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BMG Music Club - new twist

Hi all,

I joined BMG some years ago -- you know, 12 CDs for the price of 1. Joined for the free CDs, bought a few additional CDs, then got tired of returning the cards, and dropped out.

Every now and again, they send me a packet of info to get me to re-join, and I always lose interest when I look over the album choices they offer for signing up -- lots of great artists, but never the exact title you are looking for (I'm not a fan of "best of" albums generally), and kind of mainstream, for obvious reasons.

Here's what's new: the latest blurb from them mentions that you can sign up via the Internet. I did, because when I checked it out, you can choose from 12,000 titles for your "free" albums! Searchable by category, artist (works better than the category search), etc. I have a huge wish list from recommendations made here at Audiogon. About half of the titles I looked for, they have! So I'm getting Kleiber's Beethoven 5th & 7th symphonies, Aretha Franklin's 2-CD gospel recording, a Dylan album, an Emmy Lou Harris album, and I can't remember what else. Looking forward to getting that box!

In the FAQ on their site, they address the oft-posed question of whether their CDs are physically of the "same" quality as the original labels. They claim that they don't make any CDs, and that all their CDs come from the original labels, specially-marked per a contractual agreement. I don't know if that makes anyone feel better...

One thing they don't specify on their site is what the infamous "shipping and handling" charges are. As I recall, it's something ridiculous like $3.00 *per CD*. Pretty steep -- it means those 12 CDs actually cost you about 50 bucks -- still a good deal if it's music you want.

Well, thought I'd pass that along in case there are other folks out there who throw those mailers out regularly like I do...

- Eric
ehart
aroc
760 posts
 
All the CDs I received from BMG in the past to be of "good" quality. I was unaware they may be marketing otherwise substandard CD pressing via their direct marketing. Though they seem to be just fine on my sub $5k system. Most seem be to be identical [packaging, etc] to their retail counterparts.

If they are substandard, I'd like to know about it!
cornfedboy
1,645 posts
 
here's an interesting web page on music clubs. i don't know how recent it might be but does have some useful links (the url owner, chip rowe, has, shall we say, eclectic tastes- parental guidance might be in order for the morally squeamish):

http://www.chiprowe.com/articles/cdclubs.html

-cfb
tireguy
1,964 posts
 
Kelly-You sick bastard, that was you at that swingers party, man you can't get away from these audiophiles anywhere! I thought I saw some dude there with a beard jamming out wearing a pair of sennheiser's thought he looked famaliar. I was the one in the middle of the tireguy sandwhich(which is a favorite for me:), if you catch my drift ;) see ya next year!
cornfedboy
1,645 posts
 
tim: sorry but i was actually wearin' the new closed back stax'. you musta had me confused with somebody else. oh yeah, forgot to mention, the function noted was on the same night we did the wrap party for "moulin rouge." that was me with ms. kidder. no, not the really short guy. -cfb
marakanetz's avatar
marakanetz
5,473 posts
 
...and that's what I was talking about that even on the cheap CD-player you can hear differences between original and "Manufactured Under License by BMG" CDs.
I bet that with good ADC and CDRW you can burn CDs better than does it BMG.
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