Does anyone still shop at HMV?

From recent visits: if you're into Sydney Devine and Anne Lorne Gillies, you'll be in heaven.

As part of a three-year turnaround plan, HMV plans to save £40m by 2010 by reviewing all aspects of its business, including its stores, supply chain and administrative operations.

Unprofitable stores plus those deemed surplus to requirements following Waterstone's purchase of Ottakar's last year are likely to be closed.

New initiatives

HMV also plans to refurbish its stores and introduce new products including portable music players and gift stationery at Waterstone's.

hmm : http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/jan/17/hmvgroupbusiness

even more annoying is the fact in the central Bristol HMV, the Electronic/Dance section has been amalgamated into the rock-n-pop section making it murder to find anything new and interesting.
Oh, and of course there is even more floorspace dedicated to bloody DVDs even though the upstairs is all DVD now.

Looked in at the Glasgow HMV branches when I was up there over Christmas and as usual I was reminded how shockingly bad HMV shops are in general when compared to the Oxford Circus one. It's as if they decided to have one Tesco's supermarket and then the rest are just TescoExpress branches; if you don't want something in the Top 40 or anything else that isn't the bleeding obvious, you've had it.

HMV Glasgow is still a lot better than Virgin/Zavvi's shops. That big Zavvi in Buchanan st is a huge shop with lots of space and whatever stock there is, is crap.
That shop could be crammed with loads of great cds and vinyl from all genres and be the best damn record shop in the country.

I used their website a few times, mainly for presents rather than myself, until they were a bit useless and I got angry (rant somewhere on another thread).

Bought someone a Christmas present in the Oxford branch when I realised at v short notice that he'd probably really like and not already know about the Tuss mini-album thing (and also the Vitalic live thing, but they didn't have that).

Then I got a voucher for Christmas and they didn't have most of what I was looking for but I was pleased to find Pissed Jeans and Harmonia Live 1974.

So, not much, but I'll be annoyed if it goes as we now have no independent music shops and I would rather give money to HMV than to, ahem, "Zavvi".

Current sale is crap

Worryingly so

No sale at all in the Bristol branch other than the usual "2 for a tenner" deals, but thats not a sale is it.
oh hang on, Airs debut is for £4 .. guess that qualifies as a sale.
Just.
Its actually very depressing how the Bristol record shop situation has been totally decimated in recent times, making the current state of HMV a very important factor for us lunch hour shoppers.

And of course, whether HMV or Virgin (I refuse to use that stinking other meaningless name), one still gets asked "Did you find everything you were looking for?"

"No - you didn't have the El Grincho album."

"Uuuuuuuhhhhhh?????"

This is why we have to say "yes" every time.

In Oxford HMV about a week into Jan there was no CD sale, just a single stand of "sale" DVDs (mostly sitcoms, not particularly cheap).

x-post

No Replay, no Imperial. When I lived in Bristol between 1996 and 2000, and even for a few years afterwards, both those shops were excellent, then they closed very quickly.

No Replay, no Imperial. When I lived in Bristol between 1996 and 2000, and even for a few years afterwards, both those shops were excellent, then they closed very quickly.

then followed by the ok-ish Disc-n-Tape, and of course the various Fopp outlets.

only Rooted left for the dubstep crew, but little else now.

HMV or Virgin sales are the same sales as 10 years ago but with added £2 off recent albums.
The only difference between then and now perhaps is lots of dvds in the sale.
Stock a better range of cds and vinyls and perhaps sales wont go down. Most of the time i dont even bother browsing hmv/zavvi because I know they wont stock what I have and the sales are predictable.

HMV or Virgin sales are the same sales as 10 years ago

Absolutely not true, not even the same as two years ago

Yes it's possible I might still get a Henry Flynt CD (to name but one of hundreds) in a sale in Zavvi... but unlikely on current evidence

I mean its the same old Dylan/RHCP cds in the sales now that were in it 10 years ago.

