Ok people, feeling a bit nostalgic here. Own up who use to read the album covers/sleeves and the gumph that was printed on them. My mate and i used to read them every time we put an album on (prog or not), and used to try and put ourselves in the scenario of which the album was made (hope this makes sense).

There must be people out there who know what i'm talking about. I kinda lost my way with cd's as the writing was too small to read, and the eyesight now is to bad to read.

i always read the covers or the booklets when i first get the album

Aaron

utas wrote: Definitely. In the mid 70's I discovered quite a few prog bands by reading album covers for info about instrumentation and track lengths. Somehow I managed to develop a sixth sense for what prog albums looked like, to the point where I bought some LPs solely on the basis of what the covers looked like.

ME TOO! (BUT IN THE 80's). I DISCOVERED BANDS LIKE FOCUS, JETHRO, OR KANSAS THAT WAY!!!

Prog-man wrote: utas wrote: Definitely. In the mid 70's I discovered quite a few prog bands by reading album covers for info about instrumentation and track lengths. Somehow I managed to develop a sixth sense for what prog albums looked like, to the point where I bought some LPs solely on the basis of what the covers looked like. ME TOO! (BUT IN THE 80's). I DISCOVERED BANDS LIKE FOCUS, JETHRO, OR KANSAS THAT WAY!!!

Same here.  Every week I'd get my paycheck and go to the used record stores.  Usually I could tell a prog band by their cover.  Then disco came along and ruined that. 

Some bands I discovered that way: Eloy, Finch, Magma, Godley & Creme, PFM.

Tony Fisher wrote: Read Thick as a Brick's cover. Whoever wrote that cover has spent a lot of time on it and needs to get a life! If you've ever read a British local newspaper, it's hilarious.

It's Ian Andersson himself, along with band members Jeffrey Hammond and John Evan.

Apart from the lyrics and the art which I love to examine again and again, I particularly like reading the thank you list of the band and of each member. There are sometimes some ammusing notes there or some serious things that clarify certain aspects of the album. In metal albums this is particularly interesting. The band thank you list helps you see who's friends with who. For instance Blind Guardian and Iced Earth always used to mention one another in their thank you's. THey even refered to one another as Iced Guardian and Blind Earth. Hence the collaboration Demons and Wizards. Death, for example, or more accurately, Chuck Schuldiner (RIP) had always something to say. In Human for example you can understand his complex relationship with the media and certain critics and industry people and other "malevolent" people who were spamming him - He says there something like this: this is more than a record to me, it is a statement, it is revenge!. It is also interesting to see the lineup and the guest musicians (if any) to understand relationship between bands and to understand where some influences might have come from. For instance, Wobbler's multi-keyboardist is a member in White Willow. THe producer of their album is Holm-Lupo, WW mainman.