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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 25, 1997)
A The Battalion /T] LI Page 3 Tuesday • March 25, 1 997 the money and run & (» It „. .m* -«fcsa \ 6C.1 WA in mm 5 L w w 1 ' Jk Brad Grabber and Stew Milne, Thu Ba'Itai.ioI Students say CD clubs turn out to be anything but a bargain CAM By Daphne Phillips The Battalion l J" ore music. Twelve free compact yt discs for the price of one. Big o A. discounts. Music clubs reel CD- fazed college students in like fish ask- gforthe hook, line and sinker. With the first big package of free CDs minding too good to be true, students now they are in for a long haul. Kimberly Campbell, a senior microbi- )gy major, was a member of a CD club [two years. “It looks like a good deal,” Campbell id. 'But when you sit down and do the ath, it’s not.” Campbell ended her music club By Stephen Llano The Battalion D avid Bowie’s newest al bum, Earthling, sounds as if the inhabitants of Earth re the last thing on his mind lenhe composed it. Released soon after the rock- well-publicized 50th birth- ybash, this album easily uld have been a boring tour out agreement after receiving a “selection of the month” she did not want. She was gone for three months during the sum mer when her mail backed up. Campbell said she did not send her monthly re sponse cards in on time and she wound up with a CD she did not like. “With all the mail they’re constantly sending me, I’m probably responsible for a rain forest,” Campbell said. Michelle Odajima, a sophomore bio chemistry and chemistry major, said she also was stuck with a selection of the month CD she did not like because she forgot to mail in the response card. Oda jima said the selection of the month is good from the company’s standpoint but bad from the buyer’s. “I think I had lawyers hassling me be cause I would never pay for this Bon Jovi CD,” Oda jima said. “I didn’t want to pay for it, not only be cause I didn’t want the CD, but I got tired of them bugging me.” Odajima said she quit because the only thing she liked about her club was the 12 free CDs. “The regular club prices were around $15,” Odajima said. “You can go to Best Buy, pick out any CD from all kinds of music and buy it for $10.” Regular club prices for CDs usually “It looks like a good deal, but when you sit down and do the math, it’s not.” Kimberly Campbell Senior microbiology major run from $12.98 to $16.98, and the clubs state that shipping and handling charges and sales tax are additional. Students may find used CD stores cheaper, consid ering all the money spent. Students also may find a club’s selection of music lacking in variety. The type of music one checks in the membership agree ment is the kind of music catalog a club often sends. This can be a disadvantage if one listens to different kinds of music. Kristen Miller, a sophomore agricul-, tural systems management major, said her club’s selection does not suit every one’s desires. “The selection of the month is aimed toward elementary school-age twits,” Miller said. Miller has been a member of her club for four years and has attempted to quit, but the club still sends her mail. “It was the thing to do in high school,” Miller said. “All these free CDs were a good way to build up your CD collection. But it’s really annoying that they’re con sistently sending you things.” See CD Club, Page 4 b all earthlings: David Bowie's newest album orbits Planet Shallow Virgin Records ★★ (out of five) of a comfortable musical style. Not many artists are in an ex perimental mood at his age, but Bowie still seems to show en thusiasm and excitement about the creative process. “It’s extraordinarily exciting for me because I honestly don’t know what’s going to happen,” Bowie said in an interview avail able on his Web site http://www. davidbowie.com). “In a wa,y I’m taking quite a chance. I really feel that if I had to lay back on what I’ve done before, I’d much prefer to stop. While I’m still wildly excited about what I do as a musician, then that’s the course that I choose to take.” The new album may be exciting for Bowie, but at first listen, there is nothing truly memorable about the album. The most exciting thing about it is the fact that Bowie de cided to rely primarily on comput er-generated music, and not the rock band that usually backs him. But cool sounds do not a solid album make. The songs are plagued with empty lyrics that fail to serve the critical listener’s need for direction. Bowie’s experimental intent, which in most cases would be good, is fairly obvious. But this time the experiment seems to lack a real purpose. “I mean, we wrote the album, other than the two older songs that we’re doing, we wrote the al bum in something like nine-and- a-half days,” Bowie said in the same interview. “It was done in credibly quickly. But that sort of within itself was kind of the point of the exercise, was to work really quickly and write really fast and just see what happened really, more than anything else.” See Bowie, Page 4 Running out of time for your housing search? Rousing Fair ‘97 MSC First Floor Thursday, March 27 10:00 AM - 2:30 PM • Free Rent Drawing • New Survival Manuals Available • Fun Giveaways • Over 50 apartment managers • Representing over 80 apartment complexes • Mediation Information • Come see Alice and the White Rabbit A ^Student AggieHostel '97 Student Host Applications Now Available! Application and The Association of Former Students will present AggieHostel '97 from June 15-June 21, 1997. The Student Hosts are the link to the Texas A&M of today for the Aggies of yesterday. Information Sheet are available at these locations: ♦Student Activities ♦ ♦MSC Student Programs Office ♦ ♦Clayton Williams Jr. Alumni Center ♦ ♦218 Beutel Health Center Sponsored by: Off Campus Student Services w Applications are due Friday, March 28, 1997 For more information contact Cynthia Hernandez at 845-0280.