Judging a book by it's cover...

[John Matrix]

The saying goes 'never judge a book by it's cover' - now in fairness, I reckon I do, and as a general rule of thumb, more often than not it's served me fairly well.

 

However, there are occasions where I'm happy to hold my hands up and say I got it wrong.  This is a thread for all those things you unfairly judged, or indeed were excited about only to find yourself let down or pleasantly surprised.

 

A few of mind off the top of my head... 

 

I remember many years ago, spotting this CD cover in HMV.

 

 

"What a cunt!"  I thought to myself. In fact, I didn't just think it to myself, I felt that strongly about that image, I actually said it out loud.  Was on my own incidentally..

 

It was only upon hearing it again the other day which gave me the idea for this thread, but Party Hard is one of my favourite songs I reckon - in terms of straight up getting me pumped and generally smiling, I love it. 

 

Same goes for We Want Fun which I only know from the Jackass 3 soundtrack - I'm no music aficionado - but I took one look at that album cover and convinced myself he'd be all sorts of terrible shit - I couldn't say I've ever heard another of his songs, but I owe the man an apology cos those two are crackers. 

 

 

This is a huge one for me, and I blame E4 entirely.  Their trailers for this showed it in completely the wrong light, as if it were a sitcom centred on a 'bubbly' overweight girl and her wacky adventures as a bit of a misfit.  To the degree I can't actually remember why I bothered watching the first episode, perhaps cos they'd advertised it so fucking much (which just reinforced my perception of it every time) and eventually wore me down, dunno..

 

Anyway, I'm glad I did, as it's one of the best things I've seen on telly for a long time.  A really touching, and at times, very VERY dark drama, but with some fantastic light hearted moments throughout.  It's actually really complex and a proper rollercoaster of ups and downs - there's a great episode in season 2 in particular in which the whole thing plays out with a central character coming off poorly, only at the end for the main character Rae, to reflect showing little subtle nuances where in fact, she was the one who'd been dismissive of another characters problems, causing her to further doubt herself and her mental health.  Strongly recommend it to sufferers of depression, it handles the subject well, isn't patronising in the slightest and the humour is subtle, not the sort of FAT GIRL LOL gags the original trailers seemed to suggest.

 

On the flip side, during my early teens and an avid collector of Jackie Chan movies, I can't tell you how often I fell for shit like this...

 

 

The first I ever bought with my own money (that wasn't a gift) - not helped by the fact I'd previously watched this to death as a young'un

 

 

So I instantly recognised that cover image from Wheels on Meals and the iconic Benny The Jet fight, I couldn't wait to get home and watch it.  You can imagine my disappointment to get it home and discover it fell into the 'blokes in their pyjamas fighting in the woods' genre as I'd coined it back then - absolute fucking tosh.

 

I never learned.  They got me time and time again with shit like this..

 

 

and this...

 

 

Which Chan fans amongst you will know are the same piece of shit. 

 

So yeah, your turn...  when have you been a judgemental prick for better or for worse?

[Guest]

That is a terrible album cover for his kind of music though, and you are perfectly entitled to judge any commercial product by its cover - that's what it's designed for.

 

What I'm saying is, take back your apology or I'm going to have to find that album and call him a cunt again to restore justice.

[The Gaffer]

Andrew W.K. is a big stupid cunt though, so there's that.

[Astro Hollywood]

Andrew W.K. is a big stupid cunt though, so there's that.

 

Incorrect. Andrew W.K. is a wonderful human being. That's not silly hyperbole; genuinely, he is the sort of person we should all aspire to be.

 

His Ask Andrew W.K. columns are filled with empathy and wisdom. http://www.villagevoice.com/topic/ask-andrew-wk-6365558

[Alex Wright Mark]

I got that Rumble in Hong Kong movie for a Jackie Chan movie marathon I was having. I thought it would be intriguing seeing Chan as a heel, but that film was God awful, and his moles were distracting.

 

Anyway, my contribution to this topic was buying this album because this cover reminded me of that Louis Theroux episode where he had his own rap album cover made for him. I thought it was going to be a so bad it's good album...

 

 

Turns out, it's actually pretty decent. Purse First, Ass Last is such a banger. It's on Spotify, if you want to check it out.

 

Also, I'm appalled at the Andrew WK hate. APPALLED.

[Scott Malbranque]

I don't mind Andrew WK. There's a video where there's some cheerleaders or something and he's got this big innocent, happy smile on his face when he's playing the drums. Like a baby getting a raspberry blown on it's belly.

 

 

This. My cousin (who got me into music, pretty much) gave me this for my 13th birthday and I thought it was a joke. He said "Remember 'Pop Goes The Weasel?' Well listen to this!!" I remembered the song coz someone battered Vanilla Ice in the video, but had no idea who MC Serch was. I thought it was something to do with Informer, youknowmedaddymesnowimgonnablame Licky Bum Bum Now and I wasn't impressed.

It lay idle for a few weeks and I said one day I'll put it on for a laugh.
It became one of my favourite hip hop albums of all time.

[The Gaffer]

 

Andrew W.K. is a big stupid cunt though, so there's that.

 

Incorrect. Andrew W.K. is a wonderful human being. That's not silly hyperbole; genuinely, he is the sort of person we should all aspire to be.

 

His Ask Andrew W.K. columns are filled with empathy and wisdom. http://www.villagevoice.com/topic/ask-andrew-wk-6365558

 

Had a read off that. Pretty sound advice to give the guy his due. I had him pegged as the guy who done two songs about getting loaded and then done some speaking on getting loaded.

 

Dare I say I judged a book by it's cover.