Hoo boy did this bring back memories.
It was early 90s, I was a band camp veteran, and all I was listening to was classical music or jazz. Then, a light shone on me.
Man, was I immediately turned around. Why? Because dad did a music purchase binge and picked this up, thanks to Columbia House. It was an immediate hit for me and opened me up to a world that had been closed as soon as I became a “band geek”.
In years gone by, we’d do the 10 albums for a dollar deal, but you’d end up getting a few you wanted and having to pick from a random couple of others. Some other notable CDs we got that I wouldn’t have purchased otherwise:
And…
And
How about you…did you pick up any hidden gems in your Columbia House pickups? What was your favorite?
Every single U2 album/cassette that was cut in the 80’s is the main one that comes to mind. I guess that was around 1990, helped open my young teenage mind that there was more than pop rock out there, and boy did the music scene shift hard again right about that time.
Had all Beatles, stones, Beach Boys, Temps, Tops, Smokey Robinson, Little Anthony, and so many others. Yeah, l got to them way more than once. Had all those now, l could be sitting in a sky box. Naaaah!
The most significant discovery I made from a Columbia records acquisition was track 3 on Zeppelin 4.
At that point I had no idea that really good music might not be found on the radio. I had operated under the assumption that the Venn diagrams overlapped entirely.
A true epiphany. I just wish I had the time/money to find cool shit like this at the time rather than 30 plus years after the fact:
https://youtu.be/C3LXkdpHNOQ?si=9BKfHYDtXO_wKEx4
I’m pretty sure that’s how I got Crossroads 4 cd set by Eric Clapton or maybe it was Jeff Beck’s 3 CD set, Beckology.
Man I screwed those guys out of so much money in the late 70’s/early 80s.
I got ‘AIC Jar of Flies’ on one of those- whoops I forgot to send this one back so I got charged for it anyway- deals. Great mistake on my part.