Would the economics of this work out?

But tracer: that's what ministry of sound comps are for (and they do sell subscriptions, I think).

phil, you might want to check out something robert fripp of king crimson did on his label DGM - I think it was called the 'collector's club'. basically, people paid like 100-150 bucks or so up front, and got to pick from an ongoing series of king crimson-related archival releases, live shows and stuff, done up all pretty-like. the details were different from what you're proposing (for instance the market was target much more directly) but similar enough to make it worth a look.

Prophecy Productions (a german folk-oriented label) has a subscriptions service where you pay an X amount of money to get all their releases.

there should be an indie britannia club. every month they send you their recommended cd so long as it's by a recognised indie god, for example, mull historical society. then you get to purchase a minimum of six other indie cds. that would keep sales buoyant. if you had an advert at the back of the mail on sunday you magazine every week you could get publicity for lots of proper bands, e.g. chris t-t, or tom paulin.

but all subscribers would have to buy tigermilk first because if you don't have that then frankly you do not have a record collection.