Does anyone still shop at HMV?

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.

Five minutes in each of your town's 12 charity shops checking out the single shelf of CDs and small pile of vinyl albums xp

http://thereflectedlife.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/trainspotting_toilet-copy.jpg

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

Waterstones was apparently fairly optimistic before Christmas but it's generally assumed that the holiday trading period would be a crucial test of whether the business model still worked for now. No indication either way of how that turned out, afaict. The percentage of books sold via ASDA, Tesco and Sainsbury's is frightening though.

That said, i can't remember the last time i paid retail price for a book. Having a business model where Waterstones' and Foyles' online outlets will sell you the exact same thing for a 30% less than they do in the shops (with next day delivery) isn't going to work in the longer term.

i remember back when you could pop into asda for a frappucino and the latest hermann broch novel, now it's been driven out of business by giant soulless robots selling cancer

Foyles Christmas sales down 3.7% y/y, and that was helped by a smaller decline in online sales. (HMV sales down 10% y/y, for comparison). No figs for Waterstones yet.

might be worthwhile comparing HMV's fate with FNAC, which plans to open 30 more stores in France. if anything FNAC's prices are even more exorbitant. but they benefit from a French law that forbids loss-leader pricing, meaning Amazon can't undercut them. more here:

http://www.thebookseller.com/feature/fnac-french-connection.html

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

not getting into this absolute wasteland with you again but just gonna say that clearly, there is more music available, more of all music, ever made, online, than there ever was in a shop.

there seems like a whole argument here about "oh no we can't rely on the free market to teach consumers how to be better consumers" that baffles me

people will invest as much time and effort into a leisure pastime as they feel inclined to do. the fact that the sources that throw suggestions at them changes means nothing. personal sentimental attachment to the haunts of yr youth is understandable, sure.

i never think to look at hmv online whereas i have amazon bookmarked.

there is a physical one 15 minutes away and i always pop in when in the area, dvd sale section is great for impulse purchases, but 80% my media shopping is done from my desk.

"obviously it's not me i'm worried about it's the young sheeple who will never develop any interest in music again"

the "high street" is a brief, class-inflected blip in the history of consumerism afaict

xps Physical retailers (including FNAC) also suffering in France though: www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/04/virgin-france-flagship-shutdown-paris

people will invest as much time and effort into a leisure pastime as they feel inclined to do. the fact that the sources that throw suggestions at them changes means nothing. personal sentimental attachment to the haunts of yr youth is understandable, sure.

exactly.

eh http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/04/virgin-france-flagship-shutdown-paris

Last time I was in FNAC it was going the way of HMV: all tech and DVDs, hardly any music/books

"obviously it's not me i'm worried about it's the young sheeple who will never develop any interest in music again"

Wait, who's saying anything like that?

the "high street" is a brief, class-inflected blip in the history of consumerism afaict

What was before it, in the history of consumerism?

xp iirc the Champs-Elysees one had a pretty decent art / fashion book section but tech and DVDs were the main stock.

DVDs streaming on demand will surely kill that model in the near future.

Does anyone know how this will affect the Japanese arm of HMV, if at all? I've used hmv.co.jp in the past to order tasty Japanese-only CDs.

Always found Fnac to be almost-HMV-level grim, with a couple of exotic-to-me novelties like a massive comics section.

I pay full price for books at Foyles or smaller independents, knowing that I can get them cheaper online, mainly as a (probably futile) gesture so that I feel I'm putting my money where my mouth is re: the survival of shops, but also because I find it much more fun wandering around a shop and coming away with books in my hand than clicking and waiting. Foyles is a great place to spend an hour or so Christmas shopping, browsing and asking for recommendations. Can't say HMV ever gave me the same pleasure to be honest but I do fondly remember the three-12"s-for-£10 deal they used to have in the 90s. CDs are never as much fun as vinyl.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21023610

....
Nick Twine, a 47-year-old supervisor at home improvement chain B&Q in Lincoln, probably speaks for many of his kind when he laments the changes at his local HMV shop.

"My time to go to the High Street is to take the kids shopping," says Mr Twine, who has three daughters. "They want to go to the shops and buy clothes and make-up. HMV is my soother to the pain of going to the shops - I can spend a couple of hours browsing around."

The problem is that browsing is all he does there nowadays. The chain's decision to stock fewer music titles in favour of games and gadgets has made it hard for him to find any CDs worth buying.

"I have broad music tastes - anything apart from opera - but I went there on Sunday with £50 to spend and I actually couldn't find anything that I needed.

"It's kind of indicative that they can never carry enough stuff to appeal to guys like me, who have vast record collections and go online to find the stuff they need."...

50 quid man! a spotting in the wild!

Nick Twine, a 47-year-old supervisor at home improvement chain B&Q in Lincoln

Last time I went to Rough Trade, without meaning to, I spent exactly £50. I had become that guy.

ah, thesedays (oh blimey I mean thosedays already) the kids would drag me to HMV for to find the music they like. Otherwise I'd never go in there...

ANyways, Alice was looking for the Taylor Swift CD and/or the Hunger games soundtrack. Neither were in. Fair enough the soundtrack, but the TS? Not getting deliveries or something? Should have smelled a big one there.

(obv the blue X sale was a big clue, but even then I wasn't expecting the imminence of it.)

xpost you bought two CDs?

Last time I went to B&Q to nick twine, I got thrown out by some 47-year-old supervisor

you cut off the best bit, nilmar

Nick Twine, a 47-year-old supervisor at home improvement chain B&Q in Lincoln, probably speaks for many of his kind

Last time I went to B&Q to nick twine, I got thrown out by some 47-year-old supervisor

― qbert yuiop (NickB), Tuesday, 15 January 2013 13:38 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Haha