How do you decide what band shirts to buy? Do you base your decision on your liking of the band? Maybe a cool front cover? Shock value? Is it a factor whether you have a physical copy of the record depicted on the shirt?

1. Do I like the band?
2. Do I like the album being represented AND/OR the artwork?
3. Can I afford it?
4. Is it in stock in my size (men's XL)?

Yes to all? Mine.

If I really like the band, or album, if it’s an album cover. If I don’t have the album, or never listened to it, I wouldn’t wear it. My job has no dress code, so it can be as offensive as possible. I stay away from extreme gore though, because I happen to not like it.

Main factors are mentioned above. Next factor is can I actually wear it around other people and not be totally embarassed. I have plenty of shirts that I've bought in the past but haven't taken out in years cause it's just awkward seeing some musician striking a pose on it (front or back). Anything offensive I probably wouldn't get for generally the same reason. I typically wear band shirts at work so a tour shirt from a band I like or a good album design (wearing a yellow JP Screaming for Vengeance shirt right now) can get lots of uses.

A really good live show often sends me in a "BUY MERCHANDISE" mood and sometimes alters my judgement: i have bought some shirts that i wear pretty much only for halloween

Like the band, cool design and somewhat offensive can be a bonus.

Funny story from the good old '80s I proudly wore my Metallica, Metal Up your ass baseball shirt, with a glow in the dark skeleton in the electric chair on the back. Same shirt that James was wearing at a lot of shows, around '85 or so. Anyways, I was wearing it at a mom and pop convenience store and the old lady cashier told me she liked my shirt. I was kind of embarrassed, not sure what she was insinuating.

LOL....hysterical!
(I had the same shirt, circa 1986 or '87?!?!?)

I haven't bought band merchandise in a long time but when I did:

* Do I like the band and the album the shirt is promoting?
* Is the design more minimalist (I don't like the huge album cover type shirts despite the art presented).
* Size and fit.
* Quality.

I only buy merch of the bands I like and the albums I’ve heard... I don’t want to be stopped on the streets one day and be interrogated on a completely unfamiliar album xD

If someone gives me a shirt, I will wear it out of respect for the giver and the band, but then try to hear the music if I haven't heard it before. To buy a shirt, I would need to have listened to and liked at least one album from the band, but not necessarily the one featured on the shirt. Another criteria is there is less point wearing shirts from hugely famous bands (I might sometimes), but if you wear a lesser-known band's shirt, you are helping to raise their profile and hence doing the band a favor. If I met the band members, and I liked them, I'm more likely to wear the shirt too than if the opposite was true.

Some band shirts still look good after years of constant wear, especially my Decrepit Birth shirt and some Made-in-Indonesia bootlegs. It is really remarkable - but others shrink very fast.

For me, I go for bands that I enjoy so that there's a more personal feel in them. I do like both short sleeves and long sleeves, but I prefer the long sleeve ones that have a cool design on the sleeves.

Band/album I enjoy, first and foremost, with a shirt design I like. Darker colors, not necessarily black but certainly not white or off-white either. I'm a pale freckled redhead, white shirts look ridiculous on me.

Mostly bands I've seen live, I tend to buy most of my merch at concerts. Got a fairly limited budget for merch, so I typically try to support smaller bands (opening acts and such) over large well-known bands unless the latter is one of my absolute favorites. Willing to pay a decent price for my merch, but nothing ridiculously overpriced.

Quality, particularly how soft/rough it is. Between a number of (fairly benign) skin conditions and neurodivergency-related hypersensitivity, rough fabrics are hell. Unisex/masculine/loose-fitting cuts over feminine/form-fitting cuts always, same reason. At least one size oversized, same reason.

Foremost, shirts from bands that I love and are among my favourites. Then I look at the design and size, then the price. Short- or longsleeves depending on the design, although lately I tend to favour longsleeves or hoodies for the cold months (I already have a lot of band t-shirts).
On very rare occasions I buy shirts from bands I like that are not my favourites. It all comes down to the design in those cases.

size, how it fits, the artwork, whether i listen to the band or not, the quality.

I mainly only have 2 factors when I buy a shirt:

1. Do I like this band/artwork

2. Will I look like a fucking idiot if I wear it in public

If the answer to 1 is yes and the answer to 2 is no, then I'll probably buy it.

