My copy of the 1983 Melissa Manchester Greatest Hits CD is a CRC edition and it does sound excellent.
Hm.... /flashback/ My first exposure to this forum, was back in late 2004 early 2005, when I typed: "Best version of Steely Dan Aja" into google, and discovered a growing thread here. (I lurked for years, didn't register til years later, because I was an IT security aware/paranoid, and always used proxy's to view websites back then...) So I was pretty stoked to find out I already owned the: MCAD-37214 / DIDY 55 / CRC copy that is a record club version I scored way way back.. (I think that it was one of SH's first signature offerings or something like that? ) And I also have some AM+ Police 1st pressings, whose markings that indicated I had "the right ones". Well, smash my teenage memories of scoring 15CD's for 1ยข !
It all depends on the club, record label, and time. If one takes a look at the CD matrix and who the pressing plant is, a majority of the club discs from both clubs were retail identical discs (same disc, different label/inserts), since they have the same matrices and pressed at thes same plants for retail. The reason being is that Sony (CBS/Columbia/Epic) and WEA owned Columbia House after 1988, so most CBS and WEA discs came from their mothership plants' (Sony DADC USA, Sony SDM Pitman, & WEA Mfg) and BMG's club discs also came from BMG's pressers (JVC USA, Denon USA, Disc Mfg, and later Sonopress USA and Cinram, and others) for BMG/RCA/Arista labels, and WEA's plants for WEA label discs, Sony DADC for CBS label, and PMDC USA for PolyGram label discs. Which means that CRC's MCA, PolyGram, EMI/Capitol, and smaller label discs were contract pressed by either Sony DADC or WEA Mfg. and BMG Club discs contract pressed from MCA,EMI, and smaller labels came from BMG's pressers. On the contract pressings, the packaging was up to the club, which in some cases was slightly less quality, B&W or less quality inserts or IMO, much better, because they came in plastic jewel cases (woo-hoo!), not crappy digipaks or cardboard sleeves that came from retail (boo!). In the early days, pre-1988 for CRC and pre-~1990 for BMG/RCA club, they contracted a lot of discs for most labels, except in house labels (CBS/Columbia/Epic, etc. for CRC and RCA for BMG club), which were retail discs with no markings.
I had a sealed, poorly cut RCA Club vinyl of Kenny Rogers' Twenty Greatest Hits. The store copies of the same LP were much better cut. This comp on CD sounds better on CD as on LP, rather than a 2 LP set, Wally Traugott squeezed 10 songs on 1 side compromising the sound.
They did the same with Neil Young's Mirror Ball. The standard 1995 issue of Frank Zappa's Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar came in a box with replica LP sleeves and a booklet. The BMG Club version came in a fatboy jewel case containing the three discs and the booklet. No sleeves or pictures of Frank smoking. The BMG catalog number appeared on the spine even though the discs had Ryko's catalog number printed on them.
I've got vinyl pressings of Yes - Fragile, Steely Dan's Can't Buy a Thrill (with the black ABC label!), King Crimson's INCOTCK, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's S/T from Record Club of America. All four have the same heavy duty jackets (Nash & Young has the matte finish) and the exact same deadwax as their original US first pressing counterparts. Also have a Zep IV and Fleetwood Mac's Tusk CRC pressings - haven't listened to them yet.
Record Club of America didn't master any of their vinyl. They used existing Atlantic product and just added info to the label and the jacket, otherwise they are the exact same thing. Buy with confidence. CRC and RCA not so much.
If it sounds good, it is good. As said by others many club cds were identical in mastering to their store counterparts and the only real reason they go for less really is snobbery people wanting 'brand'. If I see a club disc disc that's identical and going for less I more often than not will buy it cos I buy for the music not resale value while those of you who are more collector minded wouldn't.
Did Record Club of America make their own pressings? All of these pressings are heavy - must be at least 180g. I'm wondering about the vinyl quality, despite their heft.
My Diament CD copy of Zep I is from Columbia House Canada. All songs have the correct flow, no gaps. Mine is numbered A2 19126. The disc is manufactured by WEA Manufacturing Inc in USA. I have quite a few record club CD's and I've never had a bad experience with them. My Diament "In Through The Out Door" has the CRC and A2 notations on the booklet and j-card, but the disc has NO mention of CRC at all. Disc is labeled CD 16002 and manufactured by Cinram (CD matrix) and distributed by WEA Music Canada. Hmmmm, weird. A "retail" CD in a Columbia House Canada package. I'd like to see how "club" CD's compare to "retail" CD's when put through EAC. Could there really be that much of a difference?
No they were made at various factories that did Atlantic's work then. Same as the stock/store bought ones.
I like James Tayor's "Greatest Hits" club pressing. I have the Canada club pressing and another member has a US club pressing, which are not the same. We don't know which one matches the non-club CD. James Taylor - Greatest Hits - W2 3113 (Canada CRC Columbia House) 45.6% -- 92.9% -- 97.7% -- 78.9% -- 97.7% -- 94.7% -- 84.9% -- 70.5% -- 97.7% -- 97.6% -- 78.9% -- 97.7% James Taylor - Greatest Hits - 3113-2 (US BMG record club) 46.7% -- 95.1% -- 100.0% -- 80.7% -- 100% -- 96.9% -- 86.9% -- 72.1% -- 100% -- 99.9% -- 80.7% -- 100%
Ah thanks for taking the time to type all this info. So if the matrixes matter, in this case: A) Matrix reads: DIDX 1706 11A4 "Made in USA - Digital Audio Disc Corp" is like the regular retail version and: B) Matrix reads: 2A A290067 07 B having CRC written on CD label and no other info regarding country of manufacture is possibly of unknown origins? By the way, these are the "Manufactured by Columbia House under license" versions of: A) U2 - The Joshua Tree (A2-90581 on spine) B) U2 - War (A2-90067 on spine)
Only for Columbia/CBS affiliated labels. My recollection is that for non-Columbia releases the cassette art was butchers with red bars on the spine and the cover art centered with big patches of white top and bottom. For some releases that white background looked so bad I took a black marker and colored it in
Yeah, I've definitely seen those but they had stopped doing that by the late 80s when I joined up. I had plenty of those ugly older ones like that though that I had picked up at yard sales or from friends/family, etc. Those might have been even worse than the RCA/BMG club tapes... I think at least those usually looked pretty much like the real thing appearance-wise, it's just that they were missing everything that would have normally been inside in regards to liner notes.
Every time I'm in a used record store and I see two titles of the same item, one record club and one original, I think to myself I'm going to get the original because I'm a snob.
Record Club of America was the worst. Some of these pressings were standard stock copies with RCOA stickers--those are fine. But the records that RCOA pressed themselves are mostly the pits. Some used a vinyl record to create the "master". I have a Raspberries (debut) album that's a RCOA pressing and you can hear the surface noise from the record from which it was dubbed...
Here's the back cover jewel case artwork of Amy Grant's 20th Anniversary Edition Lead Me On BMG club edition:
I have classical "Musical Heritage" label cd's, also some jazz, now that I think of it, how do these compare to originals?
They did modify the artwork extensively on their CDs so that they could claim that they are Musical Heritage label CDs and have no resemblance to the originals artwork wise, sound wise, I think they are just fine.
I need a little bit of help with understanding this "copying the cd" business for record club releases. 1) There is a school of thought that believes that a cd-r copy of a cd is equally good as, if not better, than the original cd. 2) Record clubs apparently made a cheap tape copy of a cd to master their cd from. 3) Why didn't the record clubs copy the disc like zillions of people have done for years and get an identical-sounding master?
Disc A is a retail version or if marked DIDY 1706, is the same as retail disc with CRC markings. A lot of the early DADC pressed club discs are marked DIDY xxx, but the matrix is DIDX xxx, and same as retail. There are also early CRC discs that were not pressed for retail by DADC, thus are contract pressed. There are also CRC discs that were not made at DADC, that are relabeled retail discs. Disc B are Sony SDM Pitman, NJ pressed discs. These are contract pressings of these two titles likely 1989. These were WEA distributed Island CDs then. Island was sold to PolyGram in 1989 and CDs with new PolyGram/Island labels/catalog #s began appearing in 1990.
