Columbia Records Wikipedia

Table Of Content

• Can I still order music from Columbia House?
• Mail-order record clubs: Music categories (
• RIP Columbia House Record Club
• CBS takes over (1938–
• Columbia House Record Club Resurrected as a Vinyl-Only Service
• The rise and fall of the Columbia House record club — and how we learned to steal music
• albums for a dollar – Columbia House 8-track tapes and vinyl records (

Complainants further allege that they did not join BMG/Columbia House and do not know how the company obtained their information and that the company's phone line and website do not provide live customer service representatives to help resolve these problems. In specified circumstances, "memberships" are available, whereby the customer is not required to respond to Director Selection mailings unless he or she wants to buy the movie. When such memberships expire, the old rules return where a response is required in time to prevent shipping of full price movies without customer input. The customer also has access to a large variety of other movies, which are advertised by mail and online towards the customer.

Can I still order music from Columbia House?

This club allows members to receive 11 free CDs as long as they purchase one at regular price within a year of sign-up. Members must, however, pay shipping costs for each of the CDs they order (including the free ones), which is about two bucks apiece. If you love music, then you know it is easy to spend several hours shopping for CDs at your local music store. However, unless you are swimming in cash, you probably spend the majority of that time trying to narrow down your choices to one or two because that is all you can afford at the moment.

Mail-order record clubs: Music categories (

By the early 1940s, Columbia had been experimenting with higher fidelity recordings, as well as longer masters, which paved the way for the successful release of the LPs in 1948. The company was bought by its UK subsidiary, the Columbia Graphophone Company, in 1925 and the label, record numbering system, and recording process changed. On February 25, 1925, Columbia began recording with the electric recording process licensed from Western Electric.[14] "Viva-tonal" records set a benchmark in tone and clarity unequaled on commercial discs during the 78-rpm era. The first electrical recordings were made by Art Gillham, the "Whispering Pianist". In a secret agreement with Victor, electrical technology was kept secret to avoid hurting sales of acoustic records. There are two major BMG music clubs that both offer outstanding deals to members.

RIP Columbia House Record Club

Columbia House to Relaunch as Vinyl Subscription Service in 2016 - Rolling Stone

Columbia House to Relaunch as Vinyl Subscription Service in 2016.

Posted: Thu, 24 Dec 2015 08:00:00 GMT [source]

As far as the catalog numbering system went, there was no correlation between mono and stereo versions for the first few years. Columbia started a new CS 8000 series for pop stereo releases, and figuring the stereo releases as some sort of specialty niche records, didn't bother to link the mono and stereo numbers for two years. Masterworks classical LPs had an MS 6000 series, while showtunes albums on Masterworks were OS 2000.

Anyone born before 1990 should remember Columbia House — the “world’s largest record club” — whose claim to fame was offering dirt-cheap music upfront to members who joined its mail-order subscription service. Another factor that contributed to Columbia House's growth was that the company didn't pay artists much — if any — in the form of royalties. Forbes reports that royalties aren't paid on "free" records, so that means artists were not compensated for any of the records that were given away.

Return to music sales

During 1971 Columbia began producing records in four-channel quadraphonic sound, using the "SQ Quadraphonic" matrix decoding system. These recordings were backward compatible on conventional two-channel stereo playback systems, but played four-channels of surround sound when heard with special amplifiers and additional speakers. Artists using this technology covered all genres, including classical music Leonard Bernstein and Pierre Boulez, plus popular artists such as Electric Light Orchestra, Billy Joel, Pink Floyd, Johnny Cash, Barbra Streisand, Ray Conniff, Santana, Herbie Hancock, and Blue Öyster Cult.

Columbia House Record Club Resurrected as a Vinyl-Only Service

But stepping back to eulogize the music clubs today, it all feels like one giant shadow history of music collecting, of the outrageously stupid and probably immoral lengths kids will go to in order to hear cool things. Columbia House and BMG are gone, and the 13-year-olds who got swindled by them are gone, too. But we’ve really all just evolved, the grifters and the grifted, whichever of us was which to begin with. I didn’t sign up until eighth grade, and in hindsight it’s amazing that it didn’t happen sooner. My hesitation was partly due to the fact that my parents had expressly forbidden it, but also because there was so much to choose from.

The idea was to give away one record to anyone who chose to become a member of the club, and they then committed to buying a certain amount of records in the future. The idea was a hit, and by the end of 1955, the company reportedly had 128,000 members. Seven years later, Columbia House delivered some 7 million records to members, and by 1960, it accounted for 10% of all sales spent on recorded music.

Through this venture, Columbia has found highly successful artists. In 2002, Columbia and Aware accepted the option to continue this relationship. In January 2006, Sony BMG UK split its front-line operations into two separate labels.

