"How to build a massively huge collection of CDs on a limited budget"
Back before Napster, CD burners, iPods, podcasts, satellite radios, hipsters, the best way to get music cheaply was the music club. The big two were RCA Music Club and Columbia house. If you are over 35, you probably remember the drill, get "x" number of CDs for "free" but then you have to have to buy a certain number of "regular priced" CDs. You also had to make sure to mail in the card each month saying "I don't want this months selection", or else you might end up with a copy of 'Lionel Ritchie's Greatest Hits'. I started doing the math on the clubs and determined that you were really paying about $5.00 per CD. I was a business major in college and this was one of the first places I started using 'cost analysis' in real life. Take your total expenditures related with being in one of the clubs divided by the total number CDs you get and it comes out to about $5.00 a disc.
This was a system I learned to game to an almost criminal level. There were times when I had 2 or 3 memberships going simultaneously. The best part about the clubs was that everytime you signed up a friend, or in my case an alias, you got more free CDs. At one point I had memberships under the names of John Hellert and J. Mark Hellert, both going to the same address through RCA. At one point I even added a third alias, Jon E. Helle (pronounced Johnny Hell) for even more CDs. But what really takes the cake is that every time I tried to end a membership under one of the aliases, I would get a letter back saying "Please don't leave RCA music service, we'll even give you more free CDs if you renew". Even when I tried to end Jon E. Helle's membership, this happened. Eventually after a couple hundred CDs, I left the clubs. I had complete works (or almost complete works) of Black Sabbath, Dio, Rainbow, Rush, Ozzy Osbourne, Metallica, Deep Purple, Megadeth, Iron Maiden, Van Halen, Kiss, etc, etc...
Notice I did say almost criminal level of gaming. The reason the clubs kept asking my aliases to rejoin is because I paid every invoice they sent me. I look at it this way: I liked getting cheap CDs and they liked getting checks that cleared on time. Completely win/win for everyone.
Back to the subject of this post: Long Live Rock 'n Roll by Rainbow. This is truly the best of the three Rainbow albums with Ronnie James Dio. I really wish this lineup would have recorded one more studio album together. They really had it going on creatively. Dio may be gone, but he will not be soon forgotten. Long Live Ronnie James! And yes, I did get this particular by gaming the RCA Music service.
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