylor had appeared earlier in A Special Moment and the Blue Kittens, a theatrical band which released no material but did compose a musical. The punk explosion inspired Taylor to form a pop band, and with Boswell, he decided on the name Advertising. The early single "Lipstick" just missed the UK charts in 1977 (and deserved much better), but the group signed with EMI Records for their debut album, Jingles. Its lack of success, however, caused the band's break-up. While Taylor began a solo career soon after, Boswell emerged first as a producer and later as the founder of Live Wire and Data.