Albums you bought `cos of great cover art.

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Continuing from the COVER CONNECTIONS thread....

They say you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, and I'd wager the the same applies to albums, but surely at one time or another, you've picked up an album you were unfamiliar with based entirely on the image on the front cover, and then even possibly marched right to the cashier to purchase it without having heard a solitary note off of it. If so, please do tell.....and say why it grabbed you to begin with.

Personally speaking, I was so zonked by this album cover that I figured it didn't even matter what the vinyl sounded like. That it was so willfully bizarre made it absolutely essential for me to investigate further. To my way of thinking, there was positively NO way that the music contained therein wouldn't be at least entertaining.....

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/dre700/e785/e78509ob6df.jpg

..also, I picked up RIDE THE LIGHTNING by Metallica when it came out, only because the back cover featured a pic of Kirk Hammet sporting a Discharge shirt. If they were hirsute metalheads that listened to Discharge, they MUST be good.

― Alex in NYC, Sunday, 23 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Of course, there are times when you get the album home, play it and realize it's utter, utter crap. That happened with this record, despite its captivating cover art:

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drc300/c395/ c395432504x.jpg

― Alex in NYC, Sunday, 23 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

'Captivating'?

― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 23 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

It's FIRE and a SKULL. What's NOT captivating about that?

I think the last time I actually bought an album based solely on the cover with little to no knowledge of what the music would actually be, it was FSOL's Dead Cities back in 1996. Got it on LP, even (I forget if it was double or triple -- I don't have it anymore, stoopid me).

― Nate Patrin, Sunday, 23 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Well, as a misanthropic seventeen year old in 1984 it certainly captivated me (fire + skull + devil horns + gothic lettering + dodgy occult connotations = "cool!")

― Alex in NYC, Sunday, 23 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Second the FSOL.... cept for me it was the My Kingdom single... all they're cover art is pretty cool though IMHO

― chris, Sunday, 23 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"Don't Break the Bath"? Yeah, that would turn any Moms into a raging demon.

― Hunter, Sunday, 23 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I like the cover of the Boards of Canada "music has the right to children" - i didn't buy the record for that though.

― Alex G, Sunday, 23 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

several copies of "pal joey".

― unknown or illegal user, Sunday, 23 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

A Jim Backus record that has 2 photos splitting the cover to give the impression that he's on the phone to himself in drag, can't remember the name of it. And then I got home and found out that it had a different record inside! I hate it when I forget to check.

Also The Arthur Sound by the Wild Ones. Recorded live at Arthur with cover photo by Richard Avedon.

― Arthur, Sunday, 23 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

It was the cover art that got me interested in Jandek initially. The music took a little longer to get into.

― electric sound of jim, Sunday, 23 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I bought MAdonna's 'Like a Virgin' and didn't notice what the belt buckle said until AFTER I bought it so I think I may have been subliminally manipulated. Good thing I liked the record tho even if it wasn't as good as the first

― dave q, Monday, 24 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Don't Break The Oath? Apart from those falsetto vocals (that's a love or hate thing, I know), that is one of the greatest, if not THE greatest classic heavy metal albums of all time.

― Siegbran Hetteson, Monday, 24 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I started checking out Black Flag and SST records albums because of the ads that they used to have in Hit Parader magazine way back in the 80s.

The cover to My War looked freakin' crazy to my Iron Maiden early teen mind frame. We didn't have any punk rockers in my town at the time to figure out about this kind of thing.

― earlnash, Monday, 24 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Old prog and psychedelic records figure weigh in heavily in this category for me. There's lots of examples, but the ones that come to mind right now (because I either listened to them or sold them recently) are the sole albums by The Fool (brightly colored medieval looking design) and Affinity (very pretty winter lake scene), and the Danse Macabre album by Esperanto (an orchestral prog album, the cover featuring a photo of two women in catsuits wrestling with each other).

A variation on this: I still remember picking up the Nuns' Rumania LP because there was a handwritten sticker on it that described the music as being something like "threatening vocals, with bizarre harpsichord noises". I'd never heard of the Nuns before so I bought the record and it turned out to be so-so Lou Reed-leaning punk/new wave with some surprisingly great synth-pop songs interspersed throughout. No threatening vocals or bizarre harpsichord noises, however. I'm assuming the sticker was meant to be stuck to another record.

― Oliver Kneale, Monday, 24 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Amid all the talk of copy protection that inevitably gets hacked whatever, and this leading to a downward sales spiral for CDs (not entirely proven of course - p2p stimulates some sales), it occurred to me that rather than upping the sound quality of the CD (higher sampling/bit rates), the record industry should put more investment and effort into desirable packaging for their products. Mostly you just get a booklet in a plastic case - nothing really nice to own. If the packaging could be made more special (unusual materials, beautiful designs etc., or maybe like a larger blister pack or box with the CD case clearly visible from outside but other stuff included), this might make the CD more desirable than a download. All this would have to be done at the current price level because CDs are already perceived as too expensive - but the profit margin as it is is so high that there's surely some room for a reduction.

― David, Monday, 24 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Fila Brazillia's 'Luck Be a Weirdo Tonight' -- Love that bunny. I don't know how to get the image to load here.

― Tim DiGravina, Monday, 24 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.