Does anyone still shop at HMV?

Classic example from way back:

Reading band (back when that meant they would have local fans) The Heartthrobs had their first album out as a special ltd edition picdisc.

I went to HMV to get it, and had to ask the assistant for it, which she managed. But they had a total of four of any kind.

No doubt, every branch had four. But it would have made some sense to actually have more than that in their home town, wouldn't it?

Large chain bookstores are at least decent environments for BROWSING. If you go into a decent, well-stocked Waterstones there are still good books put on display and recommended by staff who actually work into the shop. It's a pleasant environment to actually look for things you might like.

HMVs these days are a chaotic, badly-organised nightmare, they're no longer stores that people want to go into unless they actually have to, and unless they're buying video games or random presents, no one actually has to nowadays. The chain looks spectacularly mismanaged from what I can see.

The "thriving independents" you talk about, Autumn Almanac, just don't exist in most parts of Britain.

Most of ours have gone as well, but a few still exist. It's always sad to see small businesses forcibly moved on by industry change but everything changes. I also recognise that people lose their jobs, but again, everything changes. Unless your country is in the throes of recession (which to be fair applies to you atm) other jobs are available.

Large chain bookstores are at least decent environments for BROWSING. If you go into a decent, well-stocked Waterstones there are still good books put on display and recommended by staff who actually work into the shop. It's a pleasant environment to actually look for things you might like.

This sounds like Rough Trade shop.

Unless your country is in the throes of recession (which to be fair applies to you atm) other jobs are available

Nice

xpost I think my affection for physical shopping isn't going to gel with your realpolitik. History is on your side, no doubt - just try not to dance too loudly on the graves.

I don't really know how you can save a chain that's so dependent on a format that's rapidly becoming obsolete. The only people who still buy CDs are those who are so passionate they'll be able to get them online for as long as they exist, or so casual they'll be happy to get them in Tesco. HMV is a halfway house that only suits a pool of customers that's rapidly diminishing.

Actually there's an argument that the death of something like HMV would result in more independent record shops popping up again, but it'll never be like it was in the 80s and 90s.

Be sorry to see the classical music guys in HMV Oxford St lose their jobs, they know their shit

I'm talking about pop music anyway, be interested to see how classical CD sales are holding up, and they really would be a casualty if HMV were to go under. But I'd imagine most high streets would spawn at least one classical record shop were that to happen.

(hah - xpost)

that's a strong piece by laura snapes upthread - didn't know that about sale-or-return. can't really think of a solution at all though. i am part of the problem, haven't set foot in an hmv (or...any record shop) for years - i just don't need it for anything. tellingly, even though i'm someone who prefers to shop for everything except clothes online, i still enjoy moseying around in bookshops (whether chain/independent/charity) - as matt says they just offer a nice browsing experience, which hmv never did.

i'm guessing classical cd sales won't be undercut by downloads to anywhere near the same extent (the idea of downloading a classical piece is...weird to me), but in terms of competing w/online cd retailers, surely they're headed the same way as pop cds eventually - just several years behind due to demographic differences.

xxxxxxxxp obviously I feel for people who lose their jobs in a dying industry (especially those who are passionate about what they do) but it's not like those people die as well. If there's no commercial imperative to keep these places operating, that's not the evil hand of some angry magnate forcing the wholesome independent out of business, it's just a thing that happens. Standing around complaining about new-fangled changes and pitying the casualties doesn't help anyone.

Yeah really any bricks and mortar shop selling anything except clothes, food and probably homeware is going to die unless it can reinvent itself as an environment that people actually want to spend time in, or unless it's so ridiculously cheap that people don't care.

But I'd imagine most high streets would spawn at least one classical record shop were that to happen.

I doubt this very much. I suppose it would all go online but I fear some of the doddery old coots who frequent the classical music section would miss the 20 minutes (at least) they spend talking to the nice young men behind the counter when making their purchases

Sister Ray on Berwick Street now sells a lot of its back catalogue as cheaply as Amazon and that's still a great place to browse - I try to give them my money whenever I can.

HMV, I'll admit, I mostly use for DVDs now - they used to have a good dance vinyl section, which was my main incentive to go.

xpost to Autumn Almanac. Constantly saying "This is how capitalism works. Deal with it. Onward to a brighter, cleaner future" is annoying. You can just let people maintain affection for the alternatives you know.

Yeah, I miss blacksmiths and the little kid that used to sweep our chimneys.

Yeah really any bricks and mortar shop selling anything except clothes, food and probably homeware is going to die unless it can reinvent itself as an environment that people actually want to spend time in, or unless it's so ridiculously cheap that people don't care.

― Matt DC, Tuesday, 1 March 2011 22:40 (14 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I reckon in say 15 years the only brick-and-mortar shops left in existence will be those that require inspection of goods before purchase, i.e. the stuff you've mentioned here. If there's no benefit to be had in leaving the house to buy something, more and more people will just do it in their underpants. It won't be a massive change but it could be large enough to effect a localised recession in the retail sector.

xpost to Autumn Almanac. Constantly saying "This is how capitalism works. Deal with it. Onward to a brighter, cleaner future" is annoying. You can just let people maintain affection for the alternatives you know.

