Does anyone still shop at HMV?

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.

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

people did this?

idk about you but £13 was a LOT to my teenage self and there's no way i was gonna drop that amount of money on something on a whim. i'd buy things i'd never heard before, but only after careful research via reviews and recommendations. still wouldn't drop £13 on a whim tbh.

w/r/t the push of labels - well, that's why you shouldn't discount the sharing-music-with-your-peers thing that the internet facilitates much more than the pre-digital age ever did.

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".

Agree and disagree with this, although everyone's experience is different. I never used listening posts either - there's no way to discern if you like something standing around with great big cans strapped to your face in a busy shop environment. But I did spend (literally) hours in record shops before the internet age, just exploring and scoping things out, taking chances on reduced items and secondhand things, sometimes even buying something because I liked the album artwork so much. Record shopping, for me, was an immersive past time that was so much more than the kind of functional grocery-shopping experience you're describing. Horses for courses though, I'll give you that.

I bought so much shit that way in the pre-internet era, returns policies were a godsend.

this is epiphenomenal to the decline of high street retail generally, and commercial rents being kept afloat only by shitty chain 'eateries' 'coffee shops' etc

also don't want to overdo the laurie penny shit but the completely predictable demise of hmv gets more traction with ilxors than any recent coalition degeneracy

w/r/t the push of labels - well, that's why you shouldn't discount the sharing-music-with-your-peers thing that the internet facilitates much more than the pre-digital age ever did.

We've had this conversation before - we don't agree on this. I don't necessarily think it's easier to turn friends and acquaintances onto new music over the net. On paper, sending a YouTube link to somebody over Facebook is really simple, but you can't really gauge whether and when they're listening to it, nor what their reaction is beyond maybe a reply to their comment. If someone send me a YouTube link, I tend to forget to play it because I'll be at work or on my mobile, whereas pre-internet if somebody would have lent me a CD to borrow, I'd almost certainly have given it a listen. If you're in the same room as someone listening to the same thing at the same time, even better.

On that note, I miss the Outloud.FM sessions we used to have on ILX about this time last year - what happened to those?

I don't think they compare. Eg the internet also does a way better job of book recommendations (and probably beer recommendations) too, but I still just basically like the physical acts of strolling the racks (and sitting in pubs).

xp In the old days I also found my way into new music by buying some record on spec, hating it, and forcing myself to listen to it anyway because had spent £13, and ending up loving it.

the two are different and have different values. of course you browsed a record store, unless you've no interest in music whatsoever, not least because there was a time when browsing was your way of discovering new bands, to some extent, or discovering back catalogues etc, easy to forget that now, when you browse with more prior knowledge.

the process of discovery is obviously different now, music comes with a lot more attached info and opinion, and everyone hears and argues about things at source, and access to things is pretty easy.

i find it incredibly silly when people wheel out this argument about not discovering new music, it is purely only the lazy consumer who will suffer from this.

there is a wealth of free/cheap music out there and if you have an interest your taste can now be more independent and free of the influences of filters than ever.

the problem is that people want a little bit of filtering and lose their comfort zone when they really can decide to listen to literally anything.

we forget all the shit records bought on a whim, the way we forget all the drudge-work of parenting when reminiscing on a child's early years; i will never, ever forget buying quadrophenia for $5 in stereo jack's on mass. ave. in cambridge massachusetts, having never knowingly heard the who in my life, but being totally taken in and beguiled by the massive book inside filled with grainy photographs of what looked like an entire film connected with the album (they weren't film stills though, iirc); i took it home and i got lost in it for more than a year. that said i'm pretty sure i also bought "mistrial" by lou reed there, too.

Everyone needs a bit of filtering - it's impossible to listen to every new piece of music that's available online. The question is how to direct listener choice or how it could (or whether it should) be directed; how to kindle and develop that "interest."

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.

Sales where were I made speculative purchases and HMV used to be good for those but not for a good few years now. First time I walked into HMV and the DVDs were at the front of the store then I knew it was all over and it was only a matter of time, lasted longer than I thought they would.