Yes, but where's all the other stuff? Landfill?

In the case of Rudebox, yes.

"The sidewalks in the street
The 'Rudebox' and Spiritualized beneath my feet
Begins to crumble..."

They're doomed:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11956003

"Furthermore, moves to diversify the product offering smack of desperation, with competition in clothing and electrical products already hugely intense."

They're offering Smack? oh wait...

Hope Waterstone's can be saved from this mess, losses don't sound nearly as bad.

£12 for the Neon Neon album? No wonder they're in trouble.

This might have been discussed upthread, and I remember chuntering about it on the Zavvi thread, but the pricing difference between the IRL stores and online is (in some cases) so absurd that this must be part of the reason for their problems.

eg. The HMV in Manchester can charge as much as £27.99 for a single film on blu-ray, with the result that I will go online and buy it for £12 instead (and not from HMV.com). If the instore price were more like £15 then I would just buy it whilst browsing. I know that the overheads of running a shop are part of the reason for this, but it feels like the management of this chain, with this kind of pricing policy, are *willing* it to fail (who knows, maybe that's their actual aim?).

Should've included a "dorian otm" at the start of that, I'm just expanding on yr point really.

Right, so they are talking about closing 60 shops.

No list so far.

Why the indie world still needs HMV.

Surely £50 bloke is far more likely to waste his money Bright Eyes downloads via iTunes?

*on*

I suspect many of us ARE £50 bloke, more or less.

http://sickmouthy.wordpress.com/2011/01/06/hmv/

Oh,

1) See you got the Boos Giant Steps 3CD. Did our 'sleevenotes' make it to the package? (That would be cool, I just got the "T.Rex on TV" DVD so I could take both home, and go "oh, I'm on both of those"

2) HMV used to be that one big store in Oxford Road, a once-a-year treat back when. Search all three (four?) floors for treasure... Now they are everywhere, and sell nowt.

The stuff Martin gathered up for the 10th anniversary site? Sadly no...

I just got the "T.Rex on TV" DVD so I could take both home, and go "oh, I'm on both of those"

ok, given that this is the second mention of this, i have to bite.

whats the story mark re you and t-rex ?

Well, basically I was part of the "London" TV region panel on the first series of "Pop Quest", a pop quiz show, back in 1975, and Marc was the guest star.

more recently, I found out that there was a DVD coming out with his appearances (mostly performances) on TV, including his interview from this show. I asked the producers of the DVD about it, and they asked me to write about my experience, and they did send me a DVD copy of the second half of the show which had the interview on.

great story.
ta.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12137330

It seems to me that they have only gotten comments from tracks/singles-fans though, which is a bit one-sided. I am still a fan of the album as a dominant format, and those of us who prefer albums also tend to prefer them in a physical format.

(And, btw... I still buy records at record stores, although HMV never had a shop in Norway)

Also, I don't know what it's like in the smaller HMV shops across Britan, and I can imagine the shops generally have fewer titles. But the back catalogue selections in the Trocadero and Oxford Circus shops were still rather impressive to me when I was in London in November. Not as good as Tower at Piccadilly used to be in the 90s, but still good enough, at least compared to what I am used to here (and the biggest Platekompaniet shop in Oslo is not so bad when it comes to back catalogue either).

well its shite in the giant superstore in Buchanan St in Glasgow.

May be the case. Those two record shops I referred to are probably the biggest in Europe, or at least in the UK (there may be some bigger ones in Germany), so no wonder if they seem more shite in other parts of the UK. Other HMV shops in London seemed rather shite too (although most of them seemed to be closed)

It was always crap in Aus. Big shops with full-price mainstream music in shallow racks, with a JB Hi-Fi next door selling six times the content at a 20-40% price reduction across the board. Gee wonder why that failed.

the glasgow one is huge, though i havent been in the london ones. but Glasgow is the 3rd biggest city in the UK.

xp

last time i was in it was all dvds + some sale cds that are always the same. Really shit "specialist" sections and the shop is really really bad for back catalogue (how i measure how good a record shop by). 4 floors of sod all

I went into the London ones but don't remember a thing about them, maybe because I was already sold on digital music by the time I got there (although I did buy the Schnappi album the week before in Berlin so)

(point of that post was to explain that the British HMVs I saw were totally unremarkable, which I should have said instead tbh)

I remember the Copenhagen HMV used to be really crappy. I expected something really grand, having been to the UK shops, and got really disappointed.

