Downloads Killed The Record Club

The warning signs about the health of mail-order record clubs had long been obvious.

BMG absorbed Columbia House – the world no longer had the need for competing clubs. Then BMG halted new memberships, a clearer sign of the end’s approach.

But this spring, BMG pulled the plug. With all the digital services out there and deals at the fingertips of any computer owner, the need for a club peddling a date music format was nil.

Still, nostalgia rushed in the moment I heard of BMG's fate.

It had been years since I tore open that package in the often-futile hopes of stringing together enough albums to get three, four and later six or seven albums for the cost of one. But my mother maintained the subscription – at Christmas or birthday times, she would offer to cover a package from BMG for old time’s sake. Besides, it saved her from having to hunt down music at the store or learning to navigate iTunes.

When the announcement came, I said, “One more for the road?” She agreed, and along with my sister, we burned off the last bonus points.

So the last trip to the BMG catalog went like this:

David Bowie, Heroes – This replaced a burned copy and finally finished my 1970s Bowie collection. It owes its greatness to the opening trifecta of Beauty and the Beast, Joe the Lion and Heroes.

Spinal Tap – No explanation necessary. I should have owned it a decade ago. But now I’m in Stonehenge, living with the banshees and doing it well.

Willie Nelson/Wynton Marsalis, Two Men With the Blues - Most Nelson albums are like this shows these days – short, sweet and no attempt to hide he’s going through the motions. Not this collaboration, his best since getting together with Ray Price and Merle Haggard. A true collaboration thanks to Marsalis' trumpet and vocals, Willie rarely has this much swing in his step anymore.

Townes Van Zandt, High Low and Inbetween/The Late Great Townes Van Zandt -How overdue was my plunge into the discography of the Texas songwriter? I couldn’t ask for a better introduction than these two records on one disc. It’s nice for Steve Earle to cover many of these songs, but they can’t touch what Van Zandt strung together.

The Three Pickers: Earl Scruggs/Doc Watson/Ricky Skaggs - A little bluegrass bliss reveals how far I’ve come since my BMG orders hinged on Pantera, Megadeth and Alice in Chains.

No BMG order was perfect. That’s how I built up my discographies of the Doors, Elton John, Bowie, Son Volt, Johnny Cash, Ryan Adams, Elliot Smith and a dozen others. You couldn’t beat those deals.

After Metallica’s Garage Days Re-revisited went out of print, Columbia House still had copies, and soon I had mine.

Of course, I probably traded in as many CDs as I kept from the clubs over the years. Not every record turns into a classic, and I outgrew most of the metal.

When I belonged to both services, I remember the occasional oddity changing my musical perceptions. An order for Houses of the Holy came with a copy of Presence substituted, with Columbia House imploring me to try it instead. It arrived on the last day of school in 1993, and when Achilles Last Stand roared to life from the stereo in Mom’s Toyota Previa, I was sold.

At the torrent sites, any album on the planet might lie a click away.

But I doubt the first blast of music off those digital files - even if it is Zeppelin through a car stereo - carries the same resonance.