Albums you bought and then took back to the shop the next day due to extreme musical displeasure

No rules on this one.

I bought a pistols compilation "Live Worldwide", the sound quality was awful and some of the tracks were the contemporaneous Cabaret PIL band doing "Anarchy" on The Tube (tv show)

Took it back, said it jumped like crazy, got refund.

as mentioned in the other thread, and in chronological order:

NIN - Fixed
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (remixed by Bally Sagoo) – Magic Touch
Amon Duul – Vive Le Trance

Have never done this... I think

Bought CD called Shake Some Action by the Flamin' Groovies thinking (not unreasonably in my opinion) that it was the album Shake Some Action by the Flamin' Groovies.

It was actually a shitty comp of re-recorded tracks by 1 or more members of the Flamin' Groovies done some time in the mid-90s.

I bought a Danielson Famile cd (Fetch the Compass Kids) at a used record store in Boston, listened to it once, then asked the next dude I met if he wanted to take it

later told me that he and his gf listened to it while tripping and really dug it, so I'm glad I could do some good in the world

Oh yeah, I've given away loads of CDs and records I didn't like to friends and relations (think the last one was the first Van der Graaf Generator album), never been one to return stuff.

OK, the rule is: You have to have bought it, and returned it to the place of purchase for refund or exchange.

I bought a Primus album when I was about 15 on someone's recommendation at school. Went straight back the next day.

I guess this is for the old-skool record buyers: Thesedays, you buy something and it disappoints, you swallow it and go "never mind" as music isn't that expensive anymore.

The Sex Pistols one was full-price, and a rip-off (yeah, I know...)

think the last one was the first Van der Graaf Generator album

Oh, I quite like that one! But I'm a bit of a lightweight when it comes to prog...

I have returned two albums in my lifetime:

The Other People Place - Lifestyles of the Laptop Cafe
Which I copied, and ended up really liking after quite a long time. But at the time I thought it were shite.

Patrick Wolf
Don't know what album. One of his earlier ones from before he was famous. It were shite.

Many years ago in a fit of newfound appreciation of Jamaican ska I bought some "best ska compilation in the world ever", enticed by the 3 Jamaican 60s/70s tracks I'd heard of on the tracklisting, only to find that the other 25 acts I hadn't heard of were some ska-punk barrelscraping

I think this is the only non-faulty CD I've ever returned (not counting buying things from a second-hand shop and then selling them back months later)

1986 - bought Lifes Rich Pageant from Woolworths, gave it a play, thought it was dull, took it back and swapped it for Pet Shop Boys' Please < decisive popist moment in my teenage tastes.

I think I've done this a few times, but the only one I specifically remember was Shellac's 1000 Hurts, cos it just seemed to me like a comedy record. I know that there's always been a sense of humour in all Albini's stuff, but that one was just so unsubtle about it. Have taken shit for that opinion btw, starting with the the record store guy who did actually did a double-take and then asked me if I was nuts.

I did buy Kraftwerk's "Autobahn" album, but my parents moaned about 'fake' music every time I played it (or tried to) I ended up taking it back, swapped it for something I can't remember.

Funny, I won a copy of the first album (double), they were OK about that one...

I did re-buy it later though.

Well there weren't any synths on the first album so it wasn't fake I suppose

"That's not music, that's just getting machines to make noises like cars! Anyone could do that. Nothing clever about it..."

xpost yeah, they thought "Ruckzeug" was alright. But then they kind of wandered off after the first couple mins.

Obviously, this became less of an issue once I got my own stereo system (which was also part of the same prize package, come to think of it)

1986 - bought Lifes Rich Pageant from Woolworths, gave it a play, thought it was dull, took it back and swapped it for Pet Shop Boys' Please < decisive popist moment in my teenage tastes.

Hah, have you changed your opinion on LRP since? I'm pretty sure I returned at least a couple of albums I ended up loving and re-buying - Nixon springs to mind here.

I've never done this. As far as I'm aware the shop is under no obligation to give you a refund or an exchange for an item that is not faulty and I've always thought it was a bit cheeky to ask for one. I just chalk it up to experience and keep the album.

Don't really like any REM album past Murmur really :/

xp some stores (e.g. Fopp) explicitly state that you can return an album on aesthetic grounds.

xp some stores (e.g. Fopp) explicitly state that you can return an album on aesthetic grounds.

