Does anyone still shop at HMV?

Absolutely. The weekly port huron statements on ~the future of record shops~ on twitter and their website are especially cringey.

(xp thx Marcello - stands to reason!)

Re market shops in Glasgow - I used to go in the one in Sauchiehall St Centre (upstairs right next to the video arcade) quite a lot in the 80s, they stocked a lot of 60s garage and 80s US punk - remember lusting after those two Aussie VU bootleg comps they had for too much £££. There were a couple of good stalls indoors at the Barras too. There was a second hand shop in Partick I bought a huge part of my early record collection from, really cheap & great selection, there always seemed to be a member of a Glasgow band rifling through the boxes when I went.

A1 Sounds!

rat records in camberwell is great

Everyone - especially marcello - should go to the resonance site & listen to Ian penman's 2 wiremag shows where he plays & talks about records he finds in charity shops. Seriously lovely.

Marcello - Yeah, Vinyl Villains is at the top of Leith Walk on Elm Row. I'm sure it hasn't changed much since your last visit. As for the others, before my time I'm afraid. This wonderful resource might stir up some memories for you though http://www.edinburghgigarchive.com/page28.htm

I'm thinking I might make a trip through to Glasgow soon when I can afford it and try and support some of the shops mentioned here that are still open. My music buying days blossomed in the late 90's and I felt like some cursed angel of death insofar as almost as soon as I'd discovered a new shop it was soon to be closed. Some of my fondest memories are of finishing my paper round on a Saturday morning and feeling flush with £6 to blow, eagerly jumping on a bus into town armed with a map and few tatty scraps torn out the yellow pages and scouring the city for record shops I'd never been to before. I'd be out there all day. It was a genuinely exciting part of my life, full of and adventure and discovery. There's probably not a close or a or a lane or street I've never walked down in this beautiful city and I owe a lot of that to my love of music and what those shops meant and signified to me.

Ah, Record Fayre by the Tron... I was thinking about that when reading this thread. Not been in for ages, but it used to be a staple in my teens as it was a great place to pick up cheap classic rock and pop vinyl and look at the bootleg band t-shirts. And there'd always be the odd curveball in there, like a great Marvin Gaye live album. Last time I was in it was just the dregs of 80s rock sadly, but as it's just round the corner from Monorail, the excellent Plan B comics and the Modern Institute gallery, I suppose there's no harm popping in while in the area.

To get really obscure... I do remember the Jamaica Street record exchange from the 90s, the remnants of which are now in a sqaure off Pollockshaws Rd (at least I think it's the same place - same signage) opposite Queen's Park. It mainly flogs DVDs, but it has a bit of vinyl. A poor selection, although I did get a UK copy of Al Green's Livin' For You for £2 there recently.

Shawlands Arcade, until recently, had Southside Music, whose stock did the rounds of pop-up bargain bookshops for a while after. It was pretty much classic rock dregs, but my ex managed to pick up a Talisker album in there, which I'm sure Marcello will be familiar with - Ken Hyder's free jazz/Scottish folk group from the '70s. You'd think it would be easy to get their stuff in Glasgow, but alas no...

There's also Lost Chord in Park Road, just off Great Western Rd. The one with the animal paintings on the front. I think it makes most of its money from porn, so ew.

I had a lovely couple of hours zipping around the record shops of Glasgow when I was there last Summer. I forget most of the shops I visited, but I especially loved the 'new' Monorail - was my first visit since it relocated (which was probably a long time ago), what a wonderful shop.

Monorail's been in the same place since it opened in 2003... Maybe you mean Monorail as in Stephen Pastel's old shop at the top of John Smith's bookshop in Byres Rd? That was a great place too. Remember reading about it in the NME and MM when Bis, Mogwai etc were coming up. I still treasure my vinyl copy of Paul's Boutique I bought there as a plukey teen.

Monorail's been in the same place since it opened in 2003... Maybe you mean Monorail as in Stephen Pastel's old shop at the top of John Smith's bookshop in Byres Rd? That was a great place too.

Ha, yes, that's it! Went record shopping there with Sleater-Kinney in the late 90s, that was also a great record shop.

Sadly that bookshop is now a Starbucks. To think they once had a rooftop gig there... Byres Rd and environs used to be great for record shops, now there's just Fopp and Oxfam. Still, compared to many cities we can't complain: some good SH places, Rubadub for dance vinyl and gear, and two world class shops in Monorail and Volcanic Tongue.

Nice wee piece on Monorail by Nicola Meighan: http://nicolameighan.wordpress.com/2012/12/06/happy-birthday-monorail-music/

Somebody really needs to do a proper history of Glasgow DIY from the 90s onwards...