Now record stores in Copenhagen are shit though.

I mean MOST record stores in Copenhagen are shit.

Last time I was in Oxford St. HMV I was looking for a particular Sublime Frequencies release that was out of stock in my usual scouting places...and they had it!

Mind you, that was about five years ago. Haven't had a reason to go back since.

HMV Group said it would miss analysts’ expectations for full-year pre-tax profits of £45m because of a continued “challenging” trading conditions, sending its shares down more than 20 per cent.

The embattled music and entertainment retailer also warned it was in danger of breaching its banking covenants by June, its year-end, as debt climbed to at least £130m.

The company is already in talks with its lenders, it said in a trading update on Tuesday, and hopes to make changes to the agreement that will “ensure its appropriateness for future trading conditions and to support delivery of the group’s strategy”.

Analysts were more surprised by the debt figure than the difficult trading. It was “significantly higher than expected”, said Kate Calvert at Seymour Pierce. HMV blamed changes to its product mix and other working capital movements.

Shares in HMV fell 4¼p to 16½p in early London trading, a fresh 52-week low. The stock has lost more than three-quarters of its value over that period.

In other words, the closing down sale in May promises to be worth a browse.

Death of another full-price retailer. I've no sympathy at all.

I think that attitude stinks TBH. One - HMV discount all the time. Two - it plays a vital role in the British music market:

http://www.nme.com/blog/index.php?blog=146&p=9604&title=think_hmv_s_downfall_is_a_victory_for_th&more=1&c=1

I don't understand people who think their God-given right to cheap music is the only thing that matters.

'God-given right'? When HMV was operating here there was always a retailer virtually next door that undercut HMV by <15% and had at least twice the stock.

HMV complain about adverse trading conditions, how it's cheaper to buy online rather than in their shops.

That trader that operates out of Guernsey, pays/charges no VAT is mostly to blame. HMV Online.

That's where my own personal "no sympathy" lies.

Yeah, its now the only physical mainstream cd shop in Galway. Every other non-second hand outlet or folk specialist is gone, or having a final clearance sale.
& HMV have Mojo & Uncut a Euro cheaper than elsewhere.

Think it's going to be Amazon marketplace etc for me until I have no credit card. Wider choice of material. Since Mulligan's here closed there hasn't been much interest in keeping physical record shops going.

What I mean is I can understand irritation with HMV back when there were lots of independent alternatives around but now that it's one of the few bricks-and-mortar places standing (plus it saved Fopp and owns Waterstones) I find the casual "fuck 'em" attitude pretty repellent. I don't relish doing 100% of my entertainment shopping online - I'm weird like that.

@MarkG - do you think HMV's prospects would be better if they didn't compete with Amazon online? A record store owner I know told me recently that every shop he knows survives because of its online arm. If they took your advice they'd already be dead.

Nice to see you here Stevo, been years since the Watt list!

I stopped buying at the shops a long time ago, mostly because I couldn't find what I wanted - and not for lack of trying. The one exception was Road Records in Dublin; I didn't shop there anything like regularly but the staff were/are super friendly and couldn't be more helpful, not your High Fidelity types at all. Shame they had to close down last year.

It's not my "advice" at all, it's more the idea they are presumably telling their staff (or going to) that they make redundant, "sorry, it's the internet", etc.

Back whenever it was, HMV was a very small number of large shops where you could 'discover' stuff, now its a huge pile of Lady Gaga behind some t-shirts.

