From a correspondent at Altercation:
Interesting business model: Like Netflix, you set up a queue, only it’s comprised of CDs instead of DVDs. They have a fairly extensive — though by no means comprehensive — list. In fact, YourMusic.com is owned by BMG, and the selection is quite similar is to that of BMG record club.
Each month, the next CD in your queue gets mailed to you, for $5.99, including mailing. That’s a very reasonable deal. That’s right, all CDs are $5.99, and there is no charge for shipping or handling. Even better, the DVD/CD combos are also $5.99, And best of all, any of the many boxed sets are sold for (all together now) $5.99 per disc. From simple 2 disc sets, to all of the Led Zeppelin sets, to most of the Sinatra multi disc sets, to the wonderful and complete Ella Fitzgerald Songbooks (16 CDs!), are all $5.99 per disc. That is a fabulous deal.
You can always buy any disc from their catalog at any time, independent of the queue. You can add, delete and rearrange the queue at anytime.
The catch is that if you do not have a disc queued up, you get billed $5.99 anyway. When I set mine up, I added 57 CDs, so I won’t have that problem until 2010. They have a decent collection of Jazz (Sinatra, Ella, Armstrong, Coltrane, Miles,) — again, nothing exhaustive, but good starters and fill ins. Same for rock and pop.
I suspect that some of the A-list newer releases aren’t available for very long. The Best of Sheryl Crow disappeared, and so I moved Modest Mouse’s Good News For People Who Love Bad News up to the front of the queue.
So far, I received my first CD — came on time, and I was charged $5.99 (plus tax). This looks promising for those of us who like our digital music in a higher fidelity than MP3 or AAC.
I have a similar arrangemnet with my local library. I can reserve up to 15 items at a time, they email me when they arrive at the desk, I can check out an unlimited amount of material and renew as many times as I want unless someone else has it on hold, and it is free.
You’d better hope your librarian can sing and play an instrument because — if we all did this — pretty soon there’d be no new recorded music.
That’s true, after all it was libraries that pretty much ended the literary industry. That’s why nobody sells books any more.