Only full price purchases deplete that minimum purchase obligation. Purchases are not cumulative, meaning that two movies bought at ten dollars each do not deplete the minimum list price movie purchases by one movie. If the minimum number of movies has not been purchased by the end of the term, the monetary worth of those movies is charged to the customers' accounts. If any purchases have been made using Columbia House's point of sale device, either credit cards or debit cards linked to credit card accounts, then those accounts are automatically debited. The company will either mail or email a reminder notice prior to the commitment expiring, giving the customer the opportunity to purchase the required purchase obligation before they are charged for any commitment or contract charges.

RCA had already begun releasing quadraphonic recordings on 8-track tape starting in 1970, and countered on LP record with the Quadradisc system. The RCA process required a special phono cartridge for "discrete" four-channel playback unlike the Columbia "matrix" system. Although the Columbia process was simpler and quite effective, many consumers were confused by competing systems and sales of both were disappointing. Starting in the 1990s multichannel surround sound music surged again with the popularity of home cinema systems. Many quadraphonic recordings were reissued in new surround sound formats such as Dolby Digital, DTS, Super Audio CD and Blu-ray, however, multichannel music still did not reach mass-market acceptance. Davis lured artists Hoyt Axton and Tom Rush to Columbia in 1969, and both were given what was known as "the pop treatment" by the label.

Columbia's engineering department developed a process for emulating stereo from a mono source. In the June 16, 1962, issue of Billboard magazine (page 5), Columbia announced it would issue "rechanneled" versions of greatest hits compilations that had been recorded in mono, including albums by Doris Day, Frankie Laine, Percy Faith, Mitch Miller, Marty Robbins, Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, and Johnny Mathis. Pop stereo LPs got into the high 9000s by 1970, when CBS Records revamped and unified its catalog numbering system across all its labels. Masterworks classical albums were in the 7000s, while showtunes stayed in the low 2000s. Although Columbia began recording in stereo in 1956, stereo LPs did not begin to be manufactured until 1958.

Hull explains that retail stores were hard pressed to make a margin of even $6.50 per sold disc, so it’s easy to see how the clubs stayed afloat even with their massive marketing and advertising costs. Columbia House and competitor BMG brought in tons of gross revenue — as late as 2000, the two companies were grossing $1.5 billion a year. But even with negative option billing bringing in cash from club members who forgot to return their rejection forms, Columbia House operated on a seemingly tight margin.

For some reason, the taped version was not used until Sony released it as part of a set of CDs devoted to Columbia's Broadway albums.[36] Over the years, Columbia joined Decca and RCA Victor in specializing in albums devoted to Broadway musicals with members of the original casts. In the 1950s, Columbia also began releasing LPs drawn from the soundtracks of popular films. Other favorites in the Viva-tonal era included Ruth Etting, Paul Whiteman, Fletcher Henderson, Ipana Troubadours (a Sam Lanin group), and Ted Lewis. Columbia used acoustic recording for "budget label" pop product well into 1929 on the labels Harmony, Velvet Tone (both general purpose labels), and Diva (sold exclusively at W.T. Grant stores). When Edison Records folded, Columbia was the oldest surviving record label. The Columbia Phonograph Company was founded on January 15, 1889, by stenographer, lawyer, and New Jersey native Edward D. Easton (1856–1915) and a group of investors.

It even singlehandedly helped some CDs become hits—Hootie and the Blowfish, for example, is said to have sold 3 million copies of Cracked Rear View through the service. And, from time to time the Club will offer some special records which you may refuse by returning the special dated form … or accept by simply doing nothing. You had to order many more albums at “regular club prices,” which meant they weren’t cheap, and then there were the shipping and handling fees. You also had to respond each month to the club selection notice (one of which is below) or else you’d automatically receive the album of the month, and be charged for it. As of 2010, this business had an unsatisfactory rating with the BBB because of a failure to respond to complaints.[25][26] The company also has an unsatisfactory record because of a pattern of complaints. Specifically, complainants allege receiving merchandise and/or bills for merchandise from BMG/Columbia House for products they did not order.

I spent months just filling out and re–filling out the order form, refining my selections. When I finally sent one in, it was a typically early-’90s combination of grunge and hip-hop (Pearl Jam, Cypress Hill, Alice in Chains), heavier on the former because buying hip-hop from music clubs was always a crapshoot. There was a lot they just didn’t stock, and you always ran the risk of ending up with a “clean” version of, say, The Chronic, rightly ensuring that no one at your school would ever talk to you again. A more likely explanation, though, is that a new generation of music fans who had never known a world without the Internet couldn't grasp the marvel that was the record club in its heyday. From roughly 1955 until 2000, getting music for free meant taping a penny to a paper card and mailing it off for 12 free records — along with membership and the promise of future purchasing.