Have you ever bought a CD/record just because of the cover or packaging? I have and it seems like forever ago when I last had the courage or disposable income to do something like that.
About the time my extra cash started being used to pay bills, I began taking less risks on new music (at least purchasing albums from unknown bands). Along with the “responsibility” that “adulthood” brought on it has been the Internet that has changed my record-buying habits more than anything. I now am able to research everything about a potential purchase. I can view cover art, listen to song samples, read reviews, and even read band interviews. Back in the day I used to have to dig through magazines and make associations between bands by the record labels they were on. Those were the days.
The explosion of the Internet has made information almost too accessible. The experience of discovering something totally new or stumbling accidentally upon some gem a record is all but gone for me. Almost every purchase I make over $5 has been researched ad-nauseam. Digitization, though, is not all bad. I am now able to find out about so much more great music than I ever would have been exposed to before.
The last time I can recall buying a record because of the cover art was probably back in about 2001. I was browsing the clearance imports at Tower Records during my lunch-break when I stumbled across what looked (from the packaging at least) to be an interesting release. And I bought it. The CD I was holding in my hands was Fridge’s Ceefax and contained within the little plastic disc was a mess of jazzy post-rock leftfield indie space-jams. Both the songs posted below are from ex-members of Fridge.
MP3 | Four Tet – She Moves She Rounds
MP3 | Adem – Ringing In My Ear Homesongs
I miss that too…but the internet has definitly made it easier for this small town girl to “browse” for new music.
That struck a chord (pun) with me as well. I have such fond memories of digging through the $5 bin at Bizzy Bee with Aaron…for hours. Now I’m being nostalgic. Thanks.
Good post and seriously good music. I too did the whole bargain CD hunting @ university… at least once a week we’d go rummage through the giant $1 bins and buy things purely on album art, band name and album name/song titles. It was never that lucrative, but every once in a while you’d find something half-way tolerable (like the classic SST release by the Coke Babies, a band much better than their name and easy-going Southern Rebel identity), which of course made the whole pilgrimage worth it.
Bizzy Bee. Oh the memories are rushing back. I remember finding Brendan Benson’s “One Mississippi” for a buck in the cutout bin there. I used to buy all my 7″ records from there or the old Record Swap. How times have changed.
i bought the same album at disc replay.
I got that CD at Bizzy Bee as well! Weird. I no longer own it. I sold off A LOT of CD’s to fund my vinyl habit. Oh well.
boo, let’s go to some random independent music store in bufu this weekend and take a chance on something we’ve never heard before. is that possible anymore?