How George Michael (+) Led Us to our Biggest Score

In early October, we were auditioning some tracks from the year 1996. It was then when we started listening intently to three versions of "Fast Love" by George Michael (Album, Radio Edit, and A/C Summer Mix.)

In our line of business, every song needs to be clean. Unfortunately, the versions we had then of GM's 1996 Top 10 hit, weren't...clean (the line "All that b****** conversation" can be heard.) We could have just muted the offending line but, that would have been cheating, wouldn't it?



We researched through Discogs and realized that we would have to listen to the numerous releases of the songs to find the clean version. None read "Radio Edit - Clean." We then went with Plan B - eBay!

By some stroke of luck, we found a copy. It was part of a TM Century compilation.

TM Century makes CDs for radio broadcast use only - they are not sold to the general public. The disc was not the typical one radio stations would get on a weekly basis. Instead, it was part of TM Century's "Gold Disc" catalog. We knew then that the bidding wouldn't be easy. We held the highest bid until the last 7 seconds. WE LOST.

Plan C - look for another copy. Problem was, there wasn't any. We could have stopped searching but didn't.  Our next search led us to this: HitDisc MEGA Collection of over 2100 TM Century Hitdiscs Ultra Rare.  

It is rare to find TM Century cds sold in lots. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Great! We just need to join the auction. There was one small problem - the starting bid was too high. Fortunately for us, no one was bidding. We decided to message the seller to see if it was possible to haggle. He said "sure." After numerous messages were exchanged in a span of three months, we finally closed the deal. Here's the breakdown:

264 discs

Years 1994-2005

AC

CHR

XVR

Urban

Country

264 discs

Years 1998-2007

Country

Urban AC

Smooth Jazz

248 discs

Years 1998-2007

Rock

ALT

AAA

120 discs

Year 1999

AAA

ALT

Mainstream Rock

NAC

Urban AC

Country

Urban

CHR

AC

200 discs

Years 1999-2003

AC

CHR

Urban

248 discs

Years 1999-2004

Country

Urban

NAC

248 discs

Years 1999-2004

Rock

ALT

AAA

128 discs

Years 2003-2005

AC

CHR

XVR

Urban

128 discs

Years 2004-2006

Smooth Jazz

Urban AC

Country

128 discs

Years 2004-2007

Rock

ALT

AAA

120 discs

Years random years

Gold Discs

Miscellaneous # of Christmas discs, Specialty formats, etc.

Not only is the collection a boost to our current library but, it also serves as a guarantee that the music we provide to retailers will always be fit for general consumption. Many thanks to Drew of Kansas City!











So thank you, George Michael.

 -musicfitters inc. -