Before The Internet

[Reverend Mayhem]

Back in the early '80s when I did most of my album buying (on vinyl, bitches) I used to go downtown to the massive used record store and spend hours flipping through the stacks. I'd usually take $20 and come away with a pretty good handful. My criteria sometimes came from word-of-mouth (friends who were into music) and often sources like Kerrang! magazine (really popular for hard rock/metal back then). I also bought a lot of albums on sight going simply off of the cover (hey, I was young and easily persuaded by "cool" cover art -- the record company production people really knew how to market to dupes like me). Those are great memories. Sadly, I ended up purging all those old LPs over the years as CDs started taking over. Nowadays the Interwebs and information superhighway (sites like this) REALLY make things easy!

[Reverend Mayhem]

I bought SO many albums strictly on sight that it's hard to remember any specific ones. I do know that I very frequently got burned, picking up some really shitty albums that way -- BUT since I usually bought them used, it didn't cost too much $$.

 

I also recall one of the few times I rushed out to the local record store after hearing a song on the radio: Great White's Once Bitten, after hearing "Rock Me" -- thought it was so cool I had to have it. Unfortunately, they didn't back-announce the song on the radio so I had NO idea who it was -- I had to ask the dudes at the head shop/record store if they knew what I was talking about. Luckily they did.

[JamesEagle]

Was I the only one whose habit was fuelled by the local library? Some of the first metal albums I heard were borrowed from the library near school, where I would go at lunch times when I was in sixth form (17-18 years old). Here I picked up cassettes such as 'Destiny' by Saxon, 'Girls, Girls, Girls' by Crue and 'Practice What You Preach' by Testament; all of which helped push me headlong towards a love for rock and metal. Ah, happy days!

 

(BTW - it nearly went so wrong, as I did also borrow Poison's 'Open Up And Say...Ahh!', which I absolutely hated! Happily, I didn't give up on the genre after that...)

[kourosofsteel3]

I got to thinking the other day about how easy it is these days for us to find out about bands/songs/albums/tours, etc. thanks to the internet ...

 

Those of us with a few years under our belts probably still remember how a lot of news/recommendations came via 'word of mouth', and I thought back to all the albums I've bought over the years without hearing a single note of the music simply because someone told me it was good, or because a review raved about it, or even just because I liked the picture on the cover. Off the top of my head, I came up with:

 

Guns n' Roses: Appetite For Destruction

Faster Pussycat: Faster Pussycat

Van Halen: 1984

Def Leppard: Pyromania

Kiss Of The Gypsy: Kiss Of The Gypsy

Motorhead: No Sleep 'til Hammersmith

Black Sabbath: Mob Rules

Krokus: One Vice At A Time

Black Sabbath: Heaven And Hell

AC/DC: Highway To Hell

Elixir: Son Of Odin

Motley Crue: Too Fast For Love

 

I don't know about the rest of you, but discovering new music this way was always exciting ... or maybe I'm just getting old and longing for 'the good old days'?

 

 

Personal top 5 lp from UK ( almost lethal potion is there also)!Soon i'll have to buy it again (and more expensive than the original lp + 7" single combined!)

Of course, i didn't discover them through the regular big magazines ( occasionally i used them as a guide of what to avoid), but from word of mouth, fanzines, tape-trading etc. Certainly, i'm not a freak of evolution or nostalgic dinosaur, there's was a lot of rip off going on back in the day, etc, etc... Now everything is easier and of course no more blind purchases ( although i find it painful that the best tracks of the latest helloween album weren't on the actual vinyl- no i didn't, neither i'll buy the japanese cds!)

[Leykis101]

 

 

I miss all of the magazines and the reviews. Sure there are more bands, releases and reviews on the net now but it's amost overwhelming at times because you can't afford to keep up with so many releases since it's so much easier and cheaper to record an album with the internet and computers.

You know what bro, and I don't care what anyone thinks about this, or about me for doing this, but I absolutely take advantage of file sharing and torrents, the way I see it, I spent years blowing money on overpriced Japanese imports, of bands I had never heard of, playing roulette basically hoping for every 5 bad discs, I could at least land one killer disc, when used CD shops started opening up, I think this is when things really started to progress forward, cause before the internet, you could pop into pawn shops, and used cd joints, and basically find all sorts of rare and unknown shit, you would get like the pawn shop having 20 for $20 cd sales, you could just blaze through them, something you never heard of, pull it out, check out the cover, the songs, and take a chance on it, I got to where I could spot out a rock or aor album, by the label, and the way the side name tray was formatted and printed out(ie Atlantic Records, ATCO, & CBS) if you know what I mean then you know exactly what I mean, if you dont know, I really cant explain it to you, but yeah, most everything that is released now, I head over to my 2 rock solid websites, download everything I want to check out, and when I catch one, that really grabs me, I instantly go to a website to purchase the disc, or I check Itunes for a download, generally I would much rather have the physical copy, but sometimes that's really hard, especially now a days where sometimes a physical cd isnt even produced for a certain album, fuck that, I am not going to buy anything blindly any longer, I did it all the way up until this last June, and now I illegally download and check out each album before I buy it, and so what, so all those $1000s or $10,000s of dollars ive spent over the last 20 or so years, on shit that only had one good song, but I couldnt know cause there was nothing made available to pre-listen to it, what I dont get a say about that, or those bands? but they cry and bitch over people "illegally downloading" there new albums, hey you know what, how many bands ive discovered by "illegal download"? some of my favorite bands ever I would have never even known of if I hadnt downloaded the band to hear them, I mean when it boils down to it, before I started doing it this way, I was basically a fucking sucker! they had my money the second I liked one song on it, and there was NO! refunds once I found out how bad the rest of the cd blew, I believe it's completely fair to be able to hear every last second of anything im going to pay for, no more ripping off the sucker cd buyers out there, thats what their truly pissed off about, that and it takes like .25 cents to make a cd, then selling them for $17.99, I know for a fact the band was only given .50 cents out of every cd sold, anyways, im done ranting, yeah, this is how the internet has truly opened up music.

