Does anyone still shop at HMV?

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...

Fopp aren't honouring vouchers, no, or so someone says on Twitter at any rate.

Balls.

Put it this way: If Fopp were, they'd be saying so in news/twitter/etc..

Well, I'll find out for sure in about 20min.

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?).

same goes for Bristol Fopp ...

fuckers don't even know how to go out of business properly

if they had put a blue sticker on the 10cc boxset i'd have got it, but as it is, its £8 cheaper on amazon ..

What is odd is there seems to be no consistency in what is getting stickered. People on here have mentioned both the Slade and 10cc box sets not being stickered in their stores, but both were blue crossed in Cardiff.

I hear that no games are being stickered.

Why bother stickering anything? Everything (bar games and tech stuff) is being discounted, what you have now is stock that has stickers on.

It means "This stuff has got to go"..

yeah, i think they're being pretty random re the stickers.
i saw staff last week adding them, and they weren't following any lists ...
just walking around and putting them on ...

Not a lot of blue-crossed CDs as yet in Nottingham Fopp, and they're not doing at-till discounts on other stock. Blue-crossed CDs are racked separately in each genre section.

Will give Reading HMV a look tonight.

Fopp vouchers definitely not being accepted at the moment.

I bought a Blue Cross John Adams 2-CD comp for £6 anyway.

I'm not going to miss the hordes of teenagers queuing up outside the Glasgow Buchanan St branch at half seven in the morning to see Biffy Clyro or whoever

I object to Biffy Clyro as much as the next guy but it's sad that such closures make it harder for kids to meet their idols, especially when some venues don't let 14-18-year-olds into gigs.

http://a4.ec-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/116/1f4dbcfa54b7478e9bcfbb5aeb4e8e95/l.jpg

will probly be able to meet Biffy Clyro at Burger King soon enough

I think it's mainly because it made me feel old seeing them all lined up there (I'm not even that old)

^^^ also proving how excellent the current knockdown price of £10 per t-shirt is ..

unrelated i know but has anyone heard about PC World possibly going into administration, heard something about troubling sales figures on BBC News

Fopp's full price albums are usually as big a rip-off as HMV's, yet hardly anyone every seems to comment on this

Because the £3, £5, and £7 price point racks are usually so damn good.

xpost because no one goes to Fopp to buy full priced items?

Blockbuster's gone into admin I think. Holy smokes

Yeah, it's gone

wait a min whats this about pc world? that would mean Currys too then. Hell, theres gonna be nothing left in my town

Re Blockbuster: I think once South Park has based an episode around how your business model is a relic of a bygone age and your stores are completely empty then it shouldn't be a surprise when said model finally runs out of legs.

It was news to me it wasn't already gone. Didn't it go into administration before, a couple of years back?

Currys / PC World were predicting good business over Christmas due to demand for tablets and Comet going bust. I'd be a little surprised if they went under immediately.