Listener Jim over at WFMU’s blog has an informative post about something you may have never heard; Industrial Musics (I know the first time I heard American Standards’ 1969 The Bathrooms Are Coming LP I was speechless). Also called “Corporate Musicals” or “Industrial Shows,” Industrial Musics are songs resulting from live industry trade show presentations, where corporations would put on whole musical numbers with singers, dancers and stage shows about their products. They really took off in the 1950’s and 60’s – but waned by the 80’s as video and multimedia presentation took over the industry. Jim’s post has a huge collection of downloadable mp3 examples from the genre – which I have now put into my iPod. I can’t wait to go briskly jogging to Exxon’s hi-energy “Up Came Oil!,” or contemplate life with a stroll through the park as I listen to Emerson/Chromalox’s contemplative “The Eight Seasons of Chromalox.”

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