Howard Bloom Accidentally Invented the 60's - By Rob McConnell

In 1974 Bloom was made the head of public relations of ABC Records. He also was briefly head of Gulf+Western's music publicity department. In 1976, he founded The Howard Bloom Organization.[2] In 1980, Bloom suggested to Prince and his management that he "aggressively pursue the rock and new wave audience ... Consequently, Prince's management put together a series of performances designed with racially mixed audiences in mind".He tutored the band Styx in how to appeal to "more staid magazines" such as the Wall Street Journal and People and so make them mainstream. He was hired by Columbia Records to make Billy Joel "more media friendly".
Bloom was also a publicist for Michael Jackson, Cyndi Lauper] Talking Heads, Lionel Richie, ZZ Top, Bette Midler, AC/DC, Simon & Garfunkel, John Mellencamp, Earth, Wind & Fire and Kiss. He handled Bob Marley during his Uprising Tour.[18][19]
Bloom has been described in a biography of Billy Joel as "the public relations spinmeister to have on your payroll in the seventies and eighties if you were a musician and your image needed to be authenticated to the masses". With his company he had successfully transformed and launched the careers of many rock stars including John Mellencamp, KISS, Hall and Oates, AC/DC, and Run DMC". He has also been described as "one of the most successful publicists of his generation, a star maker whose client list was a Who's Who of rock and roll ... [whose] ... interest in rock and roll had more to do with the study of mass psychology in action than furthering the aggrandizement of spoiled rock stars. He approached PR as an applied science".[3]
In 1979, New York Magazine put him in the "Hot 100 plus" as one of its "Big Dealmakers" and observed, "His brain is a vinyl storage system: the most thorough and efficient".[20] According to Derek Sutton, manager of the Styx, he was "probably the greatest press agent that rock and roll has ever known."[3] In 1986, the Howard Bloom Organization was reported to be "one of the most successful independent public relations firms in the music business. [In 1985], his acts grossed $333 million."