Does anyone still shop at HMV?

I'm not sure I really get why HMV closing would hurt the Soho stores, DL - there are, what, four or five of them left and they seem to operate in a world which HMV has barely touched for years. Could you say a bit more about it?

xpost

I guess I'll have to switch to FOPP for my DVD buying, which isn't on the way home from work, so boo.

Some people are making the argument that the death of HMV as the last big high street retailer will ultimately lead to the death of physical media which will eventually close all those independents. Not sure I agree, though I think the market for physical media will continue to shrink.

I guess I'll have to switch to FOPP for my DVD buying, which isn't on the way home from work, so boo.

(who saved it from administration)

I wonder if this will effect All Tomorrow's Parties - aren't they half owned by someone owned by HMV?

Any profitable or even not-economically-insane bits of HMV will be sold off pretty quickly I think. That may or may not include any festival operations.

Two good blogposts, one from David Hepworth:

http://whatsheonaboutnow.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/if-hmv-goes-long-tail-goes-with-it.html

...and the other is Bob Stanley's piece from last year:

http://croydonmunicipal.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/how-hmv-can-save-itself.html

XP - ah well then, if the Oxford St store goes then I guess that's it for me, I do enjoy aimlessly wandering around the racks at HMV.

HMV surely won't affect the availability of that Bonnie Raitt record in some form or another though? The long tail of physical media is indeed probably gone now, digitally it's bigger than ever.

That Hepworth piece makes no sense at all to me; the Stanley one is pretty good, I think.

I don't think the death of HMV necessarily spells the end for indie retailers. It's possible for such places to continue and even thrive if they appeal to a particular demographic, are situated in the right part of town and provide a pleasant shopping experience. Resident in Brighton is doing very well indeed especially now that it's lost its main competitor in town (Rounder), every time I go there it's absolutely packed.

xposts I've certainly heard the case made (from people who work in and know about such things) that HMV represents the last bastion of physical media. Without a big retail presence like HMV on the high street, producing CDs etc on any grand scale simply stops being profitable for labels and manufacturers to continue selling merely through indie traders and supermarkets.

and online of course

dont know about death of physical media - vinyl sales have increased year on year for, what, 6-7 years now?

Sure it might be tiny compared to days gone by, but increasing is still increasing

The music industry has a big vested interest in keeping CDs going for a while longer I think, and some rump of HMV will probably survive. People still buy CDs online, in supermarkets etc as well. It's declining obviously but they'll be around a while longer.

Suspect classical music on CD will last longer than anything.

Those shops in Soho aren't selling many things "produced on a grand scale" though - they're mostly selling things produced in small quantities for small markets.

I can see the issue for your store in Letchworth, mind.

xpost

Also at the end of the day CDs just aren't that expensive to produce, which is why the industry made such a dizzying amount of money out of them, so production can be downscaled without becoming unviable.

somewehre in amongst all the wailing and gnashing of teeth going on today people will still be buying and listening to music

― non-elitist melted poo (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, January 15, 2013 10:33 AM (35 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

THIS THIS THIS THIS X 100000

Vinyl might be increasing, but if you compare the added gross gain of MP3s + Vinyl + CDs today witht he sale of CDs alone in the mid-late 90s, it's miniscule - particularly vinyl. Just because it's doubled in recent years means very very little. I still don't know whether the resurgence in vinyl will help small shops much in this climate - it's easier to find those first pressings and hard-to-finds online than in a shop.

i get why this is unfortunate for the music industry and it's awful for those about to be made redundant but: EVERYONE KNEW IT WAS COMING. this is not, in any way, a shocking development. it may or may not spell the death of physical media just yet, but it's a symptom not a cause because that has BEEN HAPPENING and is gonna continue to happen.

somewehre in amongst all the wailing and gnashing of teeth going on today people will still be buying and listening to music

― non-elitist melted poo (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, January 15, 2013 10:33 AM (35 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

THIS THIS THIS THIS X 100000

― lex pretend, Tuesday, 15 January 2013 11:09 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no one is arguing against this.

I wonder if production on demand in store could be made viable. It removes the expense of maintaining long tail stock and still gives the punters their thing in a box. There would be still be a market for deluxe/remasters/box-set type stock but for back catalogue CDs with 4 page inserts it might be feasible.

Vinyl might be increasing, but if you compare the added gross gain of MP3s + Vinyl + CDs today witht he sale of CDs alone in the mid-late 90s, it's miniscule - particularly vinyl. Just because it's doubled in recent years means very very little. I still don't know whether the resurgence in vinyl will help small shops much in this climate - it's easier to find those first pressings and hard-to-finds online than in a shop.