They (i.e. the shops) certainly won't survive if all they try to do is 'resemble' the front of their internet operation.

last time i was in it was all dvds + some sale cds that are always the same. Really shit "specialist" sections and the shop is really really bad for back catalogue (how i measure how good a record shop by). 4 floors of sod all

HMV did really used to be so much better for back cat. I worked on and off at the Grafton St branch between 2000 and 2004. When I started the managers at the time had a lot more free reign to stock as they pleased (I remember a free-standing unit filled with the Neu! reissues that had just come out, the result of a discussion in the pub a few days before).

But over time head office started taking more control. Staff recommendations on the end-on units disappeared and more space was sold to labels to push whatever shite they were peddling. Back cat orders dwindled and more space was made in the pockets for 'chart'. And the playlist was homogenised (not that it ever resulted in any sales increase, whereas before when we could play what we liked - within reason - we'd always flog a few of whatever was on). When I left sales were still strong, but it was clear DVDs were selling better than music - within a year or two, the store had allegedly started making a loss.

now that it's one of the few bricks-and-mortar places standing (plus it saved Fopp and owns Waterstones) I find the casual "fuck 'em" attitude pretty repellent.

Brick-and-mortar isn't as viable as it used to be. No I don't relish paying extra so that some arbitrary middlemen can handle the geographic delay, distribution, warehousing, freight, shop rental and shelf space when I can get it cheaper elsewhere. I'm not made of money, I don't intend to be splashing it amongst the myriad companies that have managed to protectionism themselves into a redundant supply chain.

We've just watched a majority slab of our brick-and-mortar bookshops (the company that runs Borders and A&R) fall to administration and very possibly extinction. Do I care? No, because I don't have an emotional attachment to massive book chains staffed by random yoof who couldn't tell me shit about literature. Meanwhile the few thriving independents offer such great service and heart-felt recommendations that people don't mind paying full price because they're getting actual service.

I'll give you another beautiful example. There was a Doobie Brothers greatest hits that came out sometime around 2003 or 2004. Big marketing campaign for it, all over the TV. Sure enough, Saturday came and at least 10 people came up to me alone looking for it. But did we have it in stock? Did we fuck.

I don't know whether it was the fact that central ordering was making the local managers myopic or what, but when you're running a major music chain store and you don't have something that was advertised widely on its release weekend, you're doing something wrong.

yesterday i popped into the bristol shop to check up on an item : the new demdike stare triple cd set.
amazingly they had it in : £22
i flinched.
checked amazon for a new copy : £14.99
if it had been only a couple of quid difference i would have gone to hmv for it, but £7 is one helluva percentage difference.

xpost That's interesting. OTOH, I don't know how you compete with the internet when people start automatically going there for their back catalogue needs.

I'm not saying HMV is some kind of paragon of business acumen and musical passion but I find "no sympathy" a weird reaction to people losing their jobs and many parts of the country losing their sole remaining record shop. I went back to my university town a year or so ago and broke my heart to see that a street which once had four record shops had none and that the last place standing was HMV. The "thriving independents" you talk about, Autumn Almanac, just don't exist in most parts of Britain.

Classic example from way back:

Reading band (back when that meant they would have local fans) The Heartthrobs had their first album out as a special ltd edition picdisc.

I went to HMV to get it, and had to ask the assistant for it, which she managed. But they had a total of four of any kind.

No doubt, every branch had four. But it would have made some sense to actually have more than that in their home town, wouldn't it?

Large chain bookstores are at least decent environments for BROWSING. If you go into a decent, well-stocked Waterstones there are still good books put on display and recommended by staff who actually work into the shop. It's a pleasant environment to actually look for things you might like.

HMVs these days are a chaotic, badly-organised nightmare, they're no longer stores that people want to go into unless they actually have to, and unless they're buying video games or random presents, no one actually has to nowadays. The chain looks spectacularly mismanaged from what I can see.

The "thriving independents" you talk about, Autumn Almanac, just don't exist in most parts of Britain.