Dep was always the nicest guy at Missing records, it's great that he has his own thing and it is thriving.

Dep's a total legend and a lovely guy. I love the fact that for his holidays last year he followed Mike Watt on tour around the west coast of America.

Yeah, He's been doing that for ages, I first got to know him when we bonded over fIREHOSE, he had gone off to follow them around the states.

Wow, I finally managed to find the new HMV shop, and erm, wow, that is one of the most depressing shopping experiences I have had in a while. I don't know why it's so grim? The lighting, the cramped feeling, the fact that I felt like the youngest person upstairs by about 10 years?

(OK, Fopp was only not-depressing because the CDs were so cheap. I'm not going to say no to my obsession when it's only £3. Also Fopp-shoppers in the upstairs section are a refreshingly friendly bunch. Has liking CDs become such a bizarre hobbyist thing that we've established camaraderie through rarity?)

Bond Street is really terrible. do they not realise how much they devalue the store and everything inside it by making 80% of the ground floor a crappy sale with 20 john wayne dvd box sets piled in every corner?

Really, when I was in there last week I could have wept to think what HMV once was and what it’s now been reduced to. Granted, with Fopp you still have to run the gauntlet of Old Men on the ground floor but I agree that it’s much better once you’re upstairs. That having been said, I still miss the huge mega-Fopp that used to be on Tottenham Court Road.

As for Piccadilly Circus: “Must dash, now – I’m off to The Sting (Network Of Brands).” You’ll not hear that said.

Hahaha there was literally a block of Old Men between me and the Interpol section at Fopp yesterday, it was almost comical. They were friendly and obliging and even chatty, but I was ridiculously aware of being the Only Woman In The Room at that point, LOL.

When I went to the closing down sale of the Oxford branch there was only one shelving unit of CDs, nothing I wanted and nothing below about £8. "Final reductions" in most cases seemed to be an amazing 10% off. Woo.

I'd been in before Christmas and spotted a couple of sale items (also at about 10% off) that I'd have taken a gamble on if they were just slightly cheaper, so I was hoping they might still be there with a new sticker on. But this time round there was nothing but landfill and "greatest hits" collections you could find in any charity shop in the country for a quarter of the price.

RIP former giant, I guess.

Does that mean there are no record shops left in Oxford other than whatever charity shops might have? That is hugely depressing (says someone who remembers the good old days of Massive, Chalky, Avid and Green River and even Russell & Acott).

there used to be some specialist shops (at least one selling reggae) on the Cowley Rd too IIRC

There's one called the Truck Store. Website: http://truckmusicstore.co.uk/

that's heartening, looks like they're catering to the student crowd and selling lots of vinyl.

hmv westfields (W12) had two tables of gadgets on wednesday when i went in. didn't look to see what exact gadgets they were but it's been a while since they were there.

The Truck store's the only dedicated shop in town. Lots of vinyl, mostly new stuff but there is a used aisle and a local section, so that's good.

It's a small shop but it seems to be doing OK - it has a coffee shop on the side which is always full of students, and I feel old when I go in there and look at the CD aisles, which the ~young people~ don't go in at all. I like vinyl but to me it's what you buy because it's cheaper than the CD, not what you buy for £26 per LP because limited edition heavyweight vinyl and probably still a crappy pressing because the good plants went bust a decade ago. (OK, off my soapbox.)

Meanwhile Blackwell's music shop moved across the road into the former map section and started selling a smattering of rock/pop but mostly pretty safe "classics", yer Dylan and whatnot.

I miss all those places Marcello mentioned...

HMV in Selfridge’s is now shut. I had the feeling this would happen after we went there last week and they had NO new releases in stock. Now the whole area has been sealed off like a sarcophagus.

The Bond Street HMV hasn’t gotten any better either. Full of bemused tourists with their luggage, elderly people and care-in-the-community types muttering loudly to themselves. It had nothing that we wanted to buy.

I don’t know that whoever was responsible for the HMV decisions realised how convenient and natural the Oxford Circus one was for a record shopping expedition – you looked in all the places in and around Berwick Street, came out on Oxford Street, crossed the road and there it was; the big finish. The Bond Street one is awkward to get to, and because TfL/Mayor Of LondOFF have “revamped” the bus stops in Oxford Street – i.e. gotten rid of half of them – even riding there on the bus involves a long walk which, being Oxford Street, becomes an arduous obstacle course. I actually had chest pains as a result of going there yesterday and so, for the good of my health if nothing else, I don’t think I’ll ever set foot in an HMV again. No wonder a recent shoppers’ survey found them to be nearly as bad as WH Smith (which was bottom of the list).

It’s a long, LONG way from what it used to be. But then sometimes I think that everything is.

