morriscroy

This must have been when DK was at its peak heydays and a sight to be seen!



I only started listening to DK after they had broken up already.

morriscroy

Towards the end of my short "retro excursion" into early-1990s era death metal, I eventually picked up Earache stuff like Entombed + Carnage (Tomas Skogsberg) and Carcass + Bolt Thrower (Colin Richardson).

During that time I also picked up some early black metal stuff like Mayhem and Emperor, just to find out I had very little interest in that extreme form of metal.

By then, I decided I didn't want to go down further into the "rabbit hole" of Nuclear Blast, Relapse, Century Media, etc .... releases. Not even if the titles had Tomas Skogsberg as producer/engineer. (The final title I picked up was the first Dismember album, which iirc was produced/engineered by Tomas Skogsberg).

Josh-da-man

I don't remember. I was probably about twelve or thirteen, and probably wouldn't have known what a bong was if I saw one.

morriscroy

With all that being said, nowadays selecting blind-buys (or semi-blind buys) based on the producer/engineer, cover art, etc ... are not very useful selection criteria anymore for me.

My criteria nowadays for deciding what to buy on cd, is to first listen to entire albums on youtube or another streaming service. If I don't have any desire to listen to something more than once or twice, then I won't bother buying the cd. If I listen to an entire album more than 2 or 3 times, I'll add the album to my current cd shopping list. Though I don't buy it right away.

To confirm whether I still want to buy a particlar album on cd, I'll revisit the album two or three weeks later and see whether I still have any desire to listen to it again. This frequently cuts my cd shopping list by more than a half, when I come to the realization that most stuff has very little to no re-listening value for me after several weeks (or months).

PerryD

I stopped buying CDs years ago when I subscribed to Spotify. The only CDs that I purchase now are at merch booths to get signed by the band at a given show. The bands almost always appreciate the gesture, I pick up a shirt, pick up a CD, get the band to sign the CD. The only band that I remember acting annoyed was Anthrax who seem to think that every signed item ends up on ebay.

morriscroy

If I still went to concerts, I would still be doing this too (except for the autographs).

They're probably getting more $ from selling shirts + cds direct at the merch table, than going through the distributor/retailer network.

morriscroy

In hindsight, most of my vinyl/cd purchases were more in the mindset of a "collector", and not really listening to the music. In the end, most of my cds and records were only ever played once or twice.

At most, there might be three or four dozen titles which I ever listened to over a hundred times.


Ever since entire albums were posted on youtube, that was when the "listening" aspect became completely disconnected / severed from the "collecting" aspect for me.

Nowadays to avoid too much further clutter, I only really buy cds which I think will end up being listened to over a hundred times. So this more or less eliminates 99% of the type of cd (or vinyl) titles I would have purchased back in the day.

beavis69

You and I have a similar system of purchasing albums. The only times I will purchase an album almost immediately is when it isn't on spotify. Most recent example of this is Uprising's II album (which is top 5 album for me for 2020). Not only did I buy it, I paid probably the most I've ever paid for a recently released cd after conversion and shipping.

https://uprisingblackmetal.bandcamp.com/album/ii

morriscroy

As a recent example of old habits die hard, I've been listening to albums produced/engineered by Andy Sneap. Stuff like Judas Priest, Accept, Testament, Megadeth, Saxon, etc ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Sneap

(Previously I didn't know Sneap was a big time producer/engineer of metal albums over the past 15-20 years. Back in the day, I use to listen to Sneap's first thrash band Sabbat)


In spite of these albums being extremely impressive in just about every aspect I can think of (ie. sound production, writing, musicianship, etc ...), so far I've found most of them have very little to no re-listening value for me.

If stuff like this was released back in the day, these albums would have been first day cd (or vinyl) blind-buys for me.

morriscroy

The other one big factor in my cd purchase decisions, is whether I am willing to sit down and devote my full attention to listening to a particular cd from start to finish. There is no point anymore in buying cds which I just play in the background when I'm at home. (This is the same criteria I use for buying bluray movies).

