judging a book by its cover

I have this odd way of judging album covers: while I'll never let a bad cover ruin the music for me (it's always about the music), different emotions/responses are drawn out of me depending on the album cover. For instance, brighter colours draw out more positive responses; blue covers I find represent aggressive rawness, while white covers represent pure, mechnical rawness (think of Metallica's Justice, AC/DC's Flick of the Switch, or Aerosmith's Draw the Line); beige represents simplicity, but not necessarily rawness; old-school painted artwork I find has the best connection to me (that certain retro craft); and band pictures, if done creatively (not like a lot of modern bands do), can represent pure, working-class mentality.

What about you guys? Is it more than just artwork?

i love great album art, but it makes no difference to me when it comes down to enjoying the record.

Of course I buy Cd's for music, but as I like painting and to design I look the Cd's covers too, and if are well designed I like it very much!

If I see an album with piss poor packaging, I'll not give the time of day.

It was a bit different in the vinyl days. Back then you would pick up an album just for the cool cover art. Then the music was almost automatically great too! But now it's all about the music.

kmorg wrote:

It was a bit different in the vinyl days. Back then you would pick up an album just for the cool cover art. Then the music was almost automatically great too! But now it's all about the music.

I agree. Some of us "old-timers" will remember back to a time before the internets, when it was harder to hear the music in advance, especially if it was something that regular radio wouldn't touch. Going into a record store, sometimes all you had to go by was how cool the cover was. More often than not, the music delivered. So yea, the cover can be important, but it's the music ultimately that counts.

Hey get_the_firehouse, you don't have OCD by any chance, do you?

Seriously...

No I don't have OCD. I was just commenting on how music is also visual.

A cover makes a lot of difference because it shows that they care as much about the look as the music. If the album has a shitty cover, then most of the time, the music doesn't cut it either.

Its not always the case, but for the majority of it, it counts!

The great thing about the metal genre is that bands usually go out of their way to have a great cover for their albums. Sometimes it's some kind of gimmiky group shot, but some bands have some AWESOME cover paintings.

Take Cirith Ungol for example. The albums they had were awesome Michael Whelan paintings taken from the book covers of Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melnibone series. HammerFall's album covers are by Samwise, who is a concept artist for Blizzard Entertainment (creators of the Warcraft franchise). Metalium has the images of the Metallian warrior (and his sexy female counterpart) on alot of their albums.

In my view, a great album deserves a great album cover. The whole 'less is more' mentality of modern rock just ruins a great album experience.

Some covers reach out and grab you by the throat and others simply don't. It's definately all about the music for me, but I still love a great cover. I agree that it was more important in the album/vinyl days when you could not get the music in advance like today. Peace.

I only download illegal mp3's - so cover art means nothing to me.

Laterz!

SAXON1500 wrote:

I only download illegal mp3's - so cover art means nothing to me.

Laterz!

U speled "meanz" rong. U speled it wif n "s".

Required Fields wrote:

mc666 wrote:

i love great album art, but it makes no difference to me when it comes down to enjoying the record.

I agree with these two.

get_the_firehouse wrote:

No I don't have OCD. I was just commenting on how music is also visual.

That wasn't meant to be a slam at all, I'm just curious because I have it and one of the symptoms can be attributing special meaning to colors - which I also do - so I totally
understand where you're coming from.

My cover art bias is long gone but there are several great discs that I didn't pick up at the time because the cover art was so horrendous I assumed the album must suck. 1st one that comes to mind is Zion's Thunder from the Mountain. A close second would have to be Sacred Warrior "Wicked Generation".

if i've never heard of a band but they have a good cover i'll buy it anyway,

though that is'nt always the best decision

TrogDawn wrote:

get_the_firehouse wrote:

No I don't have OCD. I was just commenting on how music is also visual.

That wasn't meant to be a slam at all, I'm just curious because I have it and one of the symptoms can be attributing special meaning to colors - which I also do - so I totally
understand where you're coming from.

I have OCD. Man, it screwed up my youth - hahaha. What are some of your "rituals"?

- Mine has become lighter with time, but when I was a bit younger, I had a lot - One of the biggest, was chosing what to touch and what not to touch - for example, I always had to go where there was most light - Never the dark......well, if both were dark, I would go for the lightest - And for some reason, I always distinguished between two completely identical things, like coke cans. I could stand there in front of the fridge for ten minutes, picking the "right" can. I had lots of those things. I also have Tourettes and ADHD, but my Tourettes was more rooted in OCD - One of the most annoying was probably developing stuff with my eyes. Suddenley, I could not look at certain things, and could not look at people I disliked. If a person I disliked touched me, I would spend up to 10 minutes drying it off the "right way" - My main thing was attributing meaning to things - I too had the colour thing - And couldn't touch, be near, or even look at something blue (still can't) - I just couldn't.... ...so yeah, that's me

Mglaffas81 wrote:

I have OCD. Man, it screwed up my youth - hahaha. What are some of your "rituals"?

- Mine has become lighter with time, but when I was a bit younger, I had a lot - One of the biggest, was chosing what to touch and what not to touch - for example, I always had to go where there was most light - Never the dark......well, if both were dark, I would go for the lightest - And for some reason, I always distinguished between two completely identical things, like coke cans. I could stand there in front of the fridge for ten minutes, picking the "right" can. I had lots of those things. I also have Tourettes and ADHD, but my Tourettes was more rooted in OCD - One of the most annoying was probably developing stuff with my eyes. Suddenley, I could not look at certain things, and could not look at people I disliked. If a person I disliked touched me, I would spend up to 10 minutes drying it off the "right way" - My main thing was attributing meaning to things - I too had the colour thing - And couldn't touch, be near, or even look at something blue (still can't) - I just couldn't.... ...so yeah, that's me

Oh yeah, tons of fun, isn't it? It's hard to imagine the tons of time I've wasted over the years doing rituals like you described. One of my biggest things was counting syllables. I would be listening to someone talk and counting the syllables of their words on my fingers, and if when they were finished I hadn't landed on my pinky finger, I'd repeat their last phrase until I landed on that finger with the last syllable. Needless to say, loops running in my head became habitual and second nature. It wasn't really problematic for me until I hit 22 and clinical depression got added to it and the loops running in my head were so severly negative and frightening that I felt like I was being forced to do things I didn't want to do. That was the MOST fun. Now add God to that equation and imagine how fun it can be...

There are more rituals I'm sure, but I don't want to think too hard on them at the moment.

Anyway, nice to meet a fellow loon.

i have lots of sealed vinyls that i just listened to many years later....in many cases i didn't miss anything....of course i had 3-4 spare copies of them when you could still find them for peanuts....dragonne, messiah's ep, silent listener, decoy paris, road(nor), full moon (nor) are some of them....the last ones i got are 3 copies of the new manowar....but i listened to "die for metal" in a local radio and i guess i'll never opened it...they should have cut "for" from the title......