Most of ours have gone as well, but a few still exist. It's always sad to see small businesses forcibly moved on by industry change but everything changes. I also recognise that people lose their jobs, but again, everything changes. Unless your country is in the throes of recession (which to be fair applies to you atm) other jobs are available.

Large chain bookstores are at least decent environments for BROWSING. If you go into a decent, well-stocked Waterstones there are still good books put on display and recommended by staff who actually work into the shop. It's a pleasant environment to actually look for things you might like.

This sounds like Rough Trade shop.

Unless your country is in the throes of recession (which to be fair applies to you atm) other jobs are available

Nice

xpost I think my affection for physical shopping isn't going to gel with your realpolitik. History is on your side, no doubt - just try not to dance too loudly on the graves.

I don't really know how you can save a chain that's so dependent on a format that's rapidly becoming obsolete. The only people who still buy CDs are those who are so passionate they'll be able to get them online for as long as they exist, or so casual they'll be happy to get them in Tesco. HMV is a halfway house that only suits a pool of customers that's rapidly diminishing.

Actually there's an argument that the death of something like HMV would result in more independent record shops popping up again, but it'll never be like it was in the 80s and 90s.

Be sorry to see the classical music guys in HMV Oxford St lose their jobs, they know their shit

I'm talking about pop music anyway, be interested to see how classical CD sales are holding up, and they really would be a casualty if HMV were to go under. But I'd imagine most high streets would spawn at least one classical record shop were that to happen.

(hah - xpost)

that's a strong piece by laura snapes upthread - didn't know that about sale-or-return. can't really think of a solution at all though. i am part of the problem, haven't set foot in an hmv (or...any record shop) for years - i just don't need it for anything. tellingly, even though i'm someone who prefers to shop for everything except clothes online, i still enjoy moseying around in bookshops (whether chain/independent/charity) - as matt says they just offer a nice browsing experience, which hmv never did.

i'm guessing classical cd sales won't be undercut by downloads to anywhere near the same extent (the idea of downloading a classical piece is...weird to me), but in terms of competing w/online cd retailers, surely they're headed the same way as pop cds eventually - just several years behind due to demographic differences.

xxxxxxxxp obviously I feel for people who lose their jobs in a dying industry (especially those who are passionate about what they do) but it's not like those people die as well. If there's no commercial imperative to keep these places operating, that's not the evil hand of some angry magnate forcing the wholesome independent out of business, it's just a thing that happens. Standing around complaining about new-fangled changes and pitying the casualties doesn't help anyone.

Yeah really any bricks and mortar shop selling anything except clothes, food and probably homeware is going to die unless it can reinvent itself as an environment that people actually want to spend time in, or unless it's so ridiculously cheap that people don't care.

But I'd imagine most high streets would spawn at least one classical record shop were that to happen.

I doubt this very much. I suppose it would all go online but I fear some of the doddery old coots who frequent the classical music section would miss the 20 minutes (at least) they spend talking to the nice young men behind the counter when making their purchases

Sister Ray on Berwick Street now sells a lot of its back catalogue as cheaply as Amazon and that's still a great place to browse - I try to give them my money whenever I can.

HMV, I'll admit, I mostly use for DVDs now - they used to have a good dance vinyl section, which was my main incentive to go.

xpost to Autumn Almanac. Constantly saying "This is how capitalism works. Deal with it. Onward to a brighter, cleaner future" is annoying. You can just let people maintain affection for the alternatives you know.

Yeah, I miss blacksmiths and the little kid that used to sweep our chimneys.

Yeah really any bricks and mortar shop selling anything except clothes, food and probably homeware is going to die unless it can reinvent itself as an environment that people actually want to spend time in, or unless it's so ridiculously cheap that people don't care.

