That said, after I got into more of the business end of music and realized what crappy deals club sales were for artists (for example, under most contracts, artists do not get royalties or credit toward recoupable expenses via club sales) I soured a bit on the practice.

But I suppose, in the final analysis, this is a neat capsule in what’s done the industry in — devaluing the physical product PLUS screwing over the artist. Which goes a long way toward explaining why many people have no issues with grabbing all they can via extra-legal means.

At one point in the 90’s I simultaneously had a Columbia House membership going and two BMG Club memberships. One of the BMG’s was obviously under a fake name and I’d just make all my payments with a money order (obviously I couldn’t use checks or the credit card that had my real name on them). Then several years ago BMG stopped the Canadian version of their club which really bummed both of us out.

Over the years I must have rejoined both clubs (particularly Columbia House) about 12-15 times. These things were the biggest contributor to my CD library getting so large (2000+ now) and I miss the excitement of getting that initial shipment containing a dozen new discs.

I also seem to remember some sort of griping from various artists about the royalties they got from record club sales, no to mention whether or not those sales should count towards an album’s overall sales figures.

This is only 6 of the (at last count) 600 CDs I own (a number which excludes box sets and multi-artist compelations, which i’m sure is another 100, and singles, which brings my total collection to a near incalcuble number in the upper 900s). Most of my CDs came from my local record store Music Box, which has a fantastic used section (I picked up the Grateful Dead’s “Europe ‘72″ for $8 once) and reasonable priced new releases (which got even better the summer I worked there, the same summer K-Fed put out “Playing With Fire”, which was one of the best coasters i’ve ever used).

Also, they don’t mention this little trick above, but the extra-awesome way to Fulfill was to save your two-disc sets for the full-price portion of your membership: they sold for $20-24, yet they counted as two off your membership, which was cheaper than two single discs for $30ish. I picked up a lot of staples, like Neil Young’s Decade or similar double-hits sets, under that plan.

I had it all down to such a science, I was paying an average of $6 a disc, in the days when CDs retailed for about $16-17 and nothing ever went on sale at retail for less than $11.

Re: the devaluing — long before Napster, the record clubs were right up there with used CDs and home taping in the category of hot Billboard debates, with retailers griping near-monthly in Ed Christman’s column about the clubs’ evils.