Clube de Esquina – Milton Nascimento and Lô Borges (1972) & American Music Club – California (1988)
[Albums 900 & 901 / 1001]
Were you ever a member of Columbia House &/or BMG Music Club?
In the 1990s, these clubs provided the foundation for many a Cassette / Compact Disc collection.
How?
By offering irresistible promotions like “12 CDs for 1 Cent!*”
Completing ignoring the asterisk in the promo, we all signed the deal.
And then came the unpleasant asterisk *fine print* – I believe it was something like buying 5 more regularly-priced CDs plus shipping.
Regular prices which were considerably more than 1 Cent!
.
.
Fortunately, with Clube de Esquina & American Music Club, no such unpleasant fine print exists.
Not being terribly well versed in Portuguese, I’m wasn’t entirely sure what I was signing up for with Clube De Esquina.
But with tracks as rock solid as Trem de Doido, I can’t say that I’m experiencing any sort of listener’s remorse. And I’ve since learned that Trem de Doido translates to Crazy Train; with this Trem‘s tremendous descending bass pattern / meandering vocals / fuzz solos, I’d argue it’s on par with Ozzy’s Crazy counterpart.
Never having visited beyond a flight stopover, I’ve often wondered why California is so frequently celebrated through song.
But I suppose if the state is even half as wonderful as the pedal steel on American Music Club’s Firefly, I can see what all the fuss is about!
This California was one those albums where right away, I felt right at home. Whether it was Somewhere’s Born to Run vibes or the subdued (and likely Top 5 / possibly Top 3 song about a girl named) Jenny, everything was in its right place.
For these reasons and more, I quite enjoyed my stay with these clubs & I expect I’ll return.
Contract or no!
…..
Verbalize the Positive
As of yesterday, I’m quite grateful to be a new member of another club.
Cheers to KFL&A Public Health and everyone working at the Invista Centre clinic!
1001albumsin10years 
Good job on getting your shot Sir. How ya feeling?
I sure do remember Columbia House as I would get the 12 cd’s. Than buy the 5 discs all in one shot than cancel than rejoin a month later. lol
It helped of course that I was working full time and still living at home back in 1989-90 lol so I was able to pul that move off..
Like you I need to get to to Cali at some point.
To borrow a Bryan Adams compilation Deke, feeling So Far So Good after the shot!
Good stuff Geoff. I’m back on the 17th for my second…
Awesome, Deke!
Just under 2 weeks ago I became a member of the 1st vaccine club. Yay.
However, today I became a member of the 14 day quarantine at home club. Boo.
My 1st vaccine appointment is in just over two weeks. Looking forward to being part of that club. I did enjoy the Columbia House and BMG game. I went back and forth between the two. Get my 12 CDs, fulfill the requirement, cancel, and join the other one. I keep looking for something similar for the vinyl world these days but sadly, there’s nothing comparable.
Can you imagine if they had that sort of a deal for vinyl?! My goodness, I think most of the blogging community (myself included) would sign up without hesitation.
Glad to hear you’ll be a member of the club soon too!
You’re in plentiful company with that particular scam, Geoff!
They made so many of us an offer we couldn’t refuse, Bruce!
I heard a story about someone who did the mail for their apartment signing up for 12 cheap CDs for every flat in their building! Then freaking out they would be caught.
That’s a bold move – and a lot of regular-priced CD contracts to be fulfilled!
It was the Britannia club I joined for my free CDs. I think one of the parental units ended up picking up the subscription when I became uninterested.
Anyhoo, California is an excellent album, huh? Thought, I might argue that it’s not their best.
That’s among my favourite problems with the 1001 list – when they select a deserving artist, but possibly not their finest album, meaning there are more gems in their catalogue still to be found!
First, congrats on the shots. Second, yes I was a member of the Columbia House club and more than once. You have to play it smart, but in the end the CD’s still averaged out to like $5-$6 a CD when all was said and done if you stuck to the bare minimum. Their CDs were so expensive at regular price. Still not a bad deal.
Approaching it as a $5 average price is certainly more palatable than the $20-25 ‘regular price’ for the contract fulfillment CDs!
Columbia House built my first collection (cassettes). Then BMG (same deal).
My lovely wife gets her dose #2 today, and I get my dose #1 tomorrow. Hope you’re feeling OK!
Reading this on Tuesday – which means tomorrow has become today!
All is well post-vaccine here, hope round 1 went well for you Aaron & hope the sequel went well for your spouse!
Went pretty well, thanks! My lovely wife reported being more tired than usual and a sore arm. I was fine when I got home this morning but mid-afternoon my arm felt like someone had punched me really hard and it hasn’t gone away. I also realized I’d lost all energy and was just sitting doing nothing. Hopefully back to my exuberant self tomorrow.
I hope the exuberance has returned!
It pretty much has, yeah, thanks. Just waiting on a physi assessment on my knees on the 9th to see how much I can do to get the ball rolling beter around here.
I still have all of my Ozzy CDs I got from Columbia house!
Struggling to get an appointment for a 2nd shot. We’re eligible this coming Monday but they’re all booked up for the foreseeable future. We’ll keep trying!
Columbia House (and/or BMG), a key part of the foundation of many a CD collection!
I’d be interested to see what % of my collection still comes from that source, they were definitely responsible for many of the mid-90s investments!