― m the g, Thursday, March 10, 2011 12:51 PM (24 seconds ago) Bookmark

this seems crazy to me given you can just rip the album

i mean obvi you could 'just d/l it' but...

http://www.badscience.net/wp-content/uploads/image71.png

Ah yeah, I took the first Bloc Party album back to Fopp. Had to fill in a from with my reason for returning it iirc.

yeah, people who think it's OK to do that would probably just download it anyway, rather than trekking to the shop.

xp to Tom - when I was little I thought that "Home Taping is Killing Music" meant you weren't allowed to tap your feet. so I stood dead still whenever my dad had a record on.

LOL. Very Calvinist.

this seems crazy to me given you can just rip the album

It's also a bad policy because then the album is no longer new, it's secondhand. But I bet they put it back with the new stock, not in the secondhand bins for half the price. Sorry but if I buy a "new" album I expect it never to have been played.

Pretty hard to tell if a CD has been played once or not though?

The only time I've actually taken a CD back the shop was about ten years ago when I bought Mercury Rev's Yerself Is Steam from Borders. I was in love with Deserters Songs and All Is Dream so was a little shocked when I put it on and David Baker's voice came on, I took it back the next day and swapped it for Grand Prix by Teenage Fanclub. A few weeks ago I decided to give Yerself another go and really loved it, still not that keen on Baker's voice but he's hardly on it and now it's back in my collection.

'The Smiths Is Dead' covers compilation, took it back and swapped it for The Presidents Of The United States Of America 'II'.

WINNING

Pretty hard to tell if a CD has been played once or not though?

I know but still I would like to be sure that it hasn't been previously played even if there is no deterioration in its condition. I'm anal like that

I've only done this twice:

Counting Crows - August and Everything After
Panda Bear - Person Pitch

I returned Muse's debut about 2 hours after buying it. The only other album I've thought about returning straight away was the last Kanye; we ended up selling it a couple of months later. Should've just got the refund.

Sure there are albums I've rebought after getting rid iof them, but can't think of a specific example.

I complained to [well known London independent record shop & label, which I won't name because they are good people basically but you can probably figure out y'self] by email about a CD reissue they put out of one of my all-time favourite records, because some tracks were ripped from vinyl and the quality of the rip was appalling - in one case, the needle audibly jumped a groove.

They replied that they had re-played the CD in the office, couldn't identify a problem and suggested I get a life. I took the CD back anyway and got a replacement, which I've still got at home in the original shrink rap. I plan to sell it on for megabucks when it's OOP again.

I bought Rocket To Russia with my Christmas money after Xmas 1977, the same day my elder brother bought Ramones (the 1st LP). You obviously don't need both in the same household as they're practically the same LP (I remember thinking at the time), so I took mine back & swapped it for the first Clash album. Punk rock.

A live MC5 album I didn't know was a bootleg (this was a long time ago) and it sounded like crap. The guy at the store said, hello, it's a live album, of course it sounds like crap. I replied with hello, Kick Out The James m.f.! He gave me my money back.

Kick out the JAMS

Generally I gave stuff more than a day, at least a month. There's a few dozen that I'd been disappointed by and sold, like Doolittle, Feelies - Only Life. Most of them I ended up buying again years later as I still liked the bands, and grew to accept their flaws.

Mention of Doolittle reminds me the 1st CD I ever bought was Trompe Le Monde (I had Doolittle & Bossanova on tape) which I ended up taking back because I'm a gutless wimp of peer pressure, my schoolmates all hated indie rock at the time, it was all Guns'n'Roses and classic rock or GTFO. I exchanged it for the Human League though, which didn't exactly go down much better. I bought Trompe Le Monde again 2 years later.

Ned Raggett Reads the Almanac. Traded it for an Enrique Iglesias CD-single. Best business decision I ever made.

hey colonel poo that would never have happened if you went to a state school ;)

when i was abt 13 i bought the first edition of metal box after reading an absolute rave review of it in the nme. could not get on w/ it all, returned it to the virgin (not so)megastore in marble arch and exchanged it for drums and wires by xtc, which at the time was v much more my speed. nowadays i still listen to and adore metal box, haven't heard drums and wires in years.

What's all this about swapping/exchanging, can you return music you don't like to some stores? These two I just sold back used after a spin or two:

U2, Achtung Baby
Q-Tip, Kamaal/The Abstract

^^^ I keep forgetting I need to sell that Q-tip record.

What's all this about swapping/exchanging, can you return music you don't like to some stores?

