Last night I cancelled my membership with BMG Music Service. It was easy. All I had to do was click one button on the Web site (although the button itself was kind of tricky to find), and the actual decision was a no-brainer, too. I think I’ve bought only one CD from them in the last eighteen months or so, and paging through the monthly catalog was kind of like looking at a stranger’s yearbook: lots of pretty young faces, but the names mean nothing to me. Hell, I don’t even listen to music much anymore — I can go months without turning on my stereo, and I haven’t been really aware of what’s current since the days of Nirvana and Pearl Jam.

Still, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of sadness when I clicked that “cancel” button. It was a genuine end-of-an-era moment, seeing as I’ve been a member of BMG since before compact discs were the standard music format. Back when I joined, BMG was the RCA Record and Tape Club, and before that I was a member of the Columbia Record and Tape Club. Once upon a time, way back in the glorious, pre-digital ’80s, everybody was a member of the Columbia Record and Tape Club. How could any self-respecting teenager resist the offer of twelve albums for only a penny?

Teenagers today, with their new-fangled iPods and their MP3 downloads, probably don’t even know what a record club is. (Or was — I’m not sure Columbia is around anymore and I’m willing to bet BMG is on its way out.) But back in the day it was nearly impossible not to know about them. The ads for Columbia, in particular, were everywhere. They were in People magazine and the TV Guide and the Sunday papers, big colorful ads with lots of text surrounding a graphic that looked like a stack of eight-track tapes, or cassettes, or LPs. It was like you were looking at a photo of someone’s actual music collection. These ads also arrived regularly in the junk mail, and it seems like there were even TV spots telling you how easy it was to have all your favorite music sent directly to your home. I can remember poring over the Sunday ads, running my index finger up and down the columns of tiny-printed album names, fantasizing about which twelve I would get if only my mom would let me join.

My old buddy Kurt Stephensen was the first kid I knew who actually went through with it. We were about thirteen years old at the time, which back in the ’80s was quite a bit younger than it seems to be for kids these days. He called me when his first shipment arrived, and I eagerly ran over to his house to check out his new “instant record collection.” His selections were all darker, heavier, and louder than anything I would’ve felt comfortable ordering at that age — Ozzy, Molly Hatchet, 38 Special, AC/DC, Rush, Sammy Hagar — but that was what made Kurt cool. He did what he wanted instead of wondering what his mom would think. In time I would also get over needing my mom’s approval on what I listened to, but when I was thirteen, I had to hang with Kurt if I wanted to feel dangerous. And I felt very dangerous indeed that afternoon.

We spent hours listening to crunchy guitars and suggestive lyrics, inhaling the smell of new vinyl, reading liner notes, and studying those wonderfully large and detailed record covers. There was something transgressive about that moment, like we were breaking some kind of rule we hadn’t even known existed. We knew we were doing what the older guys did, the guys with cars and girlfriends, guys like Kurt’s awesome brother Tracy, who drove a Trans Am and partied on the weekends and — glory of glories! — had actually had sex. We were trembling at the edge of the grown-up world that afternoon, not quite kids any more but still a long way from adulthood, and it was the music that was driving us forward. We’d both been listening to this stuff on the radio for a couple of years, but being able to say we had the album somehow changed things. It was the fact of owning the music that made it different. I wonder if kids today experience anything remotely like that when they download an intangible stream of ones and zeroes into a featureless little white box. Somehow I doubt it.

It wasn’t too long after that when I taped a penny to my own order card and joined up too. I know I opted for cassettes instead of LPs, but oddly enough, I remember Kurt’s first selections better than my own — it seems like my introductory package consisted of fairly tame pop artists like Chicago and Christopher Cross, things my mom might like to borrow from time to time. Nothing remotely cool. But it didn’t matter. I was just happy to be building my own music collection, which up ’til that time had consisted of a smattering of 45’s and birthday-gift LPs, most of which were K-Tel compilations.

I quickly learned, however, that there were drawbacks to belonging to a music club, the biggest of which was the damn Selection-of-the-Month. This was the one that would come automatically if you forgot to send your reply card back, which I did almost routinely, and it almost always sucked. The SotMs were like something your grandma would pick for you, the album that she thought was what all the kids wanted, but was in fact embarrassingly lame. I think my local postmaster got tired of seeing my face from all the times I walked in with a little box marked “Return to Sender.”

Also, my damnable sense of loyalty probably ensured that I didn’t get the best value out of my music club memberships. See, for you young’uns in the audience, these things worked by giving you the first twelve albums free, then requiring you to buy a half-dozen more at vastly inflated prices, and within a certain time frame. Kurt played it smart, quickly bought his obligatory six, then cancelled so he could later rejoin for another round of twelve freebies. Not me, though. Dumb-ass that I was, I remained a member long after the obligation was fulfilled, stupidly paying through the nose for records I could’ve gotten for much less at a local brick-and-mortar. And then I did it again when I joined RCA.

I no longer remember why I switched from one club to the other — probably because Columbia didn’t carry the RCA-labelled artists whose albums I wanted. Whatever the reason, though, I’ve stuck with RCA and its descendent BMG ever since, for well over a decade now. Until last night, that is.

Yesterday’s mail proved to be the turning point. I received my monthly flyer with the usual uninteresting Selection-of-the-Month — an REO Speedwagon hits collection that’s basically the same as the previous REO hits package, with a few obscure album tracks added for double-dipping appeal. Definitely didn’t want that one. I spent a few minutes scanning the flyer for anything I’d be willing to spend $17 or $18 bucks on. I found nothing.

When I logged onto the BMG Website to cancel the REO disc, which was something like the twentieth SotM in a row I’ve rejected, the Website helpfully suggested I try changing my interest category to something I might like better. Except I couldn’t find another category that looked any more likely to produce something I would like better.

And then it dawned on me that there was no longer any point to belonging to this thing. On the rare occasion that I do buy a CD these days, it’s either a moldy-oldies hits compilation — which are easily found for less money at Target and Costco — or it’s something fairly obscure that BMG, with its emphasis on the popular stuff, doesn’t carry. The only logical thing to do was seek out and click that “cancel membership” button.

I feel like a journey that began a long time ago in a dank basement bedroom is finally over. It’s strange to have it finished, but I can’t say it troubles me much. I guess I’m just not that interested in music in anymore. I wonder what my thirteen-year-old self would think about that as he bangs his head, strums his air guitar, and fantasizes about the blonde chick on the cover of Kurt’s new Ratt album.

Probably the same thing young Homer Simpson thought when his dad told him there’d come a day when he’d no longer be with it: “No way, man!”