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RIP Columbia House

That name “Columbia” was stuck on so many things.

I very clearly remember my older brother going into the city to attend “The Columbia School Of Broadcasting”.

Man, we made so many cool tapes back in the day. We had a teac cassette player with fading on each channel. We did fake commercials, weather reports and breaking news.

I can still do a pretty decent 1970’s FM DJ voice, impersonation. Kind of like Lee Baby Simms. Sometimes if I am on the ipad and my wife asks me what time it is or what the temperature is I will slip into that voice. Cracks her up every time.
 
I returned every ‘not this month’ card I got from BMG. Did use the service to build my CD collection since I lived in a small town at that time. Fulfilled my purchase requirements with CDs that were on sale in the catalog. Might have joined a couple times, don’t recall.
 
Oerets said:
Now people seem to have moved to renting their music over ownership.
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Oerets said:
Subscription music services like Apple Spotify Pandora ect.... I'm calling renting. Never have used any of them myself. Do believe you can buy also.

Recording off the internet music IIRC is illegal AFAIK.

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I think it's only illegal, or should I say you risk a possible prosecution, if you want to sell the recordings you've made.
 
It really wasn't a bad deal. You just had to follow the rules instead of ignoring them and then later, claiming you were taken.

Not as good as the Loss Leaders from WB, though.

Doug
 
In the 90's I had a co-worker who found that by slightly varying his name and address when subscribing to Columbia House, BMG and others, he could get dozens of "8 for a penny" deals. As long as the address was halfway close, they would be delivered with no problem. He got hundreds of CDs this way.
 
Never used Columbia House or BMG - but...
Anyone remember Record Club of America ?
You could order anything out of the Schwann catalog from them, and I don't think there was any minimum.
I loved it, but they're long gone, as is the Schwann Catalog.
 
Signed up under multiple aliases, and picked up everything worth listening to in their catalog. I never even bothered to send one back. In fact I still have that copy of Corey Hart’s Bang.
 
I have a Laserdisc with a Columbia House promo flyer stuck to the jacket. I guess now I can't get my 3 Laserdiscs for $3 or whatever it is.
 
I got a lot of good deals from Columbia House and BMG in the 80s (back when single CDs were $14 a pop and up - in 1980 dollars). I remember I got a complete Beethoven set (12 CDs?) that sold in stores for over $100, and they ended up sending me two, so I sold one. Got lots of other box sets as well; they were so cheap that it didn't matter to me if I already had most of the songs already. IIRC you could call them (this was back when companies actually had people answering their phones) and ask to be put on "positive response" or something like that.
 
My AC/DC Back in Black was a record club offering. Side 2 is RL mastered and sounds unbelievable.
 
I still have a bunch of CD's from the 90's from BMG. Oh the Enhanced CD's requiring an AOL extension.
 
I was in the RCA club, similar deals as Columbia. You could request no record this month or a substitute instead of the monthly selection, avoiding a return. There was also the deal where they would send a coupon with each record and 2 coupons would get another record. I discovered that I could use the 2 coupons from $4.98 records to redeem for a $5.98 record. Thought I was really taking advantage of them.

There was also a Citadel record club where you ordered only what you wanted at a reduced price. They would send the Schwann catalog periodically and anything in there seemed to be available. There was no 1 cent for a dozen records deal.
 
Doghouse said:
I think it's only illegal, or should I say you risk a possible prosecution, if you want to sell the recordings you've made.
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...or use the account of a major league baseball game without the written consent of the national baseball leage
 
onwardjames said:
I also had the military book club membership, but folks don't (and sometimes, can't) read.

Orwell thought they'd burn books.
Huxley said no, why burn when no one would read them?

When one doesn't have the ability or compulsion to read, they'll believe any chit the screen tells them.
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60 to 75% of U.S. citizens report reading at least one book last year.

I know that it is popular to say that people don’t read, but with the success of Audible and audiobooks available from local libraries, I thought that claim was a bit suspect.

I was a member of a sci-fi book club. The selection was very good, and a cheap way to get a good number of books.
 
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