Once upon a time, record companies would advertise their biggest artists' new albums…on television. You read that right. Some of music’s legends had their most successful LP’s advertised during your favorite TV shows. One of them was Madonna.
In the summer of 1986, The Material Girl dropped her third album, True Blue. Obviously, the anticipation was high, as she was the most famous woman in the world, and part of the pop trinity of Michael Jackson, Prince, and herself at that moment. Her record companies, Sire/Warner Bros., were going to get the word out about True Blue, so they pulled out all of the stops. One of them was this TV spot for the album:
This ad must’ve done its job, because True Blue ended up becoming a smash. The album sold seven million copies in the United States, and became the best selling album of 1986.
Did Madonna need this commercial to sell records? Probably not. But, we got a cool cultural artifact out of it, and a little more Madonna. That ain’t a bad thing at all.
