When you have nothing else to go on, what's most likely to get you to buy or listen to a song/album?

voted "ilxor expresses dislike"

record label for sure

good record labels are like friends with excellent musical taste. you trust them enough that you're willing to give most of what they put out a shot, at least

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

yeah record label

Why no option for having a record shop handy nearby?

(Otherwise, I think cover art is the option most likely to give an indication of the style/genre within, so I went for that)

a lot of us dont have record shops in our town

But, sure, some genre oriented record labels too.

for me it goes:

cover art
song titles
year
band photo
production credits
record label
band name
album name

oh wait - after year comes "location recorded"

This is clearly a rock/pop-oriented poll, because when it comes to jazz, you just read the list of musicians on the back cover and buy based on that. That being said, there are some labels I trust almost blindly (Willowtip, Earache).

I can't even fathom the question. There's too many records I want to check out because I've actually heard some of them or something by the artist or a related project and so on and so on that flying blind on anything based on a fucking title seems like a waste of precious time.

a lot of us dont have record shops in our town

I didn't even realise earache were still even going. Not that I'm surprised, I just haven't seen their logo in 15 years

i can't even tell you how many albums I've bought without hearing a note first. usually I do that if I've gotten it on authority from reliable sources, or sometimes I'm enticed by teh cover or the description.

does occasionally result in duds, but like I like going into albums naked sometimes...have discovered some classics that way

When I.was a lot younger I bought albums based on internet reputation and maybe short song samples. Nowadays if I download an album from a band I never heard of until 5 minutes ago it's because of either reputation (like rateyourmusic lists) or because _X_ artist is similar to _Y_ artist. Never any downloading based exclusively on name or art. Record label is the best choice of the options here

Cover art. Back before the internet it got me into Celtic Frost, Chrome, Swans, Motley Crue, and the Misfits. Thank you cover art!

Year + record label.

Like, Slumberland + 1993 or something is a sure thing for me.

the only option of these that could get me to check something out, if i had nothing else to go on, is label (and obviously only in some cases)

luckily there's always something else to go on

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.