Is it a Sabbat (JPN) shirt? Are there witches riding goats through the sky? If yes, it's a buy.

There's a variety of factors for me, and unfortunately it's tough to accurately gauge the quality of the shirt online.

1. The band (obviously)
2. The art. I don't want to wear some album I don't know. I also generally don't like wearing a shirt that has a picture of the band on it.
3. The way the art is actually put on the shirt. I absolutely hate when they're cheaply printed; like there's a sheet of plastic heat-plastered on the fabric. Not only are they super quick to crack, but they're uncomfortable as hell.
4. The price.
5. Needlessly offensive slogans with no real purpose other than to be shocking. They're dumb.

aside from the obvious (band and design i like), i only buy band shirts from gigs, and a shirt tends to get bonus points if it's not black, like the vast majority of the band shirts i already have

So no "Jesus is a cunt" t-shirt, then?

Personally I gotta love the band and the art. I won't wear a t-shirt of a band I like if the art is bad. Though sometimes if the band logo is cool, something subtle will work too. I also tend to avoid t-shirts with dumb, shocking slogans, except for that one Carach Angren "You've come to the wrong forest motherfucker" hoodie I had years ago. It was so over the top I loved it. But it's an exception.

Is it a band shirt? If so, I don't buy it

It usually goes like this:

1) I ask myself if I, a 32 year old man, would ever walk around wearing that metal shirt?
2) I forego purchasing said metal shirt.

1. Is it a band I like that I own at least 2 albums from?
2. Preferably 2 sided
3. Preferably with a design other than just the album art
4. These days, long sleeve. I have enough short sleeve shirts for awhile.
5. Nothing too out there artwork wise, including stuff that's too "evil" looking (though I have plenty of black metal shirts)
6. Price. I put my max for LS at $35 including whatever taxes/fees are added. Short sleeve is more case by case, but try to keep it close to $25.

Unless you are going to buy replications from scalpers you are not getting those prices from official merchandise.

Some years ago, I was standing in line at my hometown Rite Aid wearing an Obituary shirt. There was a little old lady behind me in line, and I heard her read the back of my shirt out loud, "Slowly we rot." I looked back expecting some judgement, but she just started laughing and said something to the effect of "that is so true!". It was a pretty funny moment.

Maybe not at concerts if that's what you mean. But I usually buy from bandcamp, band homepages, and record label sites. So official sources, not ebay or whatever.

I'll add - is the shipping less than the price of the shirt?

1. The vendor selling it
2. The price
3. Will it actually last and not fall apart after one year of wearing it
4. What's on the shirt

-Have to like the design, I like graphic/shock content as much as the next person but prefer to have something I can wear in a public setting without getting too many stares.
-Also for long sleeves, they have to make full use of the space. Print on the sleeves is a must for me cause its a waste and pretty boring if its just a print on the front of the shirt and call it a day.

Reasonable priced with shipping.

I have been buying more merch since the start of the pandemic as a way to support all the band I listen to since they weren't able to tour for awhile.
Once I start listening to a new artist I check out their merch and maybe pick up a shirt/hat as a way to support them as I don't buy cds that often anymore.

I guess I follow this line of thinking:

1. Is the band one I enjoy enough that I want to buy their merch?
2. Can I find their merch from a reasonably-priced retailer, ideally where the money makes it back to the band?
3. Is the design something I want?
4. Is it available as a hoodie or a men's tank top?
5. Does it fit my size (L)?

See this one gets me every time these days. I can't exactly try on the shirts I purchase online heh, so they end up fitting me awkwardly.

I'm 5'10 (178 cm for Euro friends), 219 lbs (99 kg)and not fat (about ~14% bf). So, a lot of the shirts I buy end up either being way too tight in the shoulder, trap and neck area, or are long af and I look like a child wearing his dad's clothes.

Frustrating...

Interesting question because my criteria has changed a little. Use to just be "is the band awesome" coupled with "does the shirt look cool?" but now I like to consider if it actually fits me well. I'm always a medium or large, but I swear so many band shirts are just boxy and make me look really fat when really what's happening is my shoulders are pushing the material out. I only got a few shirts that really fit me well because they don't do this, and lately I've been wearing them a lot since I like how I look in them (luckily one of them is the Bathory s/t shirt, absolutely love it).