― Pop is superior to all other genres (DL), Tuesday, 1 March 2011 22:44 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

You are taking this way too seriously. I'm not stopping you doing anything.

the other thing with amazon isn't just price - if i want some random back catalogue item, often i won't know whether [physical record shop] has it in stock except by trekking in. with amazon i can find out with a click of a button and then once i'm there it's just easier to buy the thing there and then.

yeah I spent hours on Saturday trudging round shops looking for an old Day V. Lately tune

He should have tried Gemm, basically.

the other thing with amazon isn't just price - if i want some random back catalogue item, often i won't know whether [physical record shop] has it in stock except by trekking in

Well, no, you could phone in. The advantage of buying something from an actual shop is that you get it instantly.

The advantage of buying something from an actual shop is that you get it instantly.

itunes has the edge there.

Well, no, you could phone in.

agh no. i am firmly w/caitlin moran on the subject of telephones - such a brutal, primitive method of communication

Not like emails/posting to ILx, etc...

I still don't see why record stores closing would be a good thing. Shitty sounding vinyl and even more shitty mp3s taking over? No thank you! The CD is superior to all other sound formats for now, and it is needed to keep it vital and alive until lossless becomes the one and only existing digital downloading format. Which may take some time due to the kids' shitty audio taste and lack of an ear for dynamic nuances.

The is not so much about the album, because the album as a format will survive even without the CD, only less confined to the 35-50 minute format and probably an increasing amount of mini albums such as the "Body Talk" albums by Robyn last year. It is merely about sound.

Around here, record chains have struggled too, but this has actually strengthened the one huge chain that is left. Platekompaniet, the biggest record store chain in Norway, is doing very well (although partly based upon DVD, admittedly) while other chains (besides the occasional genre specialist indie store) have all but disappeared. I think there is still also a chain named Musikkverket doing rather well in areas a bit away from Oslo. But they have never managed to establish in Oslo, as their concept is obviously inferior to the concept of Platekompaniet.

I really hope Fopp manages to survive when HMV finally goes down.

there's one HMV a mere stone's throw from me, i've never seen any people in there fumbling about in the shop for some cd's or papers. it always seems like i like i'm passing a dead place, actually. if people buy a cd these days, they do online i guess.

I might get in that HMV and ask " Is this the same place where 350,000 of people stood in line on 21 august,1997 to buy Be Here Now? Why is it so dead now? This is just rubbish"

>I really hope Fopp manages to survive when HMV finally goes down.

This. I'm as guilty as anyone of buying most of my CDs online now, but a pre-christmas trip to one of the HMVs in M/cr gave me a powerful reminder why I don't shop there: enormous selection of overpriced films, games, headphones and related stuff, but the music section was maybe 1/3 as big as last time I was in there and with almost no back catalogue at all.

They didn't have two of the three CDs I wanted so I bailed out and went to Fopp instead, where I found all three within 5 minutes and didn't pay more than £7 for any of them. I also bought a couple of reasonably priced DVDs and a blu-ray whilst in there. And a book. All of this in a store which is about 10% of the size of HMV.

Meanwhile, Gideon decides to start looking after the pennies:

George Osborne is expected to use this month's budget to announce a crackdown on a ballooning internet VAT dodge on the sale of CDs, DVDs, memory cards, vitamin pills and contact lenses, involving some of the biggest names in British retailing.

Industrial scale avoidance of VAT on these and other goods is estimated to have cost the exchequer £130m in lost tax revenues last year – a jump of more than 50% on five years ago – according to Revenue & Customs. Industry insiders believe the true figure could be much higher.

If unchallenged, taxpayer losses are likely to soar higher still in the wake of the chancellor's decision to increase the rate of VAT to 20% at the start of the year.

In Vienna we don't have any megastores anymore, we have a couple of excellent independents but the different thing we have here is a massive chain of electrical stores called Saturn which also carries a wide range of CDs/DVDs and a surprisingly large selection of vinyl. €2-€3 more expensive than the indies probably but not a bad environment for browsing in. You can wander over to the music section having salivated over the latest flat screen TV.

Saturn's fun.

£130 is not a terrifically large amount of money, in the scheme of things.

HMVs these days are a chaotic, badly-organised nightmare

There's something post-apocalyptic about it. It's like Woolworth's felt in the years before they went under, or like Macy's on Fulton Mall in Brooklyn. Who's in charge? Who knows? But sweep the fucking floor at least.

(Haha I meant £130m, obv)

Actually there's an argument that the death of something like HMV would result in more independent record shops popping up again, but it'll never be like it was in the 80s and 90s.

― Matt DC

This could be a welcome side-effect of all this - not sure how realistic it is though. Independents that have already fallen weren't necessarily downed by HMV in the first place were they..

Dunno, the one indie record shop in Worcester probably was downed by HMV, or at least its closing coincided roughly with the tiny shit old HMV closing and the big(ish) swanky new one opening up in the new shopping centre.

HMV did really used to be so much better for back cat. I worked on and off at the Grafton St branch between 2000 and 2004. When I started the managers at the time had a lot more free reign to stock as they pleased (I remember a free-standing unit filled with the Neu! reissues that had just come out, the result of a discussion in the pub a few days before).