I only read a bit of what you said, 'cause DAMN YOU TALK A LOT, CODY! But I agree with you, brother.

 

 

Bro that completely cool, cause you know what I think I do? I think people read like I do, I dont really read anyones posts word for word, I really just scan through it then respond, so I assume thats what everyone does, thats why I think I over detail shit, that and I love to hear myself talk, and I do NOT talk alot, I type alot, correct? but I do talk alot, why do you think I went into radio? my teachers made me take debate in high school, which I had zero interest in, but did rather well, I just really dont go on other boards, discuss other shit, so when I do, it's on hear, and I tend to really get into it, I will try to refrain.

[Gibbo]

 

 

I got to thinking the other day about how easy it is these days for us to find out about bands/songs/albums/tours, etc. thanks to the internet ...

 

Those of us with a few years under our belts probably still remember how a lot of news/recommendations came via 'word of mouth', and I thought back to all the albums I've bought over the years without hearing a single note of the music simply because someone told me it was good, or because a review raved about it, or even just because I liked the picture on the cover. Off the top of my head, I came up with:

 

Guns n' Roses: Appetite For Destruction

Faster Pussycat: Faster Pussycat

Van Halen: 1984

Def Leppard: Pyromania

Kiss Of The Gypsy: Kiss Of The Gypsy

Motorhead: No Sleep 'til Hammersmith

Black Sabbath: Mob Rules

Krokus: One Vice At A Time

Black Sabbath: Heaven And Hell

AC/DC: Highway To Hell

Elixir: Son Of Odin

Motley Crue: Too Fast For Love

 

I don't know about the rest of you, but discovering new music this way was always exciting ... or maybe I'm just getting old and longing for 'the good old days'?

 

Personal top 5 lp from UK ( almost lethal potion is there also)!Soon i'll have to buy it again (and more expensive than the original lp + 7" single combined!)

Of course, i didn't discover them through the regular big magazines ( occasionally i used them as a guide of what to avoid), but from word of mouth, fanzines, tape-trading etc. Certainly, i'm not a freak of evolution or nostalgic dinosaur, there's was a lot of rip off going on back in the day, etc, etc... Now everything is easier and of course no more blind purchases ( although i find it painful that the best tracks of the latest helloween album weren't on the actual vinyl- no i didn't, neither i'll buy the japanese cds!)

 

 

You can pick up all of Elixir's CDs (including 'Sovereign Remedy', the ORIGINAL version of 'Lethal Potion') from here: http://www.coldtown.com/ ... the new band, Midnight Messiah, are well worth a listen, too

[Gibbo]

 

Was I the only one whose habit was fuelled by the local library? Some of the first metal albums I heard were borrowed from the library near school, where I would go at lunch times when I was in sixth form (17-18 years old). Here I picked up cassettes such as 'Destiny' by Saxon, 'Girls, Girls, Girls' by Crue and 'Practice What You Preach' by Testament; all of which helped push me headlong towards a love for rock and metal. Ah, happy days!

 

(BTW - it nearly went so wrong, as I did also borrow Poison's 'Open Up And Say...Ahh!', which I absolutely hated! Happily, I didn't give up on the genre after that...)

No, I used to borrow LPs from the library, too ... MSG's 'Built To Destroy' and 'Rock Will Never Die', Styx's 'Caught In The Act' ... a couple by Hawkwind ... aah, happy days ...

[JamesEagle]

 

Was I the only one whose habit was fuelled by the local library? Some of the first metal albums I heard were borrowed from the library near school, where I would go at lunch times when I was in sixth form (17-18 years old). Here I picked up cassettes such as 'Destiny' by Saxon, 'Girls, Girls, Girls' by Crue and 'Practice What You Preach' by Testament; all of which helped push me headlong towards a love for rock and metal. Ah, happy days!

 

(BTW - it nearly went so wrong, as I did also borrow Poison's 'Open Up And Say...Ahh!', which I absolutely hated! Happily, I didn't give up on the genre after that...)

No, I used to borrow LPs from the library, too ... MSG's 'Built To Destroy' and 'Rock Will Never Die', Styx's 'Caught In The Act' ... a couple by Hawkwind ... aah, happy days ...

 

 

Happy = blissful ignorance about the number of awesome metal albums out there that we really needed to get our hands on!

 

[Shawn Of Fire]

I grew up in the early MTV age, so rarely did I buy anything 100% blind.

 

I did, however, buy PLENTY of albums simply because of one song or video:

 

Van Halen - 1984

Def Leppard - Pyromania

Journey - Frontiers

Bryan Adams - Reckless

Kiss - Asylum

Bon Jovi - 7800F

Mr. Mister - Welcome To The Real World

Ozzy - Bark At The Moon

David Lee Roth - Eat 'Em & Smile

Tesla - Mechanical Resonance

Cinderella - Night Songs

Dokken - Under Lock & Key