Whats the worst or best album you ever bought buying blind.

[WRGKMC]

You'd buy it because you hear a good song and figured the rest of the album might be good then you listen to the rest and go what the hell is this. I wasted my money on this load of crap.
The first time that happened was in 1970 and was 13 years old. I bought the Tommy James had that hit song Draggin the line on it. I knew he had other hit songs and took the chance. He had gone Christian and it was a come to meeting album. Man I was pissed. I researched every album before buying after that building my library. I'd still take chances in the bargain bin, but for the most part I made sure the albums had several decent tunes on it.

On the flip side, I saw an album called the Butts Band with a cool old Fender Tweed amp on the front. I took a chance on buying the 8 tracks and it and it actually had some cool tunes. Few 8 tracks have survived of course being a dead media and I bought that album again a couple of years ago only to find out it was a solo album recorded by Robby Krieger the Doors Guitarist. The album was never a big hit but you did get to hear some cool stuff on that album none the less.

[UstadKhanAli]

I had a lot of great ones and a lot of clunkers early on because I used to raid used record stores and buy some of the stuff based on cool artwork on LP covers alone. Sometimes that worked out, and sometimes not. While I still occasionally go to used record stores, I can also Google or YouTube stuff easily, so I don't tend to get too many horrible ones anymore.

The one that leaps to mind as being a really good score is the first Hugo Largo album, which I enjoyed quite a bit. I haven't listened to them in a hundred years, so I should throw that on again.

[nat whilk II]

I bought this CD off the cover alone, not knowing the slightest thing about the musical content or the band:

I loved it - that's when I started buying anything The Orb released.

nat whilk ii

[gubu]

Around 2004/2005, I bought a record by Masters of Reality called Flak n Flight, simply because mainman, Chris Goss, produced a few benchmark Kyuss and QotSA records that I'd liked. I'd never heard a note of Chris Goss' music before that. Turns out the record is an absolute gem, if you're into stoner artpunk-y type stuff. Easily my favourite live album of all time. Otoh, I've got a small cabinet full of utter dross that I bought on the strength of catchy singles or good magazine reviews. Bad habit I had...

[guido61]

There's been a lot as I used to buy a lot of albums based on just one song. The one that most easily comes to mind was the Kajagoogoo album with their hit "Too Shy". I thought that single was great (and still do). But the rest of the songs completely sucked. I know, sounds like a "well...yeah..." now... Lol

[techristian]

The worse album I every bought was called "Mephistopheles" (some demon). I bought it based on the cover way back in the early 70's when I used to go to SAM THE RECORD MAN and pick up 44 cent "deleted" albums with the corner cut off or a hole punched in the corner. Back then I would buy these based on their cover design only. On the other side, from the same bin of deleted records I bought another album by the "New York Rock Ensemble" with a tune that I nearly wore the grooves out of "Running Down the Highway". There were also many cheap albums in the bin from groups like "The Nice" (Keith Emerson) and other "underground" groups. Many records I would try ,based on the names of the artists even if the band was considered garbage.

Dan

[WRGKMC]

The worse album I every bought was called "Mephistopheles" (some demon). I bought it based on the cover way back in the early 70's when I used to go to SAM THE RECORD MAN and pick up 44 cent "deleted" albums with the corner cut off or a hole punched in the corner. Back then I would buy these based on their cover design only. On the other side, from the same bin of deleted records I bought another album by the "New York Rock Ensemble" with a tune that I nearly wore the grooves out of "Running Down the Highway". There were also many cheap albums in the bin from groups like "The Nice" (Keith Emerson) and other "underground" groups. Many records I would try ,based on the names of the artists even if the band was considered garbage. Dan

Wow, I haven't heard that name mentioned in many decades. I went to High School with Clif Nivison's brother did a couple of outdoor gigs with his big brother Cliff playing set for set. I think we jammed together on a few songs too. I got to play his guitar which was an oddball 12 string Hagstrom or something with a set of normal 6 strings. The neck was way too fat for me but he played it well enough. He jammed with some of his buddies and possibly his brother.

I cant remember if his brother played drums or bass that day. I did thousands of gigs back then and many are a blur now. I do remember that one though.

