When America wasn't busy avoiding nuclear war, it was spinning those stacks and stacks of wonderful wax . . . er, vinyl. Then again, how could a country that boasted the World's Largest Record Club possibly lose out to any other foreign phony? Even the name Columbia is as American as can be! Oh sure, similar CD club offers persist today, but let's peep at the fine print for some ultra cool differences between now and then:
Stereo records a dollar more! Oh, they're always working some scheme to make a quicker buck, aren't they? Fascinating to drop in on a world where stereophonic records were newfangled and high-tech, to the point that made them premium selections in the club. Wow, I can hear music with both ears, finally! "The Future is here today." And as always, The Future contains one tiny hitch . . .
Oh, dammit! Curse you white coated, meddling lab monkeys and your futuristic sci-fi miracles, can't you leave good enough alone?
So, friends and Club Members, you say you don't own a stereo phonograph yet? You say you don't mind Bill and Louise next door whispering behind closed curtains about the "neighbors who still listen to mono records"? You say you're just too damned cheap to plunk down some dead presidents on that spiffy new stereo set you drool over every time you go to the department store to buy your wife some stupid gift to make up for another drunken poker night binge?
No worries, pal! Keep buying those antiquated mono albums for your piece-of-crap turntable with the nickel Scotch taped to the tone arm to keep your needle nub in the groove -- and of course we don't mean that as any subversive slam against your manhood, not in the slightest way!
Better yet, on that grand day Mr. Wiggins finally gives you that raise you should have gotten three years ago, and you shun your decrepit player to buy that stereo system you've longed for, your mono records will sound twice as flat and lifeless out of two speakers as they did from one! Lucky you, though, you belong to the Columbia Record Club and can order your entire mono collection over again in stereo format (for $1.00 extra each), and maybe then those audio elitist snobs Bill and Louise will start inviting you over for pot luck night again.
And as a free gift to our stubborn, foot-dragging monaural holdout customers, we'll send you this flimsy, spring-loaded rat trap we call a Record Rack. It's guaranteed to smush together your entire record collection, creasing and brass-staining their fragile, soon-collectible jackets, while offering absolutely NO support for their upper halves, allowing your albums to fan out wider than a Spanish flamenco dancer and warping your entire collection the moment the thermometer tops 80 degrees!
My favorite part of this ad is the 'beneficial' feature that the rack can hold as few as ONE record -- hell, Columbia gave you six albums just for joining this audio pyramid scheme! Who held their collection to one measly album at the era of high fidelity and listening parties?! It would almost be worth joining the club under 20 different pseudonyms to collect 20 free racks solely so you could devote one to each record, just for the guffaws you'd get at the next Bridge night. Plus it would save the overserious audiophile the mind-bending dilemma of prioritizing one's collection, an activity that bordered on obsession for record hounds of the day.
Speaking of musical categories, let's review some of the more notorious and puzzling of those 115 "Best-Selling Reasons" Columbia Records offered to make life worth listening to in '62 . . .
© 2001-2002 scott weitz