― Matt DC, Tuesday, 1 March 2011 22:40 (14 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I reckon in say 15 years the only brick-and-mortar shops left in existence will be those that require inspection of goods before purchase, i.e. the stuff you've mentioned here. If there's no benefit to be had in leaving the house to buy something, more and more people will just do it in their underpants. It won't be a massive change but it could be large enough to effect a localised recession in the retail sector.

xpost to Autumn Almanac. Constantly saying "This is how capitalism works. Deal with it. Onward to a brighter, cleaner future" is annoying. You can just let people maintain affection for the alternatives you know.

― Pop is superior to all other genres (DL), Tuesday, 1 March 2011 22:44 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

You are taking this way too seriously. I'm not stopping you doing anything.

the other thing with amazon isn't just price - if i want some random back catalogue item, often i won't know whether [physical record shop] has it in stock except by trekking in. with amazon i can find out with a click of a button and then once i'm there it's just easier to buy the thing there and then.

yeah I spent hours on Saturday trudging round shops looking for an old Day V. Lately tune

He should have tried Gemm, basically.

the other thing with amazon isn't just price - if i want some random back catalogue item, often i won't know whether [physical record shop] has it in stock except by trekking in

Well, no, you could phone in. The advantage of buying something from an actual shop is that you get it instantly.

The advantage of buying something from an actual shop is that you get it instantly.

itunes has the edge there.

Well, no, you could phone in.

agh no. i am firmly w/caitlin moran on the subject of telephones - such a brutal, primitive method of communication

Not like emails/posting to ILx, etc...

I still don't see why record stores closing would be a good thing. Shitty sounding vinyl and even more shitty mp3s taking over? No thank you! The CD is superior to all other sound formats for now, and it is needed to keep it vital and alive until lossless becomes the one and only existing digital downloading format. Which may take some time due to the kids' shitty audio taste and lack of an ear for dynamic nuances.

The is not so much about the album, because the album as a format will survive even without the CD, only less confined to the 35-50 minute format and probably an increasing amount of mini albums such as the "Body Talk" albums by Robyn last year. It is merely about sound.

Around here, record chains have struggled too, but this has actually strengthened the one huge chain that is left. Platekompaniet, the biggest record store chain in Norway, is doing very well (although partly based upon DVD, admittedly) while other chains (besides the occasional genre specialist indie store) have all but disappeared. I think there is still also a chain named Musikkverket doing rather well in areas a bit away from Oslo. But they have never managed to establish in Oslo, as their concept is obviously inferior to the concept of Platekompaniet.

I really hope Fopp manages to survive when HMV finally goes down.

there's one HMV a mere stone's throw from me, i've never seen any people in there fumbling about in the shop for some cd's or papers. it always seems like i like i'm passing a dead place, actually. if people buy a cd these days, they do online i guess.

I might get in that HMV and ask " Is this the same place where 350,000 of people stood in line on 21 august,1997 to buy Be Here Now? Why is it so dead now? This is just rubbish"

>I really hope Fopp manages to survive when HMV finally goes down.

This. I'm as guilty as anyone of buying most of my CDs online now, but a pre-christmas trip to one of the HMVs in M/cr gave me a powerful reminder why I don't shop there: enormous selection of overpriced films, games, headphones and related stuff, but the music section was maybe 1/3 as big as last time I was in there and with almost no back catalogue at all.

They didn't have two of the three CDs I wanted so I bailed out and went to Fopp instead, where I found all three within 5 minutes and didn't pay more than £7 for any of them. I also bought a couple of reasonably priced DVDs and a blu-ray whilst in there. And a book. All of this in a store which is about 10% of the size of HMV.

Meanwhile, Gideon decides to start looking after the pennies:

George Osborne is expected to use this month's budget to announce a crackdown on a ballooning internet VAT dodge on the sale of CDs, DVDs, memory cards, vitamin pills and contact lenses, involving some of the biggest names in British retailing.

Industrial scale avoidance of VAT on these and other goods is estimated to have cost the exchequer £130m in lost tax revenues last year – a jump of more than 50% on five years ago – according to Revenue & Customs. Industry insiders believe the true figure could be much higher.