So three or four weeks later when I revisit titles on my potential cd shopping list, after the initial purge I'll start listening to the few remaining titles on my standalone stereo system. Frequently this will reduce my cd shopping list to zero.

wishbone

Late '80s a local record store had a glass display near the counter with various paraphernalia listed "for tobacco use."

I bought a CD there and looked at the RF security posts by the exit and thought how it would suck for the alarm to sound when I left the store. Sure enough the alarm did sound so I turned quickly to look at the clerk who just waived me on, "That alarm has been going off all day." Whew!

asianxcore

Currently watching Knotfest's Pulse of the Maggots Festival (Online).

Only tuned in for Year of the Knife & Tallah. Both bands killed it.

morriscroy

I was very much a latecomer when it came to punk rock. I never knew anybody else at the time that was also into any form of punk rock.

So most of what I knew about punk rock in those days, was largely the "cartoonish" stereotypes I saw on The Exploited records. Wattie's writing wasn't too hard to figure out. In contrast when I first tried to figure out what jello biafra was writing about, I had no idea what most of it was about. (I was completely ignorant of then-current events + politics of that time).

morriscroy

Over the past month or so (before I purchased those Slayer cds), I was sporadically listening through a dozen or so albums produced/engineered by Andy Sneap on youtube.

Out of that batch, I was abe to able to wittle down the initial list to three albums which I listened to more than 3 or 4 times, which I placed on my possible cd shopping list. The other ones I found I had no interest in listening to again.

After laying low for a few weeks, tonight I went through these three albums again. One I found I had no desire to listen to again, within the first minute of listening to it. It was dropped immediately from my cd shopping list.

The other two albums I played on my standalone stereo, where I devoted my full attention to listening to them from beginning to end. After listening through these two albums, I listen to them again a second time. At its conclusion, I came to the realization that I have no desire anymore to listen to these two albums.

Currently now there are zero titles on my cd shopping list.

beavis69

Blood Incantation did a set for Adult Swim festival that I caught last night. I guess Mastodon did a set either last night or it’s today as well b

asianxcore

Awesome! I didn't know about that.

I saw that members of Health posted on Instagram that they were watching that Adult Swim Festival but I didn't look up what bands were playing.

morriscroy

Over the past decade or so, the only times I ever purchased a newly released cd immediately were typically re-releases which had a lot of extra goodies.

For example, such as the re-releases of Ozzy Osbourne "Diary of a Madman" and Megadeth "Peace Sells ... But Who's Buying". These re-releases each had a second cd disc with previously unreleased live concerts from back in the day during their heydays.

morriscroy

The only band I buy new cd releases from is Iron Maiden, though only the studio albums. I have very little to no interest anymore in their live albums after the 1990s.

The first time I realized Iron Maiden was releasing crappy albums, were the live albums in the early 1990s. A Real Live One, A Real Dead One, and Castle Donnington all released in 1993. Since then, I have been very skeptical of live Iron Maiden albums.

I did pick up the Flight 666 live cd album from 2009, when I noticed it was all old songs from the 1980s. It turned out it was a disappointment, and didn't live up to their classic Live After Death album from 1985.

There is a new Iron Maiden live album being released next week, which I will not be buying.

morriscroy

(In a more detailed context).

I only really started using this third stage ^ "cd selection filter" around two years ago or so.

During the mid-late 2010s, I ended up making several cd purchases which initially survived my first and second stages of filtering. Though when I finally got these cds, it turned out they had very little to no re-listening value for me. Not even playing them much in the background when I'm at home.


The one title which sticks out in my mind, was Venom Inc "Ave" from 2017. This band is basically the Venom lineup from the 1989 Venom "Prime Evil" album, with the original guitarist (mantas) + drummer (abaddon), and atomkraft vocalist. It was obvious Mantas was the master songwriter who wrote a lot of the cool riffs on the classic Venom albums from the 1980s.

