When Words Sold Music

“You can’t miss Tobias Jesso Jr.,” the text said. Get in the mood with Tobias before he get’s in the mood with you. The fragments, the vague promises of genius, the period as favored punctuation mark—even setting aside the yellowed background color and cruddy ink-on-paper picture quality, the ad was a clear callback to printed music ads of the ‘60s and ‘70s.