Black Cat Bone

Preferably by artists / bands (groups, looking at you, Rayge) you had never heard before.

Something recent:



And something classic:

When I saw this for the first time in a record store, knowing nothing about The Bangles, I was pretty sure I'd like the music based on the band name, the style of the cover and the look (and looks!) of the band.



Before I knew anything about jazz, I'd often go to the store in Austin with the best selection of jazz cd's and buy based on the ones with the coolest covers. That worked pretty well.

This REALLY jumped off the racks when it was new. So fresh and modern feeling. The colors aren't really right here.

It's one of my standard tactics for buying new music, really, if an album's cheap and it's got artwork that appeals, I tend to buy it. Never trust a band who doesn't invest time in the overall package, that's what I say.

Having said that, I'm struggling to find examples. One massive success was Crescent's By the Roads and the Fields, but I bought the promo, which had better cover art than the proper release.

Standard: https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album ... _fields.p/
Promo: https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album ... fields_f1/

The same goes for Olof Arnald's Innundir Skinni, the promo art was better.

Standard: https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album ... ir_skinni/
Promo: https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album ... skinni_f1/


Actually, same goes for Thee Stranded Horse's Churning Strides:

Standard: https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album ... g_strides/
Promo: https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album ... trides_f1/

For some reason I'm a sucker for artwork featuring horses, or was until I bought some awful post-rock-lite thing. Can't remember what they were called, but they had really good reviews, too..

This is a goode example. I hadn't heard a note from them, only read a couple of quality reviews. It was a the time when I really began to feel what is was like to have left my home village, and moved into a students' flat, with small individual bedsitters, quite noisy, strange...

...and there was the shock of the new: punk didn't just fizzle out to make room for same old, same old (prog, country rock, what have you), but it mutated into musical reflections of (post)modernity (my feelings), alienation, and having somehow to adjust myself to my new surroundings.

A weird and wonderful time, that brought many fruits, with hindsight.

Seeing the PU cover for the first time, I just knew it had to be odd, but good music. And the contents were just what it said on the can.

Also, I became a fan of Mik Mellen's photography for Ubu in general.

Well. I'd heard the name. Our Croatian friend Nancy recommended them to me. I saw this album on sale and thought that this cheesy sleeve and the name of the band had a certain allure. So I bought the album. I liked it. It became an obsession, and I bought all the other albums. I still can't believe that this one decision affected my musical taste so much.

I didn't know what it would be like, but I knew it would be interesting at least.



Blodwyn Pig - Getting to This