seeirwin
Member
Hello all. I tried a month of a new (I think?) record club called bandbox. I have no affiliation with this company. There's no promo code I'm going to give for you to sign up. I'm putting this here because I think some of you might be interested. The website is bandboxrocks.com if you want to check it out.
The gimmick: every month you get 2 records from the same band; one record is going to be an album that is well-known, and the other one might be an overlooked classic. In addition to the records, the box contains two zines: one is about the band, and the other one is a more targeted track-by-track listening guide for one of the records. The cost is $49/month.
Here's my experience with
The signup and packaging: I signed up and it was pretty hassle free. I didn't any spam from them (like I did with VNYL when I tried that). When the box shipped, I got a notification with tracking. The box arrived in a nice high-quality record mailer.
What's in the box? I had no idea which band would be featured, and I was pleasantly surprised when I opened it to find that Weezer was the August Bandbox featured artist. The two albums were Weezer's self-titled debut (the blue album) and Everything Will Be Alright In The End. The zines both looked great and were printed on nice glossy paper. One of them has an interview with Jason Cropper (original Weezer guitarist and co-author of My Name Is Jonas) and some other interesting articles (e.g. a ranking of all of Weezer's albums (the Black Album came in dead-last)), and an attempt to make the case the EWBAITE should have the same revered status as Weezer's first two albums. That was a major uphill battle for me because I'm definitely one of those Weezer fans who fell off after Maladroit. The other zine is a listening guide for the Blue Album.
The records themselves: I believe the blue album is this version (Weezer - Weezer) which was pressed at RTI. EWBAITE also appears to have been pressed at RTI (based on the runout code format), although I'm not sure I can find the sepcific version on discogs. Both records are flat and play with no issues.
Overall impression: Bandbox is obviously trying very hard to put out a product that feels intentional, polished, and educational. I think they were very successful in that regard. My guess is that these records could be had for about $30, so the question is whether it's worth $19 for the additional content. If you are interested in a helping hand to appreciate some new music then the answer might be yes. Much to my surprise, the writing was good enough to frame EWBAITE such that I really started to come around on that record.
I think I covered it all, but let me know if you have any questions. I hope this helps some of you!
The gimmick: every month you get 2 records from the same band; one record is going to be an album that is well-known, and the other one might be an overlooked classic. In addition to the records, the box contains two zines: one is about the band, and the other one is a more targeted track-by-track listening guide for one of the records. The cost is $49/month.
Here's my experience with
The signup and packaging: I signed up and it was pretty hassle free. I didn't any spam from them (like I did with VNYL when I tried that). When the box shipped, I got a notification with tracking. The box arrived in a nice high-quality record mailer.
What's in the box? I had no idea which band would be featured, and I was pleasantly surprised when I opened it to find that Weezer was the August Bandbox featured artist. The two albums were Weezer's self-titled debut (the blue album) and Everything Will Be Alright In The End. The zines both looked great and were printed on nice glossy paper. One of them has an interview with Jason Cropper (original Weezer guitarist and co-author of My Name Is Jonas) and some other interesting articles (e.g. a ranking of all of Weezer's albums (the Black Album came in dead-last)), and an attempt to make the case the EWBAITE should have the same revered status as Weezer's first two albums. That was a major uphill battle for me because I'm definitely one of those Weezer fans who fell off after Maladroit. The other zine is a listening guide for the Blue Album.
The records themselves: I believe the blue album is this version (Weezer - Weezer) which was pressed at RTI. EWBAITE also appears to have been pressed at RTI (based on the runout code format), although I'm not sure I can find the sepcific version on discogs. Both records are flat and play with no issues.
Overall impression: Bandbox is obviously trying very hard to put out a product that feels intentional, polished, and educational. I think they were very successful in that regard. My guess is that these records could be had for about $30, so the question is whether it's worth $19 for the additional content. If you are interested in a helping hand to appreciate some new music then the answer might be yes. Much to my surprise, the writing was good enough to frame EWBAITE such that I really started to come around on that record.
I think I covered it all, but let me know if you have any questions. I hope this helps some of you!