Howard Bloom

Howard Bloom (born June 25, 1943) is an American author. He was a music publicist in the 1970s and 1980s for singers and bands such as Prince, Billy Joel, and Styx.End of the World is Less than 2 Billion Years Away Predicts Howard Bloom
December 18, 2012 He has published a book on Islam, ''The Muhammad Code,'' an autobiography, ''How I Accidentally Started The Sixties'', and three books on human evolution and group behavior: ''The Genius of the Beast'', ''Global Brain'', and '' The Lucifer Principle.''

Early life

Bloom was born to a Jewish family in Buffalo, New York.Psychology Today: "The God Problem: An Interview with Howard Bloom - How does the universe account for its own creation?
August 28, 2012 He became interested in science, especially cosmology and microbiology, as early as the age of ten. By age sixteen Bloom was working as an assistant researching the immune system at the Roswell Park Memorial Research Cancer Institute. Bloom graduated from New York University and, at the age of twenty-five, veered from his scientific studies to work as an editor for a rock magazine. Bloom would go on to found one of the largest public relations firms in the music industry.

Career

Public relations

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. 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".Nilsen, Per (2003) Dance Music Sex Romance: Prince: The First Decade. SAF Publishing 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.Whitaker, Serling. (2007) ''Styx: The Grand Delusion: The Unauthorized True Story of Styx''. Booksurge He was hired by Columbia Records to make Billy Joel "more media friendly".Smith, Bill (2007). ''I Go To Extremes: The Billy Joel Story''. Robson Books.

Bloom was also a publicist for Michael Jackson,Aaron Hicklin (February 18, 2001). "Starbucking the trend;manhattan transfer". ''The Sunday Herald''.Anna Sommerville (January 17, 2000). "The truth is out there and it is much stranger than fiction" ''The Scotsman''. Cyndi Lauper, Talking Heads, Lionel Richie, ZZ Top,Aaron Hicklin (February 4, 2001). "Wise guy;manhattan transfer" ''The Sunday Herald''. Bette Midler, AC/DC, Simon & Garfunkel,Susan R. Lisman, Karla Dougherty (2007) Chronic Fatigue Syndrome for Dummies, Wiley John Mellencamp, Earth, Wind & Fire, and Kiss. He handled Bob Marley during his Uprising Tour.

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 ... hosenbsp;... 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".

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". According to Derek Sutton, manager of the Styx, he was "probably the greatest press agent that rock and roll has ever known." In 1986, the Howard Bloom Organization was reported to be "one of the most successful independent public relations firms in the music business. n 1985 his acts grossed $333 million."

Books

Bloom has written a number of books, including: ''The Genius of the Beast'', ''Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century'', and '' The Lucifer Principle''. His books discuss ideas ranging from human nature to what makes rock and roll artists successful. According to Bloom: "Everything from the wolf-pack behavior of music business executives to the lemming-like conduct of hypocritical journalists helped shape my insights" and that " e real magic of rock happens at a concert, where if the performers are successful, individuals ... merge in a pulse of common emotion ... This consolidation mirrors the force that create much of both human good and evil".Adcroft, Patrice (February 1995
Giving Beelzebub equal time: Howard Bloom's journey to the heart of darkness in the Lucifer Principle.
'' Spin'' vol 10 (11) p. 86. He founded the International Paleopsychology Project, an Internet group "to study the development of the universe from its conception to the present". Individuals crediting him with inspiration include the scientist Peter Corning and science fiction writer Greg Bear.

His fourth book, ''The God Problem: How A Godless Cosmos Creates'', was issued August 24, 2012.

His memoir, ''How I Accidentally Started The Sixties'', was published in 2017.

Personal life

Bloom developed chronic fatigue syndrome in 1988, which left him housebound. The 2007 book '' Chronic Fatigue Syndrome For Dummies'' lists Bloom as one of the ten most famous people with CFS. In 2001, the New York City Clerk's Office refused to issue him a marriage license in his home, though marriage licenses can be arranged for those unable to attend its office, for those confined to hospitals, nursing homes and prisons.Montero, Douglas (June 4, 2001). "Red tape gums up trip down aisle". ''New York Post''. After this decision was publicized, a personal visit was made by the city clerk to Bloom's house to issue the license. ''The New York Times'' observed that regulations in regard to obtaining licenses at the city clerk's office were likely in breach of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

Bloom considers himself a non-militant yet "stone-cold atheist" and lives in Brooklyn, New York. In 1986, Bloom joined with Bob Guccione, Jr., Ted Nugent, John Waite and Sheena Easton to form ''Music in Action'', an organization protesting the censorship against rock music being advocated for at the time by religious fundamentalists such as Jimmy Swaggart.

An article by Bloom published in '' Omni'' magazine, "The importance of hugging", suggested that "Islamic cultures treat their children harshly, they despise open displays of affection ... the result is violent adults", and as a consequence, "An entire people may have turned barbaric for the simple lack of a hug." This claim led the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee to organize a sit-in at ''Omnis New York head office. His article has been described as "not unlike some forms of religious anti-Semitism", and together with similar comments in his book ''The Lucifer Principle'', "an example of Orientalist (and racist) literature".Louise Cainkar (2009). ''Homeland Insecurity: The Arab American and Muslim American Experience After 9/11''. Russell Sage Foundation. Bloom has written that "Arab pressure groups asked ever so politely ... that nothing that I write be published again. They offered to boycott my publisher's products — all of them — worldwide. And they backed their warning with a call for my punishment in seventeen Islamic countries."

Books

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* Bloom, Howard K. (2010). ''The Genius of the Beast : A Radical Re-vision of Capitalism''. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. . .
* Bloom, Howard K. (2000). ''The Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century''. New York, N.Y.: Wiley. . .
* Bloom, Howard K. (1995). ''The Lucifer Principle : A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History''. New York, N.Y.: The Atlantic Monthly Press. . .

References

External links

*Houle, David (September 6, 2007)
"Howard Bloom On The Future Of Energy: Turn Poisons Into Pleasure And Excrement Into Energy"
Science 2.0
*Udell, Jon (September 28, 2009)
"The Global Brain"
Conversations Network.
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bloom, Howard
1943 births
Living people
Writers from Buffalo, New York
Jewish American atheists
American music people
American public relations people
American science writers
Evolutionary psychologists
Jewish American writers
People with chronic fatigue syndrome
American critics of Islam