There were some amazing things in there 10 years earlier. Entire displays of obscure 70s prog cds on Background & Repertoire that I wound up buying loads of in clearance sales. Think this was even more staff driven than Neu! which were at least getting touted heavily in the monthlies.
Still not got over what was turning up there. Or who it was actually for. Grafton st used to be good for jazz & stuff too, don't think I've been in there in last few years. Tower had racks of similar obscurities at about 10Eur a pop last few times i've been in there. wonder if it was the same staff having moved shop or anything? though you'd hope they'd have moved on further still over 15 or 20 years.

Is the last Tower still there?

HMV sales are often really good, bought shitloads more stuff in HMV than any other major high street retailer

Very much recognise that feeling from my dublin years & more recent visits. Don't think it's as true in Galway. Not sure to what extent they've had clearance sales here.
But paying like 2.99 for Vashti Bunyan Another Diamond Day in Henry street branch and loads of other similar occurrences was almost a habit at one point. Think I picked up 4 or 5 items in that same purchase that were all cool somewhat obscure items, first volume of Afro-Rock definitely & couple of other things.

I miss those days.

Oh my good lord Marcello is RIGHT about the Oxford Street HMV!!! ....... and finished at the Oxford Street HMV, which was some kinda Holy Grail. Jeez, it's an ENTIRELY different store to the other branches I've been to (excepting the prices). They have a quite absurd, exhaustive selection, including, for the first time in any store, independent or mainstream, FOETUS records. Yay!

Was this the central London branch marked for closure 4 years later (message above from 2007)? also the branch Teeth Of the Sea work(ed)in according to onme of the staff.
Shame it's gone, if it has, cos it did have a wide range of stock in.
Internet is cheaper but you could actually browse in that branch.

The Oxford Street store still existed when I was in London in November.
The Tower Records (later Virgin) at Piccadilly, which used to be the biggest of them all in the 90s, has sadly been gone for too long though.

I really hope Fopp manages to survive when HMV finally goes down.

It's always mobbed whenever I'm in it, but then every FOPP shop I've ever been in has always been too small, it's like company policy or something, maybe to make the shops look busier than they are!

Is the last Tower still there?

Yes it is, though I'm not around that part of the city much anymore - and it's not really the last one. That one on Wicklow St and the one on the top floor of Eason's on O'Connell St are the last Tower Records stores in the western world. However there are loads of Towers in Japan, or that's what Wikipedia says anyway.

The Oxford Street store still existed when I was in London in November.
The Tower Records (later Virgin) at Piccadilly, which used to be the biggest of them all in the 90s, has sadly been gone for too long though.

I think the announcement of HMV closure came around New year didn't it/ Certainly while I was over there for Xmas.

As to that Piccadilly Circus shop I went into look around there while i was in the area. It's a trendy sweater etc shop the kind that sells drop crotch skinny jeans, yuch.

i have good memories of items i picked up in there over the years it was a record/cd shop, even up to it being Zavvi. While I was over during their existence they were selling Ethiopiques cds cheaply. so I nabbed a load of the good ones. think the jazz section was selling pretty cheaply too & i picked up some great stuff.

Yes it is, though I'm not around that part of the city much anymore - and it's not really the last one. That one on Wicklow St and the one on the top floor of Eason's on O'Connell St are the last Tower Records stores in the western world. However there are loads of Towers in Japan, or that's what Wikipedia says anyway.

was wondering how come Dublin was managing to keep the company afloat on its own. Did it become mailorder only elsewhere?
Heard the empire fell under the failure of one artist's lp or something. Maria Carey? Or was that whole story Virgin not them?

However there are loads of Towers in Japan, or that's what Wikipedia says anyway.

Yup, there's a couple of Towers in Tokyo (maybe more). The large HMV in Shibuya went at the end of last year.

The Oxford Circus HMV (the only one really worth going to) is still here. Irony of ironies, what’s causing most of their current debt is the shorter payment system required for games and gadgets (i.e. they have to pay the supplier in 60 days, rather than 70 days for CDs and DVDs). So if they’d stuck to what they did best, they wouldn’t be in so much trouble. That and providing a wider range of music in every other HMV branch rather than the glorified Our Prices (ask your dad) that they currently are. If you go into an average HMV and it’s just the Top 40 with trimmings and £5 back catalogue loss leaders then no wonder punters are put off.

Fopp did have a large branch in Tottenham Court Road (which I greatly miss) but as every schoolboy knows they overstretched themselves and that was that. They never stocked anything by Company Policy, though.

To correct Geir, the Tower/Virgin/Zavvi at Piccadilly was not bigger than the HMV at Oxford Circus.

They never stocked anything by Company Policy, though

Well at least you asked, must have been a disappointment though

Just before Christmas - Beatles Stereo Box was >£250 in HMV and £110 on Amazon. HMV used to stock up on box sets pre-Xmas and REDUCE the prices.

Not sure what point I'm making, other than 1) I like box sets 2) I like Xmas and 3) Fuck off HMV.

And.... hello Marcello!