You know when you go digging, you always have that washlist of names in yout head that youll purchase any album from when you find it(granted its in the 1 buck crates).

But aside from that, what do you generally look for?

Im personally always trying to find that 'different' type of stuff and buy alot of stuff that has covers that are as freaky as possible, and often end up with that 80's stuff you'd classify as Alternative but all sounds alike. When a friend of mine gets records based on cover he always ends up with 70's pop, wether he wants it or not.

So what do you guys look for in a record of wich the name rings no bells and your judging it by the cover?

I always go strait to the back cover and base my purchase on the names of the tracks. If the names of the tracks sound interesting then I get it. Front covers don't interest me at all. Lately I have learned not to look at all I just buy the whole "lot".

I use my spidy senses to sniff out the good stuff. I quess it is a combination of different things really.

Granted when flipping thru boxes upon boxeas at the salvation army store the cover is the first thing that will give you a hint of possible diggers gold. BUT then again that is (disregarding the obvious stuff) a thing you will need to base upon knowledge and experience. And well, in some cases pure spidy instincts (but those are also based on your prevous experinces and knowledge).

I know there are covers that you might pass up on in an instant, they look like the typecial goodwill stadart classical music covers. Even the titles and names of the songs are like classical pieces, or have religious references to them. BUT the the actual product is freakishly funky electronic experimental music.

Over time one will learn what kind of band/artist names usually offer something of interest. You will learn how the cover art will reflect certain cultural aspects of the time and era when it was made. But if I pick them up is ultimately a combination of things

Knowledge - Artist name - Year - Label - Song names - Instrumets involved - cover art - Small details in the portraits of the artist(s) - The vinyl itself (yes I'll freaking sniff the grooves in hunt for possible breaks).

I look to see iff theres a female on the cover, and how bad she is personally... seems like the dudes with the baddest females on the cover usually has some shit worth checkin.... just my opinion!

^ lmao at that one.

Anyway yeah im with looking at the track names and the year and everything but i'm usually too hasty for that. i just go trough the crates and grab everything that seems interesting to me from the cover or name, then when the time comes to make those executive desicions and put back records untill im on my budget i'll check out the back, mostly to see if the song names and instruments hint at what type of stuff it'll be.

also i've found that covers that are extremely colourful and/or minimal rarely dissapoint.

Here is a tip for digging.
Google goggles
Take a picture of the cover and see what its all about. very helpful if you have a tight budget and want to get the most out of the purchase.
educated decisions always beats out guessing.

im glad that i feel i have gotten to a level of digging now where i can look at most records and can take an educated guess as to whats on there, in certain aspects though i cant see the breaks through the cover

i've made a lot of bad choices in the past few years about buying records though, to the extent of paying around a tenner on trash once or twice but yeah experience builds with your collection and now i know what periods from what labels from what artists and so on that i know to keep in my head when im digging.

we should start up a dig thread if there isn't one already would be cool to see everyones digs from around the world!

Latest digs thread might not be a bad idea

Like some of the others have said I'll pick up a record purely on the cover art. Other times I'll go for the wierdest most random stuff I can find be it spoken word , nursery rhymes , church choir recordings , education records whatever is out there !!
Sometimes I will check the liner notes and see who produced it or what session artists are on it but normally I'll go for the stuff others leave behind ha ha !!

Look for a dude or group of dudes looking cool as a motherfunker a la Al Green, Teddy Pendergrass, Labi Siffre, The Chi-Lites.

I look at the artwork, the colors on the album and back of the album to see if I like the song titles..

After giving it some thought, it's not what is on the cover. It's HOW what's on the cover is presented that will determine my interested in the object.

I read a strip in the comic "Rocky" where he was digging with his Dj friend, when he asked him what to look for his friend answered: "Look for a black guy playing a horn on the cover"

Haha, I love Rocky and that pretty much sums it all up

I just go by if I like the whole package, cover, names etc... I once just got like 4 records cos they had the word turtle on it cos i like turtles lol

I‘m much less creative when it comes to sampling. I either sample songs I already have, or I look up artists sampled by my favourite producers. Then hit youtube or amazon and listen to "related searches“。 Then again, I live in China, so the changes of going crate digging around here are nil

traditional chinese music has ill samples!

@ Sabotage

Yes it's true, traditional Chinese music is where it's at, but I can't find any vinyl shops tho. That said, vintage Chinese pop from a few decades back makes good sampling material too, to my surprise. Have you listened to Onra's "Chinoiseries"? The dude sampled Vietnamese and Chinese songs from like the 60's and 70's and made two albums, a bit like Madlib's Beat Konducta series, with a lot of short instrumentals. If you haven't, you should definitely check it out, no one else but him has tapped into that vintage oriental sound that I know of, and some of the beats are insane.

i havnt checked out chinese stuff yet but i love japanese music. not so much the vocals but the chords and sounds they use there are refreshing.

back to the covers, im slowly starting to learn. as it turns out a white cover with a name that has an underscore and a small picture next to it can not go wrong. ever. A black guy with a horn is instaclassic but a white guy with a synthesizer is even better.(the bigger the synthesizer the more awesome the record) lastly the face of a middleaged woman is not usually good unless the text says she's accompanied by an orchestra in that case you've struck gold. middleaged women aint shit without their orchestras.

I usually buy anything that has crazy artwork on the cover. but the main things i like for are any kind of jazz or blues and other that any records i kind find with full orchestras or classical symphonies are a plus for me.