Yes and as someone pointed out, that was part of the sales pitch of some stores in the UK. There were book stores that did this too (Books Etc springs to mind). You had a month in which you could return the book if you didn't like it, but I think they were banking on people either just not bothering, or books being so trashed that wouldn't accept them back as new anyhow.

4 realies with books... i have a tonne of unread books, but that's a weird system. if you've properly opened it it can hardly be sold as new.

I used to do this on the reg as a kid with the failsafe excuse that I had gotten two of the item in question for my birthday.

Bought Yo La Tengo's Summer Sun, was so monumentally disappointed in it that I returned it the next day. Funny thing was, when I purchased it, I entered a drawing for tickets to their upcoming show. Despite returning the CD, I was still eligible, and I won. In addition to the tickets, I got a promotional YLT beach ball and poster, both of which I still have. Despite the fact that Yo La Tengo put on maybe 3 of the 5 best live shows I've ever seen, I gave my tickets away. A friend of mine who went to the show -- and was a massive YLT fan -- said that the new material was so dull that she was literally weeping with boredom.

Most of the big chain stores would only let you return an open item for the exact same record.

At least once when I was in high school I bought an album at store that sold both new and used CDs, and then sold it back. Obv. I still wound up in the red by a few bucks, but it was worth it to me to have it taken off my hands. The one I definitely remember doing this with was Chavez's Ride the Fader, though I feel like there was another one, too. I know I strongly considered it with Tricky's Maxinquaye -- but then I gave the album a few more days and it started to click for me.

Should have given that Chavez a few more days too, imho.

Yeah those Sun albums are bad news - a year after Summer Sun, there was R.E.M.'s Around The Sun. The Creatures - Sequins In The Sun.

sonic youth - daydream nation.
i know - most people think it's their best but to me it cames over like an aimless, neutered version of rush's "hemispheres", after "sister".

How'd you feel about Goo?

i do this all the time! big advantage to shopping at independent record shops w/ great return policies -- buy, listen, return within 7-10 days or so if dissatisfied (including if not to yr tastes)

stuff i've sent back this year that i can recall:

Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble - The Eleventh Hour (my first exposure to EP... didn't feel it was a good place to start, just wasn't feeling it, and spent the $$ on a Joe Henderson disc when i took it back)

John Zorn - Elegy
John Zorn - Angelus Novus (first exposure to Zorn... wasn't feeling these two at all)

The Go! Team - Rolling Blackouts (omg this was utter shite)

Can't imagine doing this--caveat emptor and all that. I think I did return something once for the same reason someone else cited above: it gave the impression of being originals but was rerecorded. Generally, I'm able to detect bogus reissues.

I have done this exactly twice with two albums that were acclaimed as "records of the year" by a prominent music blog

it's more fun if you name names y'know

serves him right for buying his own albums!

Only ever done this twice:

Meat Puppets, Monsters (returned it, got Huevos instead and wound up buying Up On The Sun too, so it was a win for the store)
Revolting Cocks, Linger Ficken' Good...

Mogwai -Ten Rapid

A bit like hearing Tindersticks for the first time and wondering I was spun into some Phillip K Dick style paranoid conspiracy, 'I have friends that think this is good?'

if you return an album to the store because you didn't like the music you're a douche

it's like complaining to the paperboy about the news stories

mr shop owner please stock musical products I will enjoy in the future, GOOD DAY SIR

Used to have a friend who worked in the local Our Price who would let us take in things we'd bought from other shops and exchange them for something from Our Price. I once got the first Smithereens album, the second Undertones album and The World Won't Listen in exchange for that mid-80s Suicide album whose name I forget, bought from an entirely unrelated shop. This was not, of course, an option available in other shops or to other customers. And God knows how he managed to escape being caught when he tried to process a return on a record they hadn't even stocked.

(Because I am a douche) I brought back my copy of Loveless by MBV the day after getting it because I figured there had to be something wrong with it, like a mastering problem or something, sounded like the speed was erratic to me. Little did I know that that would end up being the reason I ended up loving the album!

my mate used to do this a lot after buying cds when he was drunk

if you return an album to the store because you didn't like the music you're a douche

not if a music store prides itself on a return policy that lets you take home the music, explore new stuff, and return within a week or so if something doesn't click. i probably return 1 out of 20 or so things i take home -- a very small % considering i also am much more willing to shop at a place that has a return policy that encourages exploration of new sounds.

Actual LOLs.

