BMG CDs vs store bought?

[Newc]

Ok, I bought a few CDs from a friend of mine a few years ago, and noticed two things:
#1 - They were from that BMG music club
#2 - They sucked after a few plays - the sound quality seemed to dissipate like a cassette gets after a while

Anybody else experience this?

Anybody directly compare a BMG CD to one they bought at a store?

Newc

[guitarsjb]

Re: BMG CDs vs store bought?

I've never directly compared the 2..but have bought SEVERAL Cd's from BMG....maybe I should investigate further....hmmm...thanks for the info

[etaeniura]

Re: BMG CDs vs store bought?

I noticed many years ago that CD's bought from BMG came with different packaging than store bought ones-the inserts were shorter in some (no lyrics, just credits) and some that actually had the lyrics printed, were edited for profanity. very odd.

[nor]

Re: BMG CDs vs store bought?

Music Club disks are usually returned stock. It's a sneaky way the Record Co's can sell disks without paying artist royalties (that's why they're cheap).

Maybe those are some sort of overflow copies...

[Ace]

Re: BMG CDs vs store bought?

Music clubs license music from record labels then print their own copies of the music. Your BMG CD may very well be made to inferior standards and may scratch easily, but since the information on there is digitally encoded it will NOT lose clarity like a cassette would.

[YetAnotherOne]

Re: BMG CDs vs store bought?

Columbia House ran their own CD pressing plants for quite some time and the sound quality was almost always inferior to the regular releases. It could have been the pressing process / materials themselves this was a few years ago and most CDs were still AAD so I wonder if they weren't using inferior analog equipment to do the initial digitization.

[skidd]

Re: BMG CDs vs store bought?

I have a bunch of them. They sound fine to me.

[pro-fusion]

Re: BMG CDs vs store bought?

Hey, the record club scam is just one of hundreds of crappy things the record labels do to artists, but it is one of the worst. I'm surprised some established artists with clout haven't gotten that clause taken out of their renegotiated contracts. It may be that the amount of lost revenue for those artists isn't that high. In this age of downloading and used-cd stores, I'm surprised the record clubs still do that well.

I remember way back in the day when I joined Columbia House, and it was a deal where you got 13 LPs free if you agreed to buy six more. My problem was that I couldn't really find 13 in the accompanying catalog that I wanted. I ended up with crap like Styx's "Cornerstone" album. Back then, the way it worked was that the CBS-label albums (Epic, Columbia, Portrait etc.) were distributed directly through the club, but the other major labels' albums were pressed by Columbia House under license. Since I had crappy stereo equipment at the time (not to mention the fact that I was a 12-year old goofball), I couldn't tell any difference.

[Lev]

Re: BMG CDs vs store bought?

Originally posted by nor:
Music Club disks are usually returned stock. It's a sneaky way the Record Co's can sell disks without paying artist royalties (that's why they're cheap).

Maybe those are some sort of overflow copies...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">not only that, but the record company holds 50-60% of your royalty for this returned stock, just to see how many get returned. You get it eventually, but its such a horrible system: they hold your royalty for returned stock, then sell the returned stock for their profit without royalty. Such a harsh business.

Subvamp, was that a main part of the contract, or an option? Just curious, since sometimes you can negotiate out of options.

[Subvamp]

Re: BMG CDs vs store bought?

Nor is correct....many years ago my band got a record deal. I remember sitting at home reading over the contract for questions to ask our lawyer, and right there in black & white it said something to the effect of "any units sold through outside companies; i.e. Columbia House, BMG, etc artist will receive zero royalties". I still don't know how they can get away with not paying, but it was heavy enough that I remembered that after all these years.

[skidd]

Re: BMG CDs vs store bought?

Originally posted by Subvamp:
Nor is correct....many years ago my band got a record deal. I remember sitting at home reading over the contract for questions to ask our lawyer, and right there in black & white it said something to the effect of "any units sold through outside companies; i.e. Columbia House, BMG, etc artist will receive zero royalties". I still don't know how they can get away with not paying, but it was heavy enough that I remembered that after all these years.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Pearl Jam sued over that and lost. If you by a Pearl Jam cd though a club it has no cover etc.
It not overstock, it cds made by them from the artist masters.