Does anyone still shop at HMV?

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

"My father was a 47-year-old supervisor at B&Q, and his father before him, and his father's father..."

went in to local HMV today, it was rammed. Not much buying going on, still. Seemed really expensive, most of it.

Don't you just hate people in their 40s buying music and having jobs?

Coalition govt. should start demonising them imo

They don't deserve HMV.

While the rest of us are getting up early in the morning to go to to work these people are getting up early in the morning to go to to work and going to HMV in their lunch breaks

Disgusting savages; list them ALL itt

Don't you just hate people in their 40s buying music and having jobs?

― Stop Gerrying Me! (onimo), Tuesday, 15 January 2013 13:44 (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, these young people...

I must confess that Nick Twine - that Nick Twine – is a friend of a friend.

thank you, Rob Thread.

Like a canis with an os

Don't you just hate people in their 40s buying music and having jobs?

― Stop Gerrying Me! (onimo), Tuesday, 15 January 2013 13:44 (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's an absolute disgrace.

Thought this was a pretty good reminiscence/analysis, from a guy who used to work on the HMV advertising account:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/15/why-did-hmv-fail

Yeah, read that earlier on his site before it got republished. The bit where the MD tells him off for warning them about online retailers, downloads, and supermarkets is particularly telling.

This commenter has it right, though. Even if you can see the threat coming, forcing a successful company down an unproven route isn't easy. The timing of the stock market flotation in 2002 seems poor: the short-termism of shareholder demands is exactly what HMV didn't need at that point.

That's basically the innovator's dilemma, though. You don't have much choice when your industry is being disrupted: you can protect your own short-term sales and die in the long-term (HMV, Kodak), or become smaller and live.

That ad guy's account is a little undermined by the fact that he points towards play.com as a model to follow (at least in the original version on his website) - isn't play.com closing down in march, or becoming a 'marketplace only' site?

Already did, I think.

So, 'not closing down' and 'becming a different business model' then.

Ad man's basic point is correct, tho - HMV were absolutely clueless when it came to the Internet. When I was there, there was a lot of vague chat about 'in-store hubs' or somesuch where people would come into the shops and download music onto their MP3 players - an obvious non-starter, but indicative of how wedded the management were to the idea of the physical store/space.

By the time I left HMV, DVD sales had started to plateau (after being the company's last major cash cow for a few years) and again there was a lot of blather abt more aggressively courting the computer game market - they never really got anywhere with that, and never found another format or product that could match the incredible margins on DVDs - which were themselves gradually eroded by constant in-store sales and discounting.

can't remember where and who but the recent-ish quote upthread about people prefering HMV's website to Amazon because HMV are "specialists" says everything you need to know about company management still. not. getting. it.

aw yeah, wasn't arguing with ad guy's essential thrust (xp)

i could see their specialism working if they actively demonstrated it with content on the website and helping people find other stuff they might like and all that stuff, maybe even shack up with the NME or someone to provide buyers' guides and reviews etc which could benefit them both. no evidence of their specialist knowledge to be found though afaict, it's just a shit version of the music section of tescos online. can you even listen to sound samples on the hmv site?

No, you can't.

hopeless

Yeah, if you're going to boast about specialism, it has to be more than just your brand. I suppose https://thisismyhmv.com/ was a start in that direction.

http://sickmouthy.com/2013/01/15/on-the-long-demise-of-hmv/

Was quiet in the Oxford store today. Didn't have to queue to buy a Tunng CD for three quid. Mentioned HMV to a few colleagues but none had any intention of checking out the sell-off.

Nice piece, Nick. And not because you quote me. The way HMV effortlessly eroded the goodwill of a generation, without winning any goodwill from the next generation, is a masterclass in how not to run a business.

(sainsburys website had breaking bad 4 (£18). zavvi too (£23). but not tescos. like you i am looking for alternatives to amazon and not finding much. boomkat sale's worth a look for left field things. ordered another couple direct from label, kvitnu in ukraine. nice getting odd stamps on parcels. will go and pick over the dvds on saturday)

I wonder if there's space in the market for a properly-curated specialist music website selling physical product, along the lines of MovieMail. I guess that's a direction Fopp could go in.

the thing is that the web allows a lot of labels to deal with the public direct, which lessens the need for that kind of site. plus some specialisms already seem pretty well covered - dance music, classical, pretty sure there's a couple of good jazz retailers out there.

That's true. There might be some room for a site that brought a few of those niche strands together in one place but i'm not sure many people will be jumping to take that risk.

yeah, i'm surprised there are so few sites that try to create a record store-y vibe outside of those few specialisms. i would guess that good content probably drives costs up more than it seems worth

i went yesterday with a full wallet.
not impressed.
all my shortlist was not blue crossed, or still more expensive even with the 25% off than direct from bands/amazon.
eg. :

Madness double reissues : £12 - 25% = £9; direct from band = £8
GOAT : £10 no blue cross
Slade boxset : £30 no blue cross
Tame Impala : last week part of 2 for £15 quid, this week in sale, £7. gee thanks
Earth : v. expensive even with 25% off.

etc etc ...

I bought a non blue cross cd from HMV Cardiff on Monday and they still took 25% off the price at the till anyway.

I don't think I've found a record or CD in a Bristol shop that I've wanted to buy since whichever was the latter of Revolver to Imperial closed. Replay had gone to rats well before that. Surprised Nick S rates Rise, as the Bristol one has always just struck me as wannabe Fopp and the Swindon one is like an expanded supermarket entertainment section.

was in there on sunday for a quick flick through the racks and there were actually a few cool things lurking in there that i didn't really expect to see (e.g. maria minerva, bass clef too [though that was £16 and filed under hip hop #musicspecialists]). otoh, i wanted to fill a couple of gaps in my king crimson cds thinking they might be cheap, but they didn't even have a king crimson section in the entire shop. ended up with a couple of joni mitchells for £3 each and a copy of amarcord for £3.50 so that's my tenner for the whip-round.

xp I remember when Imperial opened, and when Revolver and then Imperial closed. Latter two events were both sad days. Bristol really had an embarrassment of riches in the late 90s, I guess.

Wasn't "looking for it", but they had a Wedding Present (disambiguation: band) DVD, £18

Cambridge Circus Fopp a waste of time Blue Cross-wise: the most expensive CDs had the stickers (and in fact these were largely items I've never seen in the racks there before; either they'd been in storage or shipped in from HMV?).

HMV Piccadilly Circus a much better proposition. Pretty much everything discounted, inc. box sets - only new/recent releases and items already on sale or in 2-fer offers excluded. I bought the AR Kane singles collection for £7.50 (Amazon £10 currently) and the 2006 2CD reissue of Pretenders s/t for £9 (no longer available on Amazon).

Are Fopp honouring vouchers?

I didn't really appreciate the impact of administration on pre-paid goods; imagine pre-ordering a high-end camera from Jessops for £2k and then going to pick it up at the end of last week...