Who remembers Columbia House Music Club?

Happy mutants of a certain age will remember Columbia House Music Club, which was extremely popular in the 70s and 80s. For a penny, you would get 8 (or 11 or 12) LPs (or tapes, 8-tracks, or CDs). Then, you had to order a number of other records at (inflated) "regular club prices" to fulfill your membership.

They also had a feature album pick each month that you had to tell them you didn't want or they'd send you the record and bill you for it (called negative response billing, a practice which is now illegal in many states and Canada). As a teen, everyone I knew signed up under fake names, collected their 12 records, and vanished. Only to re-join under a different fake name.

What I didn't know is that the records offered through the club were all pressed by Columbia House (of Canada). There are debates about whether the quality suffered or not. One corner they did cut was not including posters and extras that appeared in the records pressed through the original label's manufacturing chain.

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