You know what I miss...

[E6V6I6L]

me and my friend used to always cruise the budget bin at the local used place. we decided to buy almost everything that looked remotely interesting/good one night. they had some sale going where it was only $1 per cd. between the two of us, we bought a couple hundred cds that day. most of them sucked and the cashiers hated us.

it was fun having enough money back then to go do stupid shit like that ($70+ a night in tips delivering pizza and no reall bills). now i pretty much stick to what i know i'll like.

 

[Hammer of Might]

I never, ever do that, for the simple reason that it is too costly for something I have no idea I will like. I don't really have money to use on getting any new albums right now, let alone one's I just like the cover of.

Although I agree with Devon in that the whole experience of taking your time with an album, reading the lyrics, looking at the cover etc. is SO much better. Even if I buy say 3 or 4 albums at once, I sometimes find each one doesn't sink in as much and I tend to overlook albums.

For example, 2 albums I got at christmas were To Mega Therion and Blood Fire Death - I've been so bowled over by the latter that the former hasn't got the play time it would have received if I'd bought it on its own.

So I do think it's sad if that personal element of music is lost, especially by downloading everything.

 

[Guthrum]

I almost did that once when I was around 6 or 7. I saw an Overkill album and thought it was the coolest thing, but I wasn't allowed to get it. If only I had started in on good metal that early.

 

[Nag]

I did that with Hypocrisy's Live album.. one of the best blind buys I've ever had.

 

[Fredy_Brown]

I´ve never did it.

 

[Hammer of Might]

*done

 

[Death Aflame]

Twilight (US) a few weeks ago. Well I guess thats cheating because I did know Wrest(Leviathan) was in the band, but their logo and cover art was cool...

 

[skeptik]

I've never bought anything by a band I haven't at least heard good things about, but I've bought hundreds of albums before ever hearing what the band sounds like.

 

[Hammer of Might]

^ yeah me too, usually in fact. But never without knowing the general genre and reviews.

 

[el barto]

word of mouth can be a good indicator provided your not talking to an idiot

 

[rokk]

I used to do it all the time... it was the best way to find unknown gems! And if you found a great album you were 'credited' for 'discovering' the band among your group of friends! I first bought KIX - S/T doing this very thing. Anyway... I hardly ever do that anymore but I had the chance to this last weekend. I went to a store that sells stuff cheap from semi truck wrecks and picked up 'Broken Teeth' - Blood on the Radio. Not a bad deal for a buck!

 

[Cheapliquid]

i don't do that because the odds of picking up some hardcore punk or something of that ass nature.

my friend picked up a good band.

armored saint he saw the cover and thought it was cool and bought it.
he was lucky to get something good lol

 

[Gory Elephant]

Going to the friggin CD store and shopping for new bands based on cool band names and album cover art. I remember discovering bands like Fifth Angel, Malice, Sword, Flotsam and Jetsam, TNT, Dream Theater, sigh....those were the days! I actually did this semi-recently with the band Becoming the Archetype and Falling Up. BtA was actually a pretty cool album. Falling Up is cool if you appreciate some of the modern day metal elements (I know, I know). You can't really do this much any more as you never know if you'll end up with a 'core band or something.

Anyone picked up any cool bands using the ol cover/name method recently?

Another old fuck. Good. Now I don't feel so alone! I almost ALWAYS get burned buying with this method, but I can't help myself!! I still do it.

Mike.

 

[Davtar]

This isnt completely accurate, but besides 'cool name' and 'cool artwork', I also tend to look at the record label...That is how I found "the Absence"

 

[Scarifier]

I never, ever do that, for the simple reason that it is too costly for something I have no idea I will like. I don't really have money to use on getting any new albums right now, let alone one's I just like the cover of.

Although I agree with Devon in that the whole experience of taking your time with an album, reading the lyrics, looking at the cover etc. is SO much better. Even if I buy say 3 or 4 albums at once, I sometimes find each one doesn't sink in as much and I tend to overlook albums.

For example, 2 albums I got at christmas were To Mega Therion and Blood Fire Death - I've been so bowled over by the latter that the former hasn't got the play time it would have received if I'd bought it on its own.

So I do think it's sad if that personal element of music is lost, especially by downloading everything.

Yeah i just bought To Mega Therion and Metrolopis pt 2 Scenes From A Memory. What do you think of To Mega? i have had one listen and so far haven't gotten into it. Other opinions welcome on these albums (yeah i know DT, i wanted to get this album back when i knew little about metal and it was cheap as chips so yeah, go gobble go-nads)

 

[MetalAges]

This isnt completely accurate, but besides 'cool name' and 'cool artwork', I also tend to look at the record label...That is how I found "the Absence"

I used to do that with my albums too. Back in the day it was always a safe bet if I saw a Metal Blade logo but these days Metal Blade has less than half of their bands that I can get into with my taste. The Absence just launched a forum here go say hi if you haven't already!

 

[Carcassian]

I stopped doing this for the most part. I found myself just losing the whole "experience" (my definition of "experience" anyways) of getting into a band/CD. It became overkill in that I would download tons of albums, never really get to listen to them all and when I did it wasn't a GOOD listen. I recall the days of being into a CD so much you knew all the lyrics, song titles, member names etc. I found I didn't really even know song names any more of all these albums I was listening to. Pretty sad! Occasionally I will download something but for the most part, I only check out bands sites for download tracks then decide.

Ach, and I thought I was the ONLY one who thought like this! It isn't downloading that does this to me; it's my relative affluence that allows me to buy pretty much any cd I like these days! (Unlikely to afford me any great peer sympathy, I know!)

In the old days, as a student, I could only afford to buy cds by putting aside the money I'd have spent on frivolous items, like food, which made the purchase that much more essential. God, how I cried after buying duffer tapes of utter shit like the first Korn album and Senser, based on what Kerrang! (about the only print stuff out back then!) said. Thank God (at the time) for Terrorizer...

Now Ive got A "JOB" as a reviewer, I get even more Cd's! It's a rare cd that gets more than half a dozen plays with the amount I buy anyway.

great thread, btw

 

[opacity]

i tried the name/cover way a few times but it never really worked out for me.
buying CDs according to the label did not always work out fine for me either.

i listen to samples or whole songs if available from band pages or other "official" places like webzines and decide whether I'm spending money or not.
also i am glad i can rely on the reviews of MetalObserver webzine. there are some reviewers whose tastes seem to be very similar to my own so i know when they're giving 7,5+/10 the album is really worth the money

 

[unknown]

I did that once with Sleepytime Gorilla Museum's Of Natural History a couple of years ago. I thought the layout was cool and the band name seemed unique. Boy was I in for a surprise! (now they're one of my favorite bands)

 

[Cold Gin]

I miss that as well ! Nowadays you hardly find good record / CD stores anymore. I used to do that as well, I remeber I found Paganini´s "Weapon of Love" (the cover is actually not really special, but somehow it got me) and Siren´s "no place like home" (see my avatar) like that. This Siren album is up to today one of my favorite.
The last time I bought something w/o really knowing the music was two weeks ago. I was in Japan, went into a record store and asked the guy for the most popular metal/ hard rock album of a Japanese band, besides Loudness (only Japanese band I knew). He gave me a 1987 release of "Anthem" called Bound to Break, and I bought it. That was a good recommendation.