Full of bemused tourists with their luggage, elderly people and care-in-the-community types muttering loudly to themselves.

Don't you hate it when mentally ill people visit your record shop?

LOL @ how much marcello cares about fucking hmv

I think he's one of those care-in-the-failing-high-street-retailer types.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/shortcuts/2014/sep/01/hmv-stores-overtake-amazon-uk-biggest-music-dvd-retailer

https://33.media.tumblr.com/552693c9f7aabba7946cd337b1130681/tumblr_naxprviNTf1t4cidio3_500.png

http://www.hmv.com/music/hmv-vinyl-week-full-line-up-of-exclusive-titles-revealed

For those who cant click links at work etc

hmv vinyl week is almost here! Starting next Monday 13 June we will have great discounts on loads of vinyl albums ready for Father's Day.

But that's not all - on Saturday 18 June we will also have an amazing selection of hmv exclusive limited edition vinyl, including coloured vinyl, plus you can get your hands on selected vinyl reissues weeks before they're available anywhere else!

The limited edition vinyl exclusives will be available in all stores and online on a first-come first-served basis (while stocks last) and today we can reveal the FULL list of exclusive titles in our vinyl line-up which will be on sale from Saturday 18 June:

Sex Pistols: Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols (1000 copies on pink vinyl)

Manic Street Preachers: Everything Must Go (1000 copies on blue vinyl)

Various Artists: Let's Bop – Sun Records Collection (1000 copies on black vinyl)

Teenage Fanclub: Bandwagonesque (500 numbered copies on 'hmv pink' vinyl)

The Clash: The Clash (1000 copies on green vinyl)

Velvet Underground: Loaded (1000 copies on white vinyl)

Deep Purple: In Rock (1000 copies on marbled vinyl)

Alex Turner: Submarine OST (500 copies on 10” black vinyl)

Ben Salisbury & Geoff Barrow: Ex Machina OST (500 copies on frosted vinyl)

John Martyn: Solid Air (500 copies on green vinyl)

All of the above are strictly limited edition vinyl titles available only at hmv, but as well as these exclusives we'll also be offering you the chance to get your hands on a selection of upcoming reissues weeks before they're available anywhere else, including:

Iron Maiden: Brave New World (first ever edition on black vinyl!)

Pulp: Different Class

Pulp: His 'n' Hers

Pulp: This Is Hardcore

Pulp: We Love Life

Laura Marling: Alas, I Cannot Swim

Laura Marling: I Speak Because I Can

30 Seconds To Mars: This Is War

Beastie Boys: Check Your Head (Deluxe Edition, Remastered)

Various Artists: Guardians Of The Galaxy OST (2 LP soundtrack & film score on black vinyl)

Beastie Boys: Check Your Head (Deluxe Edition, Remastered)

hmm wait tell me more

Solid Air doesn't feel like a coloured vinyl album, somehow

"Alex Turner: Submarine OST (500 copies on 10” black vinyl)"

How is this different than the normal edition 10" black vinyl that I bought years ago when it was a new release?

I was going to say "oh good, more overpriced reissues of 30-year-old albums on probably bad-sounding colour vinyl" but then stevie's post made me feel churlish so carry on

however, even though I acknowledge that most people my age have kids, I am still weirded out by seeing nostalgia for my childhood sold as Father's Day gifts. I recently followed a link for FD stuff expecting a bunch of idk leather wallets and antiquarian-map-print coasters or something and was all like "why would my dad want a bunch of plastic Star Wars figurines? that's MY generation... oh yeah, I remember, I'm old now"

I saw a teenage girl about a week ago, walking down the road with a Stone Roses album in a HMV bag.

haha would much rather my 2yo daughter 'bought me' a record for Father's Day (she 'did', for my first one - a copy of Margo Guryan's Take A Picture, which contains Someone I Know, which is 'our song' for me and my partner) than leather wallets or coasters. However this year I get the impression I am being bought a print of a Graun cartoon about a dad who forces his appalling musical taste on his child.

She certainly wont be buying you any Led Zep vinyl for you Stevie :)

hahahaha "No. No. Off."

best video ever

On the brink of administration again. Get those vouchers used if you got any for Xmas!

we saw an hmv in bury st edmunds the other week which felt a little weird tbh, thought they were already gone

Ah, I was in hmv Newcastle just yesterday. The boxing day sale was nowt down, really. I bought a The Fall 2cd+dvd live set, from 2002 or thereabouts, remember hims this way etc.

The one in Cheltenham is in a different place every year. Didn't buy anything.

Hoping this won't also take fopp down with it.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/oct/11/hmv-vault-europes-biggest-entertainment-store-birmingham

just in time for Christmas bankruptcy