At the time, I watched some live footage and listened through the entire Venom Inc "Ave" album over a dozen times on youtube. I let it lay fallow for over a month and started to listen to "Ave" again, to see whether I still had any interest. I ended up listening to "Ave" again more than a dozen times, after that one month fallow time period. So I figured it would be worthwhile to purchased on cd.

Unfortunately when I finally got that Venom Inc "Ave" cd, I only ever listened to it once.


Around that same time period, this same thing also happened with two cd titles from the belgian thrash band Evil Invaders. They play a retro mid-1980s style of thrash I listened to a lot back in the day.

I first came across this band when I saw some live footage of them doing a cool cover of Exciter "Violence and Force" on youtube. After that I listened to their two albums on youtube over a dozen times, which passed through the two stages of my cd selection filtering process. Though by the time I purchased the two cds, I found they had no re-listening value for me.



Basically this third stage filtering process of devoting my full attention to listening to an entire album several times on my standalone stereo system, is largely to short circuit the "shiny new thing" type of thinking and sensation. If you have ever been a hardcore collector, most likely you will know what that "shiny new thing" sensation thing feels like.

Josh-da-man

Yeah, Maiden does tend to go overboard with their live album releases.

There’s really something to be said for double live albums that come out at the peak of an artist’s popularity and creativity — Iron Maiden’s Live After Death, Judas Priest’s Live, Ozzy’s Tribute, Scorpions’ World Wide Live, Slayer’s Decade of Aggression — that capture something special, but when a mature band keeps putting out live albums every few years, it’s tedious. They’re filled with new songs that nobody cares about, or the same live classics everyone has heard a million times.

PerryD

I wouldn't mind a live blu-ray, but I don't have any need for an audio only live album.

morriscroy

The primary reason why I ended up impulse buying all those post-y2k Slayer cds recently, was that I saw that one copy of Repentless which had an extra bluray disc of a 2014 Wacken concert with mostly their older stuff. (Only two tracks I didn't immediately recognize on this Wacken concert).

I saw that all the other post-y2k Slayer cds were around $10 a pop or less. So this very much triggered that huge impulse buy.


There is another live Slayer bluray released a year ago, Repentless Killogy. It appears to be the concert footage of the live cd album Repentles Killogy at Ingelwood, also released a year ago.

Though after I listened through the Repentless Killogy live cd several times, I will not be buying the bluray.

morriscroy

It sounded like Slayer were "bored" and/or just "going through the motions", on this Repentless Killogy live cd.

morriscroy

Even worse is when a band starts to sound "bored" or they're "going through the motions" on their live albums. This seems to start happening when the band members are over age 35 or slightly earlier.

This may very well be the case with the 1993 released Iron Maiden live albums: A Real Live One, A Real Dead One, and Castle Donington. Other than a few songs they usually didn't play often (ie. Prowler, Transylvania, etc ...), I thought these 1993 Maiden live albums sounded very uninspiring and "tired".

Things seem to get progressively worse live-wise as time goes on.

morriscroy

This may sound counter-intuitive or paradoxical.

When it comes to musical bands releasing stuff on bluray, I am usually extremely skeptical from the very start. Basically I use the fact that if they're releasing ANYTHING on bluray, that is a very reliable indicator that it will either be total shit and/or it will resemble a "spinal tap" parody (whether intentional or not).

Independently also compounding my extreme skepticism, is that I don't trust the judgment of non-major record labels in how they choose the disc manufacturing facilities to make their bluray (and dvd) discs. More likely to choose the lowest cost bluray (or dvd) disc manufacturer, and cut corners on quality control.

With the exception of my recent Slayer impulse buys, I generally will not buy official bluray titles released by indie record companies.

When it comes to music dvd releases, I will only buy titles released by major record labels. The only time I will buy a music dvd released by an indie record label, is if I can reasonably deduce (or guess) that the dvd disc is a single-layer 5 gigabytes (or less) sized disc. (I simply do not trust 5 to 8.5 gigabytes sized two-layer dvd discs that are released by indie record companies).