Remember the Columbia House deal where you get could get 10 CDs for a penny?   It did help me start my CD collection as a little kid though, so I am grateful for that.  However, I hated the year long contract with the company that would send you a CD each month that you had to pay for if you didn’t decline.

The company went bankrupt earlier this year but is now being revived, offering vinyl records instead of CDs.

“You can see a yearning and an interest to try a new format.”

-John Lippman, owner

Vinyl sales are doing well, increasing 52% over the last year.  You can read more about vinyl sales here.

While Lippman wasn’t completely clear on the format of the new Columbia House, he did say it will not be an “a la carte supermarket,” but users will have some control over the choices.

“Our goal is to give consumers the ability to select music that they will love.”

-John Lipmman, owner

Would you guys subscribe to the new Columbia House?

Songza, the music playing app that offered playlists based on moods and activities and a concierge service to help you pick out a playlist, will be becoming Google Play Music on Jan. 31 2016.

Songza emailed this letter to subscribers Tuesday night.

In a nutshell, we built Songza to make life better by playing you music tailored to every moment of every day.

In July 2014, Songza was acquired by Google (#ConsciousCoupling), and in them we found a company who shares our excitement for IRL soundtracking. Over the past year and a half, we’ve worked hard to bring all of the features that you love from Songza to Google Play Music, including the Concierge and our massive library of hand-curated playlists — from Walking On Sunshine to Hillbilly Bodybuilding, no moment shall go un-soundtracked.

Thanks to Google Play Music (and our kick-ass team, which continues to grow faster than a Twista verse), we’ve been able to bring Songza’s Concierge experience to a new audience of music fans in the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Ireland, Brazil, Japan, Germany, France, Norway, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, Austria, Mexico, and Russia (*wipes brow*) — with even more countries coming soon.

It’s now time for us to focus on building a single, cohesive product. So as of January 31, 2016, Songza will become Google Play Music, and you will no longer be able to access Songza.com or the Songza mobile apps. HEY! There’s no crying! Are you crying? There’s no crying in music streaming! Moving to Google Play Music is free, and your favorite playlists can come with you! Pinky swear. Soon, when you visit Songza, you’ll be greeted with a prompt that will let you bring all of your Songza listening history and favorite playlists over to Google Play Music — so please make sure to do that! Using all of Songza’s features in Google Play Music is 100% free and doesn’t require a credit card, you just need to accept our new Terms of Service and Google’s Privacy Policy (if you haven’t already).

Thank you SO much for being a part of the Songza community over all of these years. We’re really proud of the work that we’ve done on Google Play Music and we truly hope you’ll join us there.

Hugs and headphones,
-Elias, Elliott, Eric, Peter and the whole Songza team

P.S. We made you a kinda awkward video.

R.I.P. Songza.  It will be interesting to see how people take to Google Music with the other music and streaming sites that exist.