Ever bought an album based solely on the cover?

[auslander]

Have you ever bought an album, without hearing a song or reading a review? Maybe you just picked it up based on the cover art, or the band logo and name, maybe looked at the band photo and song titles on the back and thought, "yep, this looks alright" and slapped down the cash?

What was the album? Was it a good find or were you disappointed?

[tts42572]

Don't do that at all anymore in these days of You Tube, Streaming, etc.  But did that frequently back in the day.  I remember always strolling into a local music shop and just thumbing through CD's or Cassettes and trying to find something to listen to that looked good.  Heck, there weren't many other choices back then.  Sometimes maybe you were lucky and heard a song on the radio or MTV.  But often for me it was looking at photos, logos or whatever.

I struggle even remembering which ones I did that with but 2 of my favorites were Roxy Blue's Want Some and Firehouse's debut album.  I vividly remember with Roxy Blue looking at the cover and thinking, this just has to be good lol.  I'm not sure what drew me to Firehouse....Think I liked the band name, was itching for something new to listen to and it just looked like it was worth a try.

There were probably plenty I bought based on looks that turned out absolutely horrible too lol.  I'm not remembering who they were because, well....they weren't very memorable!  But I know there were CD's I bought that I'd listen to and then toss in the trash like it was a losing scratch off lotto ticket lol.   

[lettard]

Quite a few...my friends and I used to got to a local music shop every Saturday..it sold cassettes in racks that were locked so you could only see the front and back...so based on that you made your purchase...I picked up XYZ-s/t,Hurricane-Slave To The Thrill, Firehouse-s/t,Winger-s/t,Sleeze Beez-Screwed Blued & Tattooed,Unruly Child-s/t,Wall Of Silence-Shock To The System,Giant-Last Of The Runaways,Tall Stories-s/t,Southgang-Tainted Angel,Billionaires Boys Club-Something Wicked Comes to name but a few using this tactic...ok not everything I grabbed was as good as them...but I like to think I had a good eye and my technique down to a tee...then I discovered through Kerrang other shops such as S.T Records(still going) as well as their reviews and the rest as they say is history...I sort of miss that...but having said that at the end of the eighties into early 90's,when this was,there were so many great releases...which we now consider classics  

Edited March 18, 2022 by lettard

[auslander]

I have done it a few times still recently. I have a few sellers I have saved and sometimes they list things I know nothing about. The latest was this album listed for $3 by a singer called Jamie Dakota. She looked like a rocking Cyndi Lauper so I thought "how bad could it be?" It hasn't arrived yet, but I'm hoping for an undiscovered jewel ala Chrissy Steele meets Pat Benatar. We will see...

[Darkstone]

Yeah, as mentioned before, not so much since the days of youtube, etc. 

There was a time however, when that was the only thing we had to go by.

I do click on thumbnails these days though based on your criteria, so I guess it's a modern version of the same thing. 

As for the strike rate, it was always hit or miss.

A few of the special ones for me off the top of my head would be, 

 Velocity - Impact 

Tim Feehan - Full Contact

Shotgun Symphony - ST

Flame - ST

Steelhouse Lane - Metallic Blue

Roxy Blue - Want Some?

Misha Calvin - Evolution

Sic Vikki - Kiss Me In French

Amongst many others.

 

Many disappointments also of course.

I'll have to have a think about those.

 

Edited March 19, 2022 by Darkstone

[lettard]

5 hours ago, Darkstone said:

Many disappointments also of course.

I'll have to have a think about those.

 

Yeah its so disappointing when you grab a dud...it was hard enough years ago to scrape the money together to buy a new tape...then for it to be crap was a real bummer...the complete opposite of finding one of the gems we've mentioned...I too grabbed Flame solely on the cover...still have all my old cassettes...but they haven't turned a spool in a very long time 

[CureTheSane]

Yeah, heaps.
Especially early on, as we didn't really get much info on hard rock bands over here.
There was Circus, and Metal Edge and Hit Parader, but as an 18 to 24 year old, I wasn't sitting in my room dissecting rock mags, I was out partying.
So I'd see something and grab it and usually it was great.

One that sticks out was Stryper - Soldiers Under Command.
I'm like "whoa, look at these guys, yellow & black, guns, guitars,"
So I grab it and put it on and I'm doing other stuff, just with background music happening, not really paying too much attention, until I hear "Jeeeeeesuuuus, king, king of kings" and I'm thinking "what the actual fuck?"
I read the lyrics and it's the first Christian album I bought.
Which I guess is a good thing as I wouldn't have touched it otherwise, much like all the other Christian bands out there.

Aside from that, I remember visiting Bali when I was maybe 19 or 20 and they were all over hard rock.
So much music blasting from the music stores as you walked past. They were all about cassettes and I was pretty much only vinyl but they were so cheap there (copies) I bought like 50 and brought them home. Listened to them all and checked the duds and replaced the good ones with records.

Even now when I hear a Hollywood Vampires, Zinatra, LA Guns etc track it still brings back memories of hearing these the first time walking the streets.

[Darkstone]

8 hours ago, CureTheSane said:

One that sticks out was Stryper - Soldiers Under Command.
I'm like "whoa, look at these guys, yellow & black, guns, guitars,"
So I grab it and put it on and I'm doing other stuff, just with background music happening, not really paying too much attention, until I hear "Jeeeeeesuuuus, king, king of kings" and I'm thinking "what the actual fuck?"

 

I had the same experience with "Guardian - Miracle Mile".

I picked it up at "Metal For Melbourne" and while I was reading the cover booklet on the way home on the tram, I realized they where a Christian band. 

I was gutted.

MFM trips were rare pilgrimages back in the day.  

[Stefan]

MTM Music releases.

Back in the day before Youtube and streaming, I somehow got some CDs. Don't remember how I got them 'cause this stuff wasn't playing on the radio. Maybe I read some reviews in music magazines.

Anyway, shortly after getting hooked on the music, I picked up all the MTM releases blindly (without hearing a single note) whenever I saw them in record stores. MTM had a lot of great bands, I think I have collected all of their releases.

Good times as Geoff would say.

I think the label started with this...:

Ten - Ten (1996, cat# 19961)

 

and ended with this:

Fate - Fate (2007 remastered reissue, cat# 0681-189)

[CureTheSane]

Also the offers in the magazines - 9 CD's for 9c or whatever it was.
Great opportunity to just pick some stuff that might be great based on pics etc.

[Doggy]

9 hours ago, CureTheSane said:

Also the offers in the magazines - 9 CD's for 9c or whatever it was.
Great opportunity to just pick some stuff that might be great based on pics etc.

Gaslight in city used do that, but most of crap they couldn't sell.

Went one time they doing it , so had some  good place mats for the beer.

[Geoff]

Dozens and dozens, back in the day. Undoubtedly there were plenty of duds along the way. One of the ones that stick out is a Celtic Frost album - the 1988 one where they looked all glammed up and sounded like a beaten ballsack. 

[Doggy]

8 hours ago, Geoff said:

Dozens and dozens, back in the day. Undoubtedly there were plenty of duds along the way. One of the ones that stick out is a Celtic Frost album - the 1988 one where they looked all glammed up and sounded like a beaten ballsack. 

This was why Tom didn't remaster , as done with the others. He goes to a shade of red in face , when asked about it.