If unchallenged, taxpayer losses are likely to soar higher still in the wake of the chancellor's decision to increase the rate of VAT to 20% at the start of the year.

In Vienna we don't have any megastores anymore, we have a couple of excellent independents but the different thing we have here is a massive chain of electrical stores called Saturn which also carries a wide range of CDs/DVDs and a surprisingly large selection of vinyl. €2-€3 more expensive than the indies probably but not a bad environment for browsing in. You can wander over to the music section having salivated over the latest flat screen TV.

Saturn's fun.

£130 is not a terrifically large amount of money, in the scheme of things.

HMVs these days are a chaotic, badly-organised nightmare

There's something post-apocalyptic about it. It's like Woolworth's felt in the years before they went under, or like Macy's on Fulton Mall in Brooklyn. Who's in charge? Who knows? But sweep the fucking floor at least.

(Haha I meant £130m, obv)

Actually there's an argument that the death of something like HMV would result in more independent record shops popping up again, but it'll never be like it was in the 80s and 90s.

― Matt DC

This could be a welcome side-effect of all this - not sure how realistic it is though. Independents that have already fallen weren't necessarily downed by HMV in the first place were they..

Dunno, the one indie record shop in Worcester probably was downed by HMV, or at least its closing coincided roughly with the tiny shit old HMV closing and the big(ish) swanky new one opening up in the new shopping centre.

HMV did really used to be so much better for back cat. I worked on and off at the Grafton St branch between 2000 and 2004. When I started the managers at the time had a lot more free reign to stock as they pleased (I remember a free-standing unit filled with the Neu! reissues that had just come out, the result of a discussion in the pub a few days before).

There were some amazing things in there 10 years earlier. Entire displays of obscure 70s prog cds on Background & Repertoire that I wound up buying loads of in clearance sales. Think this was even more staff driven than Neu! which were at least getting touted heavily in the monthlies.
Still not got over what was turning up there. Or who it was actually for. Grafton st used to be good for jazz & stuff too, don't think I've been in there in last few years. Tower had racks of similar obscurities at about 10Eur a pop last few times i've been in there. wonder if it was the same staff having moved shop or anything? though you'd hope they'd have moved on further still over 15 or 20 years.

Is the last Tower still there?

HMV sales are often really good, bought shitloads more stuff in HMV than any other major high street retailer

Very much recognise that feeling from my dublin years & more recent visits. Don't think it's as true in Galway. Not sure to what extent they've had clearance sales here.
But paying like 2.99 for Vashti Bunyan Another Diamond Day in Henry street branch and loads of other similar occurrences was almost a habit at one point. Think I picked up 4 or 5 items in that same purchase that were all cool somewhat obscure items, first volume of Afro-Rock definitely & couple of other things.

I miss those days.

Oh my good lord Marcello is RIGHT about the Oxford Street HMV!!! ....... and finished at the Oxford Street HMV, which was some kinda Holy Grail. Jeez, it's an ENTIRELY different store to the other branches I've been to (excepting the prices). They have a quite absurd, exhaustive selection, including, for the first time in any store, independent or mainstream, FOETUS records. Yay!

Was this the central London branch marked for closure 4 years later (message above from 2007)? also the branch Teeth Of the Sea work(ed)in according to onme of the staff.
Shame it's gone, if it has, cos it did have a wide range of stock in.
Internet is cheaper but you could actually browse in that branch.

The Oxford Street store still existed when I was in London in November.
The Tower Records (later Virgin) at Piccadilly, which used to be the biggest of them all in the 90s, has sadly been gone for too long though.

I really hope Fopp manages to survive when HMV finally goes down.

It's always mobbed whenever I'm in it, but then every FOPP shop I've ever been in has always been too small, it's like company policy or something, maybe to make the shops look busier than they are!

Is the last Tower still there?