That's one of the reasons I either look to get tank tops, or when I get t-shirts I tend to rip off the sleeves. I'm not a fan of feeling constricted at the shoulder/trap, and sadly that's a risk for buying band shirts. Either it's a good length, but too tight around the shoulders, or it's too long and baggy and makes it look like you're wearing a garbage bag.

Physical copy is not a requirement, but I understand your point.
I try to wear shirts with the band logo, I really don't like artworks in shirts, even if it is beautiful or is the best album they made, I tend to buy only with the band logo because I found em excessively invaded if so.
Price is not my first concern as long as it is really good material, for example, I got a Casualties, Marduk and Brujeria cotton shirts between some more with almost 10 years and constant use which can be mistaken with new fresh clothes, they weren't much money to be honest, but on the other hand, I got a Slipknot shirt with almost 15 years that is mystically tattered, recently I bought a Human Mastication shirt but is made with fucking bad material.. and talking about price relation, it was more or less equal to the other shirts I bought back then. Not that expensive but not that cheap for being bad quality shirts tho.
I don't care about colors nowadays, back then I would totally wear only black clothes, but today I can wear almost any color available

I usually buy band shirts at shows after seeing the band live. Other than that, if I'm not purchasing at gigs, I try to do so directly from the bands. In that case, it's usually going to be a band I own a lot of material from and love dearly.

I used to only get black stuff too, but I'm quite into white now as well. My skin is not really bright colour friendly. It's got to be a great design if I'm going to buy something, but these days I barely buy any new "metal" clothes because the city where I live in China doesn't have a scene and it's practically meaningless to exhibit satanic stuff or death stuff unless you want to scare pre-teens.

Funny story, as a teenager, I liked Machine Head a lot and had most albums of theirs. 'The Blackening' came out and I knew I wanted to buy it but couldn't afford the original retail price. My mum would buy me clothes because she knew I'd wear band shirts, so she got me the t-shirt with 'The Blackening' album cover for my birthday or something. One day, I found the CD at reduced price and went to the cashier to pay...only to realize that I was wearing the t-shirt with that very album printed on it. Not awkward at all haha.

Generally, if it is a band I've seen live, I LIKED the band after seeing them live, and I like the design, and it's not some forty bucks a shirt kind of deal (because I won't pay that much out of principal, no matter how much I like a band or their shirts) then I'll get the shirt. Or, if it's a band that I will probably never actually get a chance to see live because either a) the band no longer exists or b) there is no chance that they'll ever play a show within a day's drive of where I live, then if I like the band and/or the shirt design, I'll order it. Lets face it, most of us are probably not going to see Kyuss or DarkThrone live anytime soon.

I'm not too into shirts with shockingly graphic/gory designs these days, because I want to feel somewhat comfortable wearing the shirt in public, among relatively "square" non-metal people and not worry about creeping them out. I mean, if you are at a show, that's one thing, but if you are at Starbucks or at a party and you see a cute girl (for example) you don't want her to freak out over your shirt.

Wait, I thought the only advantage of dressing in metal clothes was to get cute girls to freak out? Or have I been doing this dating thing wrong?

My sister got me a Dying Fetus “purification through violence” long sleeve shirt, for Christmas. It’s awesome. On the sleeves, it says the band’s name, in the sharp gore logo, and in legible letters. I can’t wait to wear it to work.

1) I have to like the band. There's this one time though that I bought a shirt that I had not heard the band (Abysmal Dawn). Bought it coz it was on sale and cheap. I eventually heard the band and thankfully I liked their music.
2) Aside from liking the design, it shouldn't be too popular like going to a mall and seeing five different people wearing the same shirt. Well nowadays that will be just one other person.
3) No offensive artwork. This is mostly from brutal/slam death metal bands. I'm not that into that music but I do have a Defeated Sanity shirt that I don't wear that much because it shows a woman being ripped apart from her vagina.
4) I have a preference for short sleeved shirts as LS don't fit me well and it's hot in my country so wearing one is simply impractical.
5) Recently, I've had a preference for non-black shirts as I have way too much black shirts. Too bad that non-black, metal shirts aren't that common.