Cashbox Magazine Archives

[Zzzptm]

https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/Cash-Box-Magazine.htm

These are fascinating to go back through... find all kinds of nuggets in them.

This is a magazine for people in the music business, so there are no ads for things other than the music (and, well, they also do stuff with juke boxes, arcade games, and video rentals... but it's mostly music from 1949 and on). The ads are targeting the retailers from distributors and labels, with varying levels of sophistication. As time goes on, the slickness improves and the styles change.

And if you want to look up a particular album, start with its release date in the USA and work forward for ads and reviews. The text of the PDFs is searchable in browsers - for the most part, as highly-stylized text in graphics won't show up - which aids in finding mentions of bands/musicians in magazines.

I've downloaded all of them to refer to locally for research I do with my radio shows, and it's a pleasure to just scroll through and find those interesting nuggets. Like Meat Loaf's Motown album... lots of fun in these.