Quite a lot, even now. Back when I were knee-high to a Strat, I would quite often browse the record shops and would certainly be attracted to an interesting sleeve, though in fairness that would NOT be the only reason I would buy the album (OOOH! Shiny thing! Shiny thing!) --- but if it had a boring cover AND I DIDN'T KNOW THE ALBUM OR ARTISTE I might not be as ready to buy it.
Case in point: I went through a phase of collecting all of Van Der Graaf Generator's albums. One of them, "Godbluff", is nothing more than a black sleeve with the title stamped on it in red. Didn't stop me buying it though. If Marillion had released an album with a sleeve that was similarly undecorated, or Genesis, or Supertramp, Springsteen, whoever, I'd still have bought it, as a pretty sleeve does not rank at the top of the reasons for buying albums, not for me.
However...
If I didn't know the artiste, I would be more likely to try out their album if the cover was interesting. Another case in point: "Bat out of Hell". I used to look in the window of a record store every night on the way home from my part-time job after school and think "what a cool cover! I'd never listen to the MUSIC, but cool cover!" When I bought the album (again, not ONLY on the basis of the cover; I had heard a few tracks but then in this case the cover played a pretty large part, as I had been admiring it for months) I found I loved the music, but I also love the sleeve, one of my alltime favourites.
Nowadays, this plays a much larger part in my decisions. Again, this is when I don't know the artiste. Either a cool cover or an interesting title will often draw me to an album. Of course, if I discover then that it's a genre I don't like I go no further, but it can be the starting point to move me towards something I may eventually decide to buy.
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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018
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