I play a few songs in the shop before I make a purchase. Yeah cover art and details on the packaging has a big influence on me whether or not I should buy, especially when it comes to flicking through records and CDs in a record store. A dino record really jumps out at me.

Packaging means nothing to me. Zero.

this is true, but only when you already know what you're buying imo.
I mean, when the music itself is enough to make you a happy buyer.
But i think it's always a good surprise when i buy records that I would buy even if packaged with used toilet paper (nice idea,huh?) and find out that, besides the music i love, there's something "more" in the booklet/packaging/overall style of the "thing". And it's quite sad when you see something put together not that good, like the low res images printed in the destroyed room's booklet :( dunno if that was intentional, but it's really not a good sight.

the packageing?

nyuck nyuck, I get it...

i know, i know, obvious joke i shouldn't have made, but when i first saw the title thread i thought hm it was about something else and the OCD made me do it.

I thought it was a pretty good joke, though, as jokes about album covers go. In fact, I'm going to rep you... Except I can't because apparently I need to spread it more...

a couple years back i bought an amazing thruston moore limited edition of his roots cd

its fucking amazing, its made out of a real vacumm cleaner bag, its fucking awesome

hA ha, ok, thanks! well im happy to have provided chuckles ,and to know that my sense of humor is not completely alien to others. feel free to rep, of course, at your convenience. rep seems to act as some sort of board currency one cannot live without and, to quote mike judge's "idiocracy", i like money. so rep me... rep me my friend...

the medium itself should be considered part of the art.

Spacemen3 (and the gang) have some nice colored vinyl. I especially like the marbled! I have a 12" by Spectrum that is clear yellow with a clear jacket and together they make a pretty trippy design.

I have a De La Soul record that isn't really in a nice jacket, but it tracks 2 different songs on one side depending upon where you set down the needle...that messed with me pretty bad back in the day. :p

the most gimmicky cd that I have has to be the Flaming Lips - This Here Giraffe which is shaped like an 8 pointed star and labeled as the "world's first shaped cd". it's just the album track with 2 peel session tracks, but it's been a nice collector's item.

I also have a Jesus & Mary Chain cd single for Far Gone and Out that's holographic on top. it looks cool when you spin it.

I like it when the packaging is nice, but I don't think the issue has ever swayed a decision one way or the other.

i don't buy CDs because i've got a general distaste for the format. tapes don't matter so much (usually if i'm listening to a tape it's recorded from an LP anyway) and while i like LP art, i'm not buying it for the art. i'm buying it for the music.

its nice to think that someone has enough time to listen to all that music, sitting with his cats and relaxing to it with some nice sounds. probably running around trying to stop the cats scratching all his records more likely haha.

all i can see is some guy with a beard sitting in the sun with his feet up listening to nice records.

the Set fire To Flames CD (the second one) has really great artwork too. Its good when the artwork compliments the music to some degree, and when you can see the artist has been involved in making it.

Much of my distaste for the CD format has to do with the packaging. And I think packaging extends to the thing itself--to the piece of vinyl or CD. CDs just look like cheap pieces of plastic to me. LPs are beautiful, black vinyl or colored. And LPs have that great vinyl smell--CDs don't smell like anything.

But I wouldn't buy music I hated just to have a pretty cover and other packaging. There are many gorgeous LP covers that package music I'd never want to listen to.

A good album is a good album, but the interesting/cool packaging can surely help propel the album into spheres of awesomeness that mere mortals will never be able to achieve.

I'm usually ambivalent towards buying physical music versus downloads, but I greatly prefer buying Blur/Gorillaz stuff physically.

The Demon Days CD booklet has a bit of artwork for each song.

Modern Life is Rubbish through to The Great Escape all have chords in the liner notes.