― besides Sunny Real Estate (dog latin), Tuesday, 15 January 2013 11:11 (34 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Still, this is a false figure for the music industry because production costs of recording, producing, manufacturing and distributing music today are much lower than ever before.

worried that my dog won't get the reference now if i were to jam his head into a gramophone cone

My issue with the Hepworth piece more fulsomely:

1) the idea that you would need a high-street retailer stocking substantial back catalogure to enable "the long tail" is rubbish - "the long tail" works just as well, better in fact, online where it's possible for retailers to hold centralised inventory cheaply
2) the idea that you need physical media to make "the long tail" work is also rubbish, if you can sell yer tail digitally it gets longer (and more profitable, as it goes)
3) the idea that HMV, even it's largest stores, has been comprehensively stocking back catalogue of any but the most prominent artists is laughable, and has been for at least as long as "The Long Tail" has been out.

my main memory of hmv is being charged depraved prices for cds in ireland as a kid/teen - albums for 20 pounds and stuff. fuck them, to be honest. i enjoyed buying music but it's not like they set the place up as a youth club or something, any positive experiences i had there were tangential.

i'd be more mournful about smaller record stores and particularly about the specialist store for particular genres, but there are good things about the digital world too. plus, living in london, i can still go to specialist stores if and when i want.

Also at the end of the day CDs just aren't that expensive to produce, which is why the industry made such a dizzying amount of money out of them

including HMV. bob's vision is an attractive one but HMV never, ever provided that - they just rinsed us out of exorbitant sums of money because people had no other real option. now we do, and they're fucked. good.

Yeah I feel bad for anyone whose job is threatened; I feel bad for the High Street in general, a "high street" is a thing I want to thrive in our towns because I think it makes towns feel better, happier, more interesting. I must say, though, I'm a bit surprised at the level of shock and dismay I'm hearing about this. It's not a surprise and I would be amazed if anyone *loved* HMV shops as they currently are.

That was an xpost, too, you'll be surprised to hear.

Don’t crow over people losing their jobs, Lex, as much as you might hate the company which employs or employed them.

There probably still is a viable market for vinyl but not if shops insist on charging £15-30 for something you could get second hand for a tenth of that.

There were always alternatives to HMV, lots of them. Even small or medium sized towns would have an Our Price or Virgin or whatever and many would have independents as well.

I'm not sure what kind of thing isn't going to be cheaper to find away from the high street in the future.

That said, i'd imagine there's probably room, in the short term, for a commercially-focused physical media outlet aimed at tourists on Oxford St, just not to the same scale as HMV.

don't forget woolies rip xp

xp to MC Isn't vinyl viewed as a luxury option these days though? Which perhaps allows prices to stay high, low elasticity of demand and all that? I would buy LOADS more vinyl if every record bought also offered a free download.

Nobody can justify charging £6.99 for a 7-inch single (as happened at Record Store Day last year with more than one item). The only people buying these things will be sad "collectors."

Don’t crow over people losing their jobs, Lex

― Here he is with the classic "Poème Électronique." Good track (Marcello Carlin), Tuesday, January 15, 2013 11:24 AM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and it's awful for those about to be made redundant

― lex pretend, Tuesday, January 15, 2013 11:11 AM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Just been down to Oxford Street to get some colour for a piece.

Even with the blue cross reductions, it's still SO expensive.

There is a market for vinyl and it is growing, but I had a look at some figures for it recently (a friend with a record company had got hold of them, I'll find out if they're available somewhere) and from what I could tell the actual numbers are really very small indeed, plus a large part of the growth seemed, from what I could tell, to be coming from 180g reissues of stuff you could find second hand for a tenth of that.

That says to me that, actually, the market really *is* in charging £15-30 for something you could get second hand for a tenth of that, and that it's not a market to look to for evidence of the health of a music scene. There didn't seem to be much growth in the market for regular everyday non-premium vinyl LPs at all.

DISCLAIMER: this may be overanalysis based on a brief look at some figures.

I wonder if this will effect All Tomorrow's Parties - aren't they half owned by someone owned by HMV?

HMV sold MAMA (who own 50% of ATP) on in December to a MAMA Newco arrangement funded by a venture capitalist offshoot of Lloyds bank.