Clif had a killer cover band a few years later and I was really blown away by how well he played that one gig I saw. He ruled the Jersey Shore circuit for a while back then.

[veracohr]

Not counting albums I only bought because of the H.R. Giger cover art:

Best: Malevolent Creation - Eternal. I recognized the name whilst browsing the metal section, texted a friend asking if they were good, and on his suggestion I bought it. Thumbs up!

Worst: Flogging Molly - Float. I love the first 3 albums, thought it was a no-brainer. It was very bland and disappointing.

[Etienne Rambert]

Best: Leonard Cohen - Songs from a Room
Worst: Gino Vanelli - Crazy Life

[Lee Knight]

I bought Tom Petty's 1st one not knowing who he was. Nobody did. But... that cover. The snarl, the in punk hair but still a PUNK, the LOGO!!! The V through the heart. Then I put it on and... Same with The Pretenders 1st one too.

[Geoff Grace]

I bought the Donny Hathaway album based on its cover. That was the best such purchase I've ever made. The opening song, "Giving Up," is powerfully haunting—especially considering his eventual suicide.

Best,

Geoff

[Jeff Leites]

The best was Appaloosa, in 1969. I bought it in Sears in Ft. Lauderdale.

The worst was from 1967 - Traffic's Mr. Fantasy, although listening to it on YouTube, just now, I don't really know why I hated it so much then. I'm beginning to dig it now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxVlN-LzIks

[WRGKMC]

I had all those Traffic albums back then. You really couldn't judge them by the few pop hits they had. They had some pretty complex stuff and were more Musicians, Musicians albums when you listen to the complexity of the music.

[Notes_Norton]

Worst:

Many years ago I had some LPs by saxophonist John Klemmer. He's a very good player and put out some nice LPs that were smooth-jazz-ish way before the term was invented.

So John came out with a new LP called Cry and I bought one for my brother-in-law (trumpet player) for Christmas. A couple of months later I bought a copy for myself.

I had to apologize to my Brother-In-Law who responded, "I thought you were getting into some weird s*it."

It was Klemmer playing with an old Echo-Plex machine (tape echo). It was experimental and definitely weird.

Best:

The Arabian Nights Ballet by Fikret Amirov - I got it on an impulse because I love Russian Classical music and Amirov was recording on the USSR CD label. The CD says it mixed Azerbaijan folk music with Russian classical formal training. It's delightful and very different.

Well Best is hard to quantify so also:

Focus by Stan Getz - I bought it for the cover, it was my first Stan Getz album, I wore out 3 LPs and now have it on CD

Gumbo by Dr. John - it had tunes by the likes of Huey Smith and other New Orleans bluesmen - and it's wonderful

Live At The Apollo by James Brown - (the first Apollo album, the second one pales by comparison). IMHO it is the greatest live roots R&B album ever recorded. Someone said get a pre-funk James Brown album and I did. The mastery in which James had the audience in the palm of his hand is a lesson in entertainment by itself and the performances are top-notch. It was recorded in 1962 and for the technology of the era it's a very good sounding album.

I never heard any of those albums before I bought them. I've bought other great albums before and after, but since I was aware of them before I plunked the money down, they don't count in this thread.

[Folder]

When I was a kid I started noticing certain cool sounds in some of the songs I was hearing on the radio. I had no idea what was making these sounds but I knew they were not being made by conventional instruments like pianos and guitars. Then I saw some pictures of some weird looking keyboard instruments with lots of buttons and wires coming out of them. They looked to me kind of like props from old science fiction movies and I found out they were called synthesizers.

There was period of probably a couple years in junior high school where I would scour the record shops looking for records that had pictures of synthesizers or had synthesizers listed in the credits. I thought that if it have a synthesizer it must be a great record.

Some were really good and turned out to be some of my favorite albums but others were pretty bad. A couple that remember buying that I thought were pretty bad was an album by a group called Head East that had a song called "Never been any Reason" and another by a band called Sweet that had a song called "Fox on the Run" I had heard both of these songs on the radio and recognized that they had a synthesizer in them but from what I remember they were about the only songs that I liked on either album.