Judging by a Cold Busted Cover

At my job, I spend precious hours of my life looking at new release books. Every week, there are MANY of these books, so I must not pause for too long on each page, on each title, all of them cheaply and shamelessly promising me waves of sonic ecstasy and enormous popularity and profitability. Most of the text on a one-sheet is, not surprisingly, hyperbolic and not to be trusted. I often rely on my own knowledge to help me make a decision: No. Or, Yes! And then, how many? Sometimes, I benchmark earlier releases and see how well they sold. If the artist in question is outside my areas of interest and expertise, I will call upon my colleagues for their input. 

Other times, I just wing it. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is when a well designed album cover becomes oh-so-incredibly important. I have put in for dozens of releases (of which I had zero prior familiarity) based a teeny-bit on their writeup and a humongous chunk on their artwork.

Enter: Cold Busted, a new label distributed by one of our trusted hip-hop vendors, Fatbeats.

I came across these folks this past week, love love LOVED everything I saw and ordered all of it as a result. So twitterpatted was I by the colorfully vintage and geometrically bold designs, I walked the extra mile over to their Facebook page, gave them the proverbial 'thumbs up', and drooled a bit into their comment box. They responded with humble thanks and free goodies both for me and my customers. I was especially taken with the art for their first 12" release, an instrumentals compilation called "This Is How It Should Be Done." Truer words have never been spoken.

 Oh, yes. This one is definitely coming home with me ... maybe these too:

The lesson here, which may or may not be an unfortunate one, is that people judge books by their covers all the time. Whether they should or shouldn't is a moot point. We live in a vibrant, visual culture where a kaleidoscopic revolving door of stimuli awaits us the moment we walk out the front door, or turn on the TV, or the computer, or the phone. A compelling narrative will keep us reading, and a catchy hook and a dope beat will keep us listening, but it's not the end of the world if a beautiful cover gets that book or that record in our hands.