Judging an album by the cover

[pitch]

I saw this new album artwork and knew I would have to buy it!! Don't know what it will sound like (I'm imagining something like Fleet Foxes combined with Calexico for some reason) - might be rubbish, but as long as it comes out on vinyl with a proper 12" image on the front, that's enough for me!

Any other album cover artwork that is simply good enough to make the music contained within of secondary importance? Anyone bought new/unknown stuff on the strength of the artwork alone?

(I'm sure we've been here before...... but nothing wrong with a fresh look!)

[eine]

Hell yes. I do this a lot. Pretty much anything on the World Record Club label from the late 1950s and early 1960s gets me. Music is not that great, but I pick them up when they are cheap. Look at Annie Gets Her Gun for example (sure I posted this in other thread too!):



Actually this record started another cover-related obsession with me - I pick up any cheapie related to Annie Gets Her Gun now as they are one of the few instances from the 50s/60s when you see a woman carrying a gun.

Also, obviously, Command Records. I have two piles of them, records that are great and that I listen to regularly and records that are not so god but have for the covers alone. This Dick Hyman is pretty forgettable, for example, but looks amazing on the wall:

[pitch]

Hell yes. I do this a lot. Pretty much anything on the World Record Club label from the late 1950s and early 1960s gets me. Music is not that great, but I pick them up when they are cheap. Look at Annie Gets Her Gun for example (sure I posted this in other thread too!):



Actually this record started another cover-related obsession with me - I pick up any cheapie related to Annie Gets Her Gun now as they are one of the few instances from the 50s/60s when you see a woman carrying a gun.

Also, obviously, Command Records. I have two piles of them, records that are great and that I listen to regularly and records that are not so god but have for the covers alone. This Dick Hyman is pretty forgettable, for example, but looks amazing on the wall:

Yes - those Command LPs are works of art - I usually have a few of them displayed.... I totally get the purchasing of certain old labels for their artwork - and love the idea of collecting covers featuring women with guns!!!! But I wondered if people also felt properly seduced by certain albums' artwork - because they were doing so well to achieve what they set out to do - catch the eye and conjure up an aural image of the music contained within? Of course it is harder to successfully do this now - so easy to check out the tracks on line and find out the artist's entire life story with the click of a button (as I could do with the album above). But on this occasion I have resisted temptation and taken the plunge on the image alone. I can remember doing this with the sale LPs in Our Price in the late 80s / 90s, so it is a nostalgic return to old romantic notions perhaps.......