It's probably not done in muso circles, but have you ever bought an album on the strength of the cover art alone? Well I have many times, and each time I've done it, I've discovered a new favourite artist. The first time I did it was in 1983 when I bought The B-52's by The B-52's (despite being irritated by the apostrophe - the B-52's what?). I liked the faux-Sixties look and had no idea what the music would be like. Of course, it was manic, punky, trashy, Revillosish kitsch, which became a firm favourite then and remains so now.
The next time wasn't until 1997 when, at the other end of the musical scale, I bought Richard and Linda Thompson's I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight. It looked sad, stifling, Saturday mornings at home when I was young with the washing machine steam condensing on the windows, bleak (regular readers will know I'm a big fan of bleak) and interesting. And I was right. It's one of the saddest albums ever. Don't listen to it if you're vaguely depressed.
This was a particularly good speculative buy, because it opened many doors. This lead to Fairport, led to Shirley Collins, The Albion Band, Bert Jansch, Pentangle, John Renbourn, Sandy Denny, the Waterson family, and so it goes on. They're all interlinked and all fabulous.
If you've not joined the folk family, do it now while it's suddenly trendy.
No comments:
Post a Comment