Yes it is, though I'm not around that part of the city much anymore - and it's not really the last one. That one on Wicklow St and the one on the top floor of Eason's on O'Connell St are the last Tower Records stores in the western world. However there are loads of Towers in Japan, or that's what Wikipedia says anyway.

The Oxford Street store still existed when I was in London in November.
The Tower Records (later Virgin) at Piccadilly, which used to be the biggest of them all in the 90s, has sadly been gone for too long though.

I think the announcement of HMV closure came around New year didn't it/ Certainly while I was over there for Xmas.

As to that Piccadilly Circus shop I went into look around there while i was in the area. It's a trendy sweater etc shop the kind that sells drop crotch skinny jeans, yuch.

i have good memories of items i picked up in there over the years it was a record/cd shop, even up to it being Zavvi. While I was over during their existence they were selling Ethiopiques cds cheaply. so I nabbed a load of the good ones. think the jazz section was selling pretty cheaply too & i picked up some great stuff.

Yes it is, though I'm not around that part of the city much anymore - and it's not really the last one. That one on Wicklow St and the one on the top floor of Eason's on O'Connell St are the last Tower Records stores in the western world. However there are loads of Towers in Japan, or that's what Wikipedia says anyway.

was wondering how come Dublin was managing to keep the company afloat on its own. Did it become mailorder only elsewhere?
Heard the empire fell under the failure of one artist's lp or something. Maria Carey? Or was that whole story Virgin not them?

However there are loads of Towers in Japan, or that's what Wikipedia says anyway.

Yup, there's a couple of Towers in Tokyo (maybe more). The large HMV in Shibuya went at the end of last year.

The Oxford Circus HMV (the only one really worth going to) is still here. Irony of ironies, what’s causing most of their current debt is the shorter payment system required for games and gadgets (i.e. they have to pay the supplier in 60 days, rather than 70 days for CDs and DVDs). So if they’d stuck to what they did best, they wouldn’t be in so much trouble. That and providing a wider range of music in every other HMV branch rather than the glorified Our Prices (ask your dad) that they currently are. If you go into an average HMV and it’s just the Top 40 with trimmings and £5 back catalogue loss leaders then no wonder punters are put off.

Fopp did have a large branch in Tottenham Court Road (which I greatly miss) but as every schoolboy knows they overstretched themselves and that was that. They never stocked anything by Company Policy, though.

To correct Geir, the Tower/Virgin/Zavvi at Piccadilly was not bigger than the HMV at Oxford Circus.

They never stocked anything by Company Policy, though

Well at least you asked, must have been a disappointment though

Just before Christmas - Beatles Stereo Box was >£250 in HMV and £110 on Amazon. HMV used to stock up on box sets pre-Xmas and REDUCE the prices.

Not sure what point I'm making, other than 1) I like box sets 2) I like Xmas and 3) Fuck off HMV.

And.... hello Marcello!

To correct Geir, the Tower/Virgin/Zavvi at Piccadilly was not bigger than the HMV at Oxford Circus.

It seemed bigger, multiple floors and a basement you'd actually visit, etc...

hmv oxford circus has the same number of floors, the basement used to have the best stocked jazz and classical departments in the uk, and each floor is at least twice the length and width of the piccadilly circus building.

i worked in both shops, btw

Yr making me nostalgic now. Virgin Megastore in its heyday was pretty amazing too. xp

the thing I used to love about that HMV Oxford Street was that the classical dept was obviously soundproofed, so that when you walked into it you were immediately enveloped in this warm bath of sound. none of the blaring pop music from the rest of the store could enter into this cocoon. it was quite spectacular.

every FOPP shop I've ever been in has always been too small

Our Fopp in Nottingham is large, well stocked (I can generally find at least 80% of the CDs that I'm after), well laid out in a way that encourages serendipitous discoveries, with good-sized areas for a large number of genres, displays decently written blurbs for a large number of new releases including specialist stuff, is sensibly priced, busy, friendly... and five minutes' walk from the office. God, I'm spoilt.

the main London FOPP has a cramped main floor, