Best/Worst blind buys?

Black Sabbath Headless Cross. It was a blind buy and its actually my fave by them, believe it or not.

DallasBlack wrote:

Best is hands down is:



At the time (1996), I had no idea who these guys were or what they sounded like. All I knew is that it was a concept album based on Spawn. While I was never a comic book guy, I enjoyed the HBO animated series and this piqued my interest and I found it at Best Buy (back when they carried good music) and got it. IE has remained one of my all time favorite bands and Dark Saga still the best album they released.

I have a similar story with this album. In 1998 I saw a guy at school with a Dark Saga Iced Earth t-shirt and I asked him what they sounded like because I'd heard their name but never heard their sound. He told me they sounded like "Metallica, with more melody." So I bought the album without having heard a note and it wasn't too long before I started to hunt down the rest of their discography.

BEST : A TIE

VIO-LENCE "Oppressing The Masses" - Pure Brilliance, I knew it was Thrash from the get-go based on the song titles and the uhm, band name, my only question was, how will that album stack-up against Metallica's 'Justice" which was my barometer, popped it in and it far exceeded my expectations, The gang vocals sounded like a Church choir to my ears

PROTECTOR " Sheddding Of Skin" - Picked it up because I thought The cover was bad - a s s, a decaying corpse left rotting in the swamp! it Blew me away instantly, one of the Most awesome Death/Thrash ever recorded in terms of sheer brutality and intensity IMO

WORST :

SUICIDAL TENDENCIES "Art Of Rebellion" My Introduction to Mike Muir and ST, sadly it wasn't a memorable one, at that time I didn't quite understand their music bacause I was heavily into Thrash at that point, Picked this out of a friend"s suggestion saying that they play 'similar' to METALLICA, well, I picked the wrong album ayt!

I actually bought a lot of albums blind, without knowing the band or any song from them, as Metal doesn't get much airplay here.

Best:
Blind Gurdian - Imaginations from the other Side
Never heard a song of them but knew the name, i liked the cover so i bought it. First time listening to it, i became a fan.

Benedictum - Uncreation
Only read a review, bought it. Good album, Wicca ia great song.

Nightwish - Oceanborn
Back then they were still rather unknown here in Germany. I liked the Cover and the guy in the music store said it's awesome. So i bought then, just like with BG i became a fan after the first listen.

Shadow Gallery - Tyranny
Again only heard about them, heard about their influences of Kansas and Pink Floyd and bought it. Awesome album, great songs, good story that was later continued on the album Room V.

Tesla - The Great Radio Controversy
Was recommended to me, so i bought it. Just as the NLTM-review says: Why are they categorized as Glam Metal? They are a awesome Hard Rock/Metal Band and their first 4 albums are awesome. I wonder why they never made it really big here in europe.

Worst:
Aina - Days of Rising Doom
One of those "Metal Operas", read a positive review and the big list of musicians made me buy it. What a lame album, there are basically 2 good songs on it.

Hellfueled - Volume One
Has two good tracks (Let me Out and Midnight Lady) otherwise they try too hard to be like Ozzy Osbourne and his Band, the songs aren't good and the loud, noisy production is awful.

Danger Danger - Danger Danger
Has one great song (Naughty Naughty) and that's it. Lame album.

Best: Symphorce - Godspeed. I had never heard of them or even Brainstorm I just bought it based on the cover, I could never have expected that what I bought would be one of my all time favorite albums

Worst: Mastodon - Leviathan. I know I am in a minority it seem like everyone likes them but I think that they suck

I have a couple of favorites in the "best buy" category, except I didn't buy them myself.... at first.

As sort of payment for some Artch concert footage I gave to Metalion many years ago, he gave me a promo CD of Angel Dust - Border of Reality. The CD blew me away, and I even got to see the band live at Wacken that same year!

I also ordered Iced Earth's "Something Wicked This Way Comes" for a friend when it was new. Since the CD showed up without the plastic wrapping I listened to it a couple of times before he came to pick it up. Now, I had seen the band in concert 2 times before, but both times I walked out half way through the show, simply becasue I was unfamiliar with the band, and they didn't make enough impact on me (both concerts were festival appearances, and being on my feet for a whole day both times didn't help either). But the seak peak on my friends CD made me a fan, and this is still my favorite IE album.

ShadowAngel wrote:

Hellfueled - Volume One
Has two good tracks (Let me Out and Midnight Lady) otherwise they try too hard to be like Ozzy Osbourne and his Band, the songs aren't good and the loud, noisy production is awful.

I love that album.

ShadowAngel wrote:

Worst:
Aina - Days of Rising Doom
One of those "Metal Operas", read a positive review and the big list of musicians made me buy it. What a lame album, there are basically 2 good songs on it.

absolutely. This album was horrible. I think they were paying the press people because i have no idea how that many reviewers can be so wrong.

Best: Tyketto - Dont Come Easy. I forgot about this band but came across the cd at my goodwill. The cover looked like hair metal and I remembered hearing them after buying and listening to it on the way home.

Best:

Saigon Kick - S/T:

Saw the album cover and somthing just hooked me.

Screeching Weasel - Bark Like A Dog

I had heard of this band and read that they were "Ramones-ish". That was all I needed to buy it when I saw it at a Camelot Record store.

Worst:

The Smiths - Meat Is Murder

I'd read about how great The Smiths were in multiple alternative magazines so I picked this up one day while visiting my favorite record store. Horrible album; Morrisey's vocals are like fingernails on slate to my ears.

I had a girlfriend that tried to get me into The Smiths...it didn't work, although I did like The Cure and R.E.M. at the time.

tohostudios wrote:

I'd read about how great The Smiths were in multiple alternative magazines so I picked this up one day while visiting my favorite record store. Horrible album; Morrisey's vocals are like fingernails on slate to my ears.

I can only listen to the Smiths when I'm with my buddy Art. He does this funny impersonation of Morrisey with the vocals and hand gestures that is spot on. It's even funnier to me because he's a bald headed cop, so he looks like a total goofball when he sings any Smiths/Morrisey tunes and he really gets into it.

Best...Jorn- Dio tribute//Fantastic album. I had never heard of him and a friend suggested it. Now I have several of his albums.

Worst...Whitesnake- Good to be bad// Was hoping for a more powerful 80s style album and I just did not get it.

Worst...Chickenfoot// Kinda thought it would be a heavier montrose type album and instead it just sucked imo.

Headless cross - turned out to be an amazing album

majesty- own the crown: great album

edge of forever - feeding the fire: turned up to be less then average

There are many to choose from but for now I will say..

Best - Venom - Black Metal - had no idea who they were but the cover of the album intrigued me...love that album

Worst - Megadeth - Risk - I love Megadeth but I never play this - never - not a favorite

Best: Iced Earth's first album (1991).

I found this disc (still in a long box!) in a box full of cheap ($2 each) CDs at a swap meet sometime around 1995/early '96. I had heard OF the band at that time due to some magazine reviews/etc. but hadn't yet actually heard them. I was hooked right off (even though Gene Adam's vox took some getting used to...haha). Shortly after that THE DARK SAGA was released so I bought that and thus began my Iced Earth obsession that took up much of the next decade.

Worst: I'd have to think about that cuz in the late 90s/early 00s I did a LOT of blind buying thanx to magazine reviews and picked up quite a few CDs by various generic second-and-third division Euro-power metal bands (i.e. Squealer, Steel Attack, Paragon, Stormwarrior, etc., etc.)... some of which were good, some of which were just OK, and some of which went straight to my trade pile after one spin. Off the top of my head, I wanna say Steel Attack's WHEN MANKIND FALLS simply because the ultra-cheesy album cover and band photo on the back of the disc should've given me plenty of warning, yet I bought it anyway.

STFU, FF. Steel Attack are awesome!!!
























(I do think they are great though.....)

kmorg wrote:

STFU, FF. Steel Attack are awesome!!!
























(I do think they are great though.....)

I'm told they've gotten better as time has gone on, but after that album I never bothered to check back with them again. That band photo of a bunch of teens wearing Ninja headbands, holding swords put me off.

I saw them live before I bought the album. The concert made me a fan

Oh, and if you didn't like that album, you did correct in ignoring the rest of them.

kmorg wrote:

Oh, and if you didn't like that album, you did correct in ignoring the rest of them.

I kinda figured as much, but thanx for the tip.

I think this would be my worst blind buy:

At my usual CD haunt, I found a hard to find early 90s pop metal album, Wildside-Under The Influence that was almost $20. Not wanting to spend that much on a CD at the time, I got the follow-up self-titled album thinking it would be the same style if not a little different. Unfortunatly, that album was second rate grunge music. Obviously, Wildside was one of those bands that tried to change with the times. It's not too bad an album but from what I knew of that band it was a far cry from what I was expecting.

OK, they're related, not totally blind in that I knew of the artist, but not the music contained:

Best: Devin Townsend Band - Synchestra In '05 I was introduced to Devin by way of Strapping Young Lad, and I bought this album without having heard a note of it when I saw a copy at a Barnes and Noble, and it's one of my favorites all-time, still gets plenty of play. This lead me to find the rest of his work, including the SYL albums, which lead me to.....


Worst: Strapping Young Lad - Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing This album taught me a lesson in the importance of sounds samples and not ordering albums based on an artists ladder-day output. I listened to this once maybe twice and sold it off.

Honestly, growing up most of the albums I bought were blind buys with the exception of AC/DC, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin and 80's pop metal bands. Most of the bands, even very commercially successful bands such as Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and Alice Cooper were not played on the radio back then, at least not were lived, now of course they are all played ad nausim , with the same 4 songs making their unimaginative play list.

The best: Cathedral - Supernatural Birth Machine

Up until somewhere in the mid-to-late 90's, I never knew of "doom" as a whole genre of heavy metal music existed. Sure, I'd heard of some bands here and there but never knew that they played a specific style or that it had a name other than "heavy". As I started poking around Ult's site, I learned about some of these bands.

So one day I'm in a little used shop and I find Cathedral's SBM. I didn't have a clue really about the band or the music or even if that was a good album of theirs. The cover isn't even that cool. I just sorta-kinda recognized the name and took a chance. To this day, it still remains my favorite of their discography. I probably would have stumbled onto them and the doom genre eventually, but I look at that album as my gateway drug to all that sludgy, doomy goodness.

The worst: Dope - Felons and Revolutionaries

The cover and back pic looked cool and they had a Marilyn Manson vibe going for them, so I gave it a shot.

The industrial/Manson-vibe was spot on in the music, which depending on your opinion of that style is good or awful, but there was one thing in particular that put me off. It's the only album that I ever found offensive. They did a cover of NWA's 'F**k tha Police' (which coincendently enough was not listed on the tracklisting). There isn't much that bothers me lyrically, but one thing I won't tolerate is violence directed towards the police. I've got family and friends that are cops, so it hits a nerve with me. You can speak your mind and put it on record, but I don't have to buy it either. It was the one and only time I've taken the album back to the store (a Sam Goody's I think) and asked for my money back.

MetalGuy71 wrote:

There isn't much that bothers me lyrically, but one thing I won't tolerate is violence directed towards the police. I've got family and friends that are cops, so it hits a nerve with me.

I'm with you on being bothered by that. Not because of friends or family on the force, but because I have an understanding of how hard, dangerous, and thankless their jobs are. They put their lives on the line just pulling over someone for a broken light.

Best: Suffocation's Effigy of the Forgotten - At the time of purchase, I heard they were death metal. It's a classic.


Worst: Megadeth's Risk - bought this without hearing a note - hoping it would be better than Cryptic Writings. It gathers dust.