BMG Music Service: An Inexpensive way to Build Your CD Collection
Written: Nov 10 '02 (Updated Nov 11 '02)
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Music clubs, with their offers to get a whole bunch of CD’s with little or no commitment to future purchases, often seem too good to be true. Like many of you out there, I have given into the temptation on more than one occasion, signing up for my “free” CD package with the agreement to make a small purchase in the future. One of the best- known among these companies that offer a lot of music for almost no money or commitment is BMG Music Club, a service that has been around for many years, both off- line and on- line. Let’s take a look at this club and what a membership entails:
Joining BMG:
Signing up for BMG is simple. You can logon to the on- line site, or you can look for a printed offer in your local paper, magazine, etc., fill in the blanks, and mail in your membership request.
The basic offer from BMG has changed a little over the years, but right now, they offer 7 CD’s for free (not including shipping or handling), with the agreement that you will buy 1 more CD at regular club prices during the next year. Once you buy that 1 CD, you will then get 4 more CD's free, making the offer 12 CD’s for the price of 1. After that, you can quit the club by either notifying BMG in writing or by sending an e-mail to terminate your membership.
Using the Web Site:
BMG has a very simplistic web site. First of all, it offers only CD’s. You cannot get your recordings in any other format, like cassette tapes. There are no videos for sale, or other merchandise. CD’s are all you will find, with BMG Music.
To select your “free” CD’s, you just logon and start searching for music. On the main page, you will see a breakdown of BMG’s “Hot Picks”. This area includes a few of the newer releases, with some of them showing a picture of the CD cover and some showing just the title. There are about 10 of these, on the main page. On the right side of the page, you will find a listing of current best sellers. If you want to get a listing of the best sellers in different music categories, you can do so by selecting a category from the drop- down menu.
If your musical interests fall mainly into a specific category, then you can click on the tab, at the top of the page, that represents that category. The categories presently include “Rock/Pop”, “R&B and Rap”, “Country”, “Jazz”, “Classical”, “Latin”, “Christian”, and a miscellaneous category that includes soundtracks, comedy CD’s, Children’s music, and a few others. When you click on one of these categories, you will see a page similar to the home page, with “Hot Picks” and best sellers, but you will see CD’s that are relevant only to that category, rather than a general listing. You also have the option of narrowing down your search by selecting a sub category. For example, in “Rock/Pop”, you have selections like “Folk”, “Dance”, “Modern Rock”, etc.
The other ways to search for music are by artist name, album title, song title, composer, record label, year of release, or by BMG selection number (the call number, for the selection, if you know it). You do not need to enter a key word in every field. The search will work by entering any one of these fields.
As you add CD’s to your cart, the site will show you how many you have selected and how many remain to be selected, before you reach the limit of seven. Keep in mind that some selections (if they contain multiple CD’s in one package) will count as 2 selections, thereby lowering the number that you will receive in the mail.
After you have made your selections, you then proceed to the checkout to complete your order. You will need to sign up by creating a user id and password at this point. You will also need to provide your credit card number OR click the box to have your selections billed to you, when you receive them in the mail.
Cost to Join:
BMG likes to tout its membership as being “free” but this, of course, is not exactly accurate. You have to pay shipping and handling on all CD shipments. With the introductory shipment, you can expect your initial 7 CD’s to cost you from $16 to $20 total, depending on whether or not sales tax will be included. This is still a good deal, but it’s not quite the “free” deal that the service claims. After you make your one purchase and collect your next three CD’s free, you can expect your total expenditures to be in the neighborhood of $40 to $50 dollars, for a total of 12 CD’s. This works out to a cost that falls between $3.33 and $4.17 per CD. That’s quite a bit less than the $15 or so that you would pay in a store.
Other Membership Facts:
Once you are a member of BMG, you can expect to start receiving it’s music information guide in the mail each month, detailing the featured selection and a whole bunch of other music to choose from. If you don’t want the monthly selection, you need to inform BMG by mail or on- line, and let them know. Otherwise, you will end up with a CD that you never wanted and will have to either cough up the cash, or send it back.
After you have completed your enrollment agreement of 1 CD, you can remain as a member and keep buying CD’s at regular prices. With each purchase, it’s common for BMG to offer you two additional CD’s free of charge (expect, of course, for the shipping and handling) to sweeten the deal a little bit.
Final Thoughts:
BMG Music is a service that I have used on and off again, for the past 15 years. I have joined, quit, joined again, quit, and joined again. Each time I quit, BMG harasses me to rejoin until I can’t stand it any longer. I finally give in and sign up.
The deal that BMG offers is a pretty good one, and it can greatly help you to build your music collection if you know how to play the game. For starters, you need to make sure that, when you decide to make a regular club purchase, that you only do so when there is some incentive offer, like “buy one, get 2 free”. If you don’t take advantage of these offers and make purchases without any free incentive, your single CD will end up costing you about $20, which is more than the price you would pay in the store.
BMG states that its offer is free. But, of course, you have to remember that shipping and handling will be added to each delivery, so the CD’s are not really completely free, like the catch- word says (Note: the excessive shipping charges are the site's way of making money. Shipping charges would not normally cost this much, for such a small package). Still, they are very inexpensive when compared to the price you would pay in a store. The average price per CD works out to less than $4.00 each, if you buy the minimum requirement, collect your last three free CD’s, and then quit the club.
As far as the site itself goes, I think it’s adequate, but I’m not that impressed by it. I like the fact that each listing shows all of the songs and I like the fact that you can use either RealPlayer or Windows Media Player to listen to some of the songs first. It’s also helpful to be able to see a summary listing of other CD’s by the same artist. But the overall design of the site and the search function could use some improvement. With the search function, it displays all results that contain your search word, so you need to be as specific as possible, or else you will have to scroll through pages and pages of options. You can’t input too vague of a key word (like “love”, under song title to search), or else you will be presented with so many selections that you still won’t know which one is the song you were looking for.
Another bad thing is that not every selection is available as part of your “free” introductory package. Some selections (not just the expensive ones, but even some of the less expensive as well) are not available as freebies. Also, even though the site has thousands of selections, don’t be surprised if you cannot find certain musical artists. If the artist is less well- known, or if BMG doesn’t have a contract with that particular music label, you won’t be able to find it in this site.
Yet another annoyance is the dreaded “selection of the month”. It’s a little easier now, since you can decline the selection on- line and save yourself the cost of a stamp. But it still annoys me, because I will invariably receive these unwanted selections in the mail, even when I know for a fact that I declined the offer before the cutoff date. In all the times I have been a BMG member, I have never wanted the selection of the month. I wish BMG (and other music clubs) would just drop this altogether.
Overall, BMG is a decent service and it does help one to fill the empty spaces on your home CD rack at relatively little cost. My greatest complaint (besides the selection of the month) is with the customer service. They can get really annoying and really pushy. I realize that they are trying to do business, but how many times must a person say “no” before they give up trying to get you to join or rejoin? I have received phone call offers, offers through regular mail, and e-mail offers to rejoin again (for the fourth time), and I got so sick of it all that I gave in and signed up. I could continue to resist, but what’s the use? They will just keep pushing me until I say yes. And besides, the prices are cheap, when compared to a CD music store.
BMG does present a good deal, if you play your cards correctly. Much like with Columbia House, your best bet is to get your introductory deal squared away, and then quit the club. In a short time, you will get offers to rejoin. If you do, then you should follow the same pattern: join, fulfill your agreement, and quit again. This will ensure that you get the maximum amount of music for the least amount of money.
Logon today, and impress your friends with your vast CD collection, courtesy of the folks at BMG!
Recommended:
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