I bought this for £1 in a HMV sale and have never ever played it. Anyone got it/know what it sounds like? Came out on ~scape so it's probably well glitchy:

http://images.junostatic.com/full/CS1241647-02A-BIG.jpg

Sad to hear the news, I think this leaves Norwich with two places to buy records left now. Three at a push.

HMV conference going on just now. Trading over christmas was the killer; market share in "visual" and games up, but tech collapsed due to supply in 2 key brands (guess Apple and Nexus?). Confident they'll keep trading. Currently in 142 of 150 largest UK towns, won't comment on how many are viable.

Says people should visit HMV online over Amazon because they're "focused on entertainment and no other distractions" uh

the recent frivolous album is brilliant! i've never heard that one though

Says people should visit HMV online over Amazon because they're "focused on entertainment and no other distractions" uh

They still don't get it.

CEO says sees opportunity "re-platforming online". This site best viewed in Netscape 2

HMV will trade for enough time to find a buyer

Dog Latin makes a good point, that record shopping as a leisure pastime has more-or less gone, for everyone outside the big cities. I do miss that, not because it was a particularly good way to find new (to me) music but becuase I enjoy(ed) just having a look around, it's total leisure-time comfort food to me.

my main memory of hmv is being charged depraved prices for cds ... as a kid/teen - albums for 20 pounds and stuff

same here.

but yeah, xpost, HMV was never that pleasureable for a browse. Virgin on the other hand...

i like frivolous - house music with lots hot jazz touches, kind of like an update of 'the race' by yello or something

the most cynical part of hmv's prices was how you'd always end up having to pay loads for anything more obscure, like their business model was "shaft the music fan". not that it didn't work.

it's total leisure-time comfort food to me.

particularly on a wet day on holiday in a strange town, even hmv was a good retreat from being cooped up for five days in a leaky tent with the wife and kids

X-POST
that may be part of it LG, but the sad fact of life is that 'obscure' music (or films, books etc) tends to be on smaller labels who simply can't offer the same level of discounting as the majors (who wld basically give 'classic' back catalogue away to retailers like HMV), hence HMV had to charge more.

http://grooveshark.com/#!/album/Midnight+Black+Indulgence/4252967

xposts again. LG - I agree with you, but all the same:

i find it incredibly silly when people wheel out this argument about not discovering new music, it is purely only the lazy consumer who will suffer from this.

A lot of the music industry relies on the "lazy" or dilettante music consumer. I guess we all start out as novice consumers before becoming music fans. One of my big bugbears are people who obviously used to listen to a lot of music complaining that "it's all X Factor and Simon Cowell these days", which shows a shocking lack of curiosity and knowledge of music beyond Saturday night light entertainment broadcasts. But you can't underestimate the buying clout of casual music consumers - those who discover music very much passively, without chatting on messageboards, reading blogs or watching YouTube videos online etc... I do believe that without a physical high street presence, it might not occur to this potential market that there is much out there other than what they see on prime time TV. Someone like my Mum, who enjoys music but is not at all web savvy, who might have popped into a local retailer on a whim to buy a reissue once or twice a year- wouldn't really think to do it without a shop being half way between the bank and Wilkinsons. Even this far down the line, I think it's still going to take a while for such passive music consumers to get used to the idea that they can and should buy music online.

there is a wealth of free/cheap music out there and if you have an interest your taste can now be more independent and free of the influences of filters than ever.

Are we more independent and free than before record stores? If anything, I feel more manipulated and marketed to online than ever before.

the problem is that people want a little bit of filtering and lose their comfort zone when they really can decide to listen to literally anything.

Yes, it's possible, although most won't admit to this.

Yes xps, it's still sad to see music shopping die as a thing-to-do-when-you're-out. Even if hmv has been a horrible place to do it for years now.

When Waterstone's goes is when I'll really mourn though. What'll I do then? I can't drink coffee all day.

Yeah, HMV was the record shop furthest away from the station in Glasgow, and if you were on a hunt for something specific and ended up in that last-chance saloon you knew you were going to be stung horribly. Only place more expensive was Tower.

Rainy Saturdays wandering those eight or nine music/bookshops in that little area is definitely a leisure activity I sorely miss. Now I'm reduced to muttering in CEX, and you don't even get proper rain these days.