I have done this with one band and only one band I don't want to type their name at all they're so horrible I can't believe I bought it

at me?? xp :(

P.O.D.-Southtown

I don't even know why I bought it in the first place.. Let the slagging begin.. :(

rofl

So embarrassing... lol

I have actually never returned an album apart from those metal albums that cdon.com occasionally send me by mistake when I wait for something else (this has actually happened three times) ;)

Have only ever done this with Smash Mouth's Fush Yu Mang. I was 12 or 13. I think that was the first time I realised that some music could just be utter utter shit.

Bought CD called Shake Some Action by the Flamin' Groovies thinking (not unreasonably in my opinion) that it was the album Shake Some Action by the Flamin' Groovies.

It was actually a shitty comp of re-recorded tracks by 1 or more members of the Flamin' Groovies done some time in the mid-90s.

i got this monstrosity off emusic, so disappointing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7aoWX8ENT0

Er, Ice-T's O.G.

It was something to do with the Body Count track. I was insensed by it because I was told to expect something better than Public Enemy's She Watch Channel Zero?! And I thought it was fucking bullshit. And I was drinking a lot at the time.

I went back a few months later and bought it again.

biffy clyro - the vertigo of bliss

still lolling at the hmv dude recommending them to you

still unsure how the oceansize dude with an impeccable taste ranks them up with cardiacs and mr bungle - in mitigation their earlier stuff was probably better idk

oceansize dude with an impeccable taste ranks them up with cardiacs and mr bungle

this sentence, i just... just..

it wasnt. they were always shite.
xp

I cannot think of any CD that I've taken back and I didn't start blind buying until later on when I knew how to separate the good from the crap.
If this were a thread about DVDs, however... Remember when retail only sold Full Screen? Ugh.

bought the first Eat Skull album today for $4 and don't like it, will be taking it back tomorrow and exchanging for probably some more Ruins, maybe one of the Skin Graft releases? Tzadik cover art is prettier so i got that one first

the only CD I have ever returned was Marilyn Manson's Antichrist Superstar. Even at 13 I knew that was bullshit.

Heart - Greatest Hits
(tbf I got it from BMG and sold it at a music store)

There was like 3 good rock songs on it and the rest was non-rock and terrible. I still have no desire to hear Heart do anything but those 3 rock songs.

been trying to remember if i have done this.
then doing to digging, i found this thread :
what have you returned lately...
and look who started it !
don't even recall that PBW mix cd.

easily the most disappointing music related experience of my life:
I'm a huge fan of the first two Le Tigre albums. I bought the 3rd and listened once in disbelief. I gathered myself and listened again.
I can't remember if I returned it or just threw it away, but it had to leave the house as soon as possible.
I was depressed for at least a month.

thing with this whole thread is... i thought most stuff wasn't available for refund if you opened the shrink wrap?

indie shops! some let you listen to anything in the store. some also let you take things for a week or so, listen at home, and bring back if in new condition. now i'm sure if they detected a pattern of someone returning *everything* (i.e. to rip CDs for free) they'd step in, but otherwise it's good business and encourages ppl (like me!) to buy/listen to most anything without hesitation

like, i've returned 5 CDs to a couple shops this year, but have picked up maybe 60-80 in the used bins overall since jan. 1 -- and no doubt the return policy encourages my getting stuff without any "risk"

every week i'd go to hmv and buy a new disc with my pocket money -upon returning home i'd tape it and take it back the following week, and do the same again

it only happened for a couple of months though, shop assistant began to give me an odd look.

think this'll be the name of my new liveblog

EXTREME MUSICAL DISPLEASURE

thing with this whole thread is... i thought most stuff wasn't available for refund if you opened the shrink wrap?

CDs in the UK and Europe don't come wrapped, I don't think.

think this'll be the name of my new liveblog

EXTREME MUSICAL DISPLEASURE

― yeah (kelpolaris)

I shall expect royalty payments on a monthly basis.

thing with this whole thread is... i thought most stuff wasn't available for refund if you opened the shrink wrap?
CDs in the UK and Europe don't come wrapped, I don't think.

Some of them do, many of them don't. And if they do it's a plain plastic wrapper and no stickers on the CDs; none of those little white stickers with the artist and title on that US CDs have over the top which are hard to remove neatly. We still get those on US imports and they annoy me.

All the same I thought this was kind of frowned upon even in the UK, so I only did it once and planned a lot of excuses to make to the counter staff, but they gave me a refund with no fuss and didn't want to hear my excuses. Strangely, it was harder to get a replacement when I really did get a duff pressing.