If you get a few moments, read this inventive mail-order program aimed at late 60s music connoisseurs (I’m assuming it’s from the late 60s as it was found in an album from 1968).

Basically, you’d send Columbia Records $3 ($19.53 by today’s inflation-soaked, nightmare-inducing terms) and over the course of one year, you’d receive 10 special, “7-inch or 33 1/3 sampler records containing unreleased or just-released songs by new people and groups.” After receiving these records, it was your duty as an A&R Advisor to inform Columbia Records which songs tickled your fancy, and which were better suited for the vinyl graveyard, also known as St. Vincent De Paul.

A fairly elaborate concept to comprehend today, given that the same back and forth info-swap between record labels and faithful listeners is now done via the cloud and email, this little piece of music history shows that just because it’s pressed doesn’t mean it’s good, and that just because it’s backed by a label, doesn’t mean they know what the hell they’re doing.

There’s hope for us yet.