Which does quite raise the question of how a bank which is majority owned by the taxpayer is allowed to run a venture capitalist arm. I get the speculate to accumulate part, but the whole thing about venture capitalism is supposed to be that the risk/reward is higher - without going near how anybody could think a company which will have been phoenixed three times (if you include the MAMA one) is a sensible investment.

fair few xposts, sorry

i'd be more mournful about smaller record stores and particularly about the specialist store for particular genres, but there are good things about the digital world too. plus, living in london, i can still go to specialist stores if and when i want.

― Heterocyclic ring ring (LocalGarda), Tuesday, 15 January 2013 11:15 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Using London as a frame of reference is pretty skewed as these are the last indie shops that are likely to go down. It's great that as a city dweller you can go to a specialist music shop and find exactly what you want, but for those who live outside of Greater London, it's slim to nil pickings unless you go online.

And hey, that's life - online is the way it's going to go, this is not news. But indie and specialist shops used to exist - up to three or four at a time in just a small town - all over the country. It's important not to underestimate the influence of suburban record shops over the musical climate in pre-internet days. Without dance specialists in small towns, it's arguable that the networks that made things like underground rave events possible wouldn't have existed - record stores worked as central hubs for soundsystems, flyer drops, even record labels (Omni Trio and 2 Bad Mice operated out of a tiny dance retailer in my town).

Obviously, the internet has come to replace a lot of this, so it's no great loss, but it's not exactly the same as a physical space to swap and share music ideas.

The main objection people have to downloads, Amazon etc. is that you’ll always know exactly what you’re looking for and therefore will never be surprised by the unexpected. But is this actually the case, and if not, how does it happen online?

Maybe not shock, but I can totally see dismay. I have very little love for HMV as it was -- went in last week and left without buying anything -- but I think people are using the fall of something so large to take stock and compare the high street now to say 10 years ago, and that's a dismal picture.

In that time we've lost, what, Our Price, Woolworths, Virgin, Zavvi, Dillons, Borders and a lot of smaller players. There might be no love lost for any individual one of them -- and I wouldnt trade the internet for any of 'em -- but the aggregate is a bit of a melancholy picture.

Crap many xps

The parallels aren't exact, but the collapse of the big book chains has definitely not been beneficial for the small indie booksellers either, which are also vanishing rapidly.

Using London as a frame of reference is pretty skewed as these are the last indie shops that are likely to go down. It's great that as a city dweller you can go to a specialist music shop and find exactly what you want, but for those who live outside of Greater London, it's slim to nil pickings unless you go online.

my point was purely a fact about my own personal circumstances.

I think dog latin/stet gets to the nub of why so may people are dismayed about this. It's not HMV per se, they've been poor for years and it's never been a place where you could have an emotional attachment with unlike an indie shop. For many, including myself, it's an end of an era in that record shops were the default place to gravitate to on a Saturday morning to check out what's happening and this has gone now. Tesco etc just doesn't cut it.

xpost fair dos, R.

The main objection people have to downloads, Amazon etc. is that you’ll always know exactly what you’re looking for and therefore will never be surprised by the unexpected. But is this actually the case, and if not, how does it happen online?

i've discovered so much more unexpected music online than i ever did pre-digital. people go on about listening posts but i never once discovered new music through them - you could never hear the music because HMV's in-store stereo system was invariably so loud. physical record shops were the ultimate "go in, make a beeline for what you know you want, buy it, get out".

online, even if you discount the way sharing music with friends and other music obsessives has become so ridiculously easy, every place you go to buy music will have related artists, entire back catalogues right there (rather than out of stock), all with substantial clips that you can try out at your own convenience.

The main objection people have to downloads, Amazon etc. is that you’ll always know exactly what you’re looking for and therefore will never be surprised by the unexpected. But is this actually the case, and if not, how does it happen online?

― Here he is with the classic "Poème Électronique." Good track (Marcello Carlin), Tuesday, 15 January 2013 11:47 (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've definitely bought things online "on a whim", but usually this is because of how good said website is at marketing particular bits and bobs to me. So for example, I'll go on Boomkat or Amazon and there's a "people who bought this, also bought this" kind of dealie - it's maybe not the same thing as "I've got £13 burning a hole in my pocket and I'm not going to stop flicking through these racks till I've foudn the perfect soundtrack to my Saturday afternoon", but I must applaud things like Boomkat's 14tracks.com offshoot which works as an affordable buyer's guide for certain bits. Still, with online stores we're as much in thrall to the retailer's marketing push as we ever were to that of record labels.

Yeah I find more stuff by spending some time doing random poking around online (trusted blogs, following links, even CDbaby and myspace!) than I ever did making speculative purchases in new record shops. I still make quite a lot of cheapy dice-buys in second hand record shops, mind.