Music for a Penny
As a teenager in the 1970s, I couldn’t wait to get permission to sign up for the Columbia House Record Club. The ads sounded great—send in a penny, and you’d get 12 record albums. And each month after, you’d have the choice of buying their “record of the month” by simply mailing a card back to them.
It was a family event…a few for me, a few my brother picked, and a few selected by my parents.
Obviously the cost of the monthly LP was more than you’d pay in a store…but back then, you had to drive to the nearest town of size and visit the Musicland store in the mall just to buy an album. This was convenience like we’d never had.
Sadly, like the penny itself, Columbia House is leaving the scene.
As technology changed, those 12 albums for one cent became cassettes, then CDs. A decade ago, bankruptcy plagued the company, and the new owners pivoted to DVDs and Blu-ray discs. Today’s world of digital downloads and streaming video has meant the end of the company, which will officially shut down September 15.
The whole thing started by Columbia Records as a way to promote its artists. By 1996, Columbia House had 16 million members. But things declined in that new digital world, and a plan to turn Columbia House back into a vinyl delivery service never materialized.
What comes around goes around, and now vinyl records are wildly popular again. But not popular enough to keep Columbia House alive.
The Book-of-the-Month Club hit hard times, but now is flourishing again and is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. Maybe Columbia House will turn up again…just like a shiny new penny.
