I started thinking about what else BMG music club might have to offer me. After all, I have three accounts open right now. I’ll need to choose 5 more CDs for each of the first two, and 2 more CDs for the last one (actually 10 more CDs, but I’ve decided on 8 of them in the form of Coltrane’s Classic Quartet - Complete Impulse! set). Plus I could open up two more accounts from this address. So, I figured I should check out what box sets BMG has. I was pleasantly surprised to find a bunch of ones that I would want. Check these out:
Rock:
The Police - Message in a Box (4 CDs)
Eric Clapton - Crossroads (4 CDs)
Alice Cooper - Life and Crimes of Alice Cooper (4 CDs)
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin remastered (4 CDs)
Lynyrd Skynyrd - Lynyrd Skynyrd (3 CDs)
The Who - 30 Years of Maximum R&B (4 CDs)
Jazz:
Miles Davis Quintet - Complete Columbia Studio Recordings (6 CDs)
Classical:
Complete Works of Bach Vol. 1 (5 CDs)
Beethoven, The Five Piano Concertos (3 CDs)
The Complete Chamber Music Of Claude Debussy (3 CDs)
Brahms, Piano Trios Nos. 1-3; Piano Quartets Nos. 1-3 (3 CD)
Dvorák, Stabat Mater (2 CDs)
Godowsky, The Complete Studies On Chopin’s Études (2 CDs)
I need to check on the quality of the performances of the classical sets, but the rock ones and the Miles Davis one are definite “wants”. For my first two accounts, I now need to buy one CD and then take four more free. So I’ll find a couple of single CDs to get, and then pick two of the 4 CD sets (I’ll probably start with the Alice Cooper and The Who sets). Then, I could start a 4th account with the Skynyrd and Police sets as my first 7 free, then buy one CD, and then get either the Clapton or Zeppelin box sets as the final 4 freebies.
The classical sets are interesting. Some of them actually sell for less than $20. So, instead of buying a single CD to meet the requirements for my other accounts, I could buy one of these sets instead for only a few dollars more. Why take up 3 freebies for the Debussey set when it only costs $16.99 (the same amount of money I would spend for a single CD to meet my membership requirements)?
BMG kicks ass.
While they have a 5 membership per household per address limitation, I could soon do 5 more accounts. Why? Well, I will be moving during the summer as I transfer to a university. New address = new memberships. Woohoo!
Yeah, they scalp on shipping. But look at it this way. Each CD costs about $2.50 to ship. Plus you have to pay full price for one CD (which ranges from $13-17, let’s just say $17 for a conservative estimate). So:
$2.50 x 12 CDs = $30
$17 x 1 = $17
$30 + $17 = $47 approximate grand total for 12 CD shipped and the one required non-freebie paid for.
If I could walk into a store and pay $47 and walk out with the Who, Cooper, Skynyrd, and Debussey box sets, would I? You bet your arse! This is exactly the same thing, except that you have to wait a week or three (or five) to get them. So what? I’m not impatient (of course, I’m constantly getting new music, as you can see here in my near-daily entries). What a deal. Most of these box sets eclipse $30 each.