1-800-MUSIC-NOW

never bought anything off this, but i had a lot of fun calling to listen to the little 30-second music clips and see what bands they did and didn't have by dialing the first three letters of the band's name

Oh. Ok.

wow. i totally fucking forgot about that. I called them all the time for the same reason.

sometimes I called them through my computer so I could hear it through speakers. this was cuz I usually picked metal bands cuz I had no money to buy cds as a kid and my mom sure as hell wasn't gonna pay for Mercyful fate cds...:/

I think this was the only way anyone ever used the service. Reminds me of my jr. high school days scamming Columbia House for free CD's and selling them to Ameoba for the cash. Diabolical.

Sugah, explain this scam?

didn't prince once have his own 1-800 line to buy his music?

never heard of this service but i definitely thought this was gonna be a/b some fresh new buzz band, i.e. the creatively bankrupt chillwave/post-anco 80s ephemera bandname thread.

someone get on that! a fat paycheck waits...

i had a lot of fun calling to listen to the little 30-second music clips and see what bands they did and didn't have by dialing the first three letters of the band's name

ditto, hadn't thought about this in YEARS. hearing the MUSIC-NOW voice say "ballad of red buckets" followed by a little clip from Electr-O-Pura, it's all coming back to me now...

from wikipedia

The service began in 1995 (the same year Amazon.com opened, and three years before it started selling music) but was taken down by the end of 1996. The promotion totaled about USD$40 million (at the time, advertisements for the service were quite regularly played on MTV and advertised heavily as part of The Simpsons Homerpalooza episode); meanwhile, its top-selling CD allegedly sold only 400 copies.[1] Ultimately, over 1 million pieces of music were sold within the year. One survey noted that many of those who called the number did not sign up to make purchases, some citing shipping fees, but most saying it was because they didn't have credit cards.[2] (this was slightly before debit cards were widely available with checking accounts).

I would love to see poll info about the 400 people who bought Jagged Little Pill (I assume) from 1-800-MUSIC-Now

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDNOW

haaa, i know i ordered at least a few compact discs from CDNOW.COM. for when you want a CD...NOW.

also, i distinctly remember seeing mike watt open up for primus on the wynona's big brown beaver tour '96, and then the next day looking this guy up on 1-800-MUSIC-NOW and listening to clips from ball-hog or tugboat, liking "piss bottle man" a lot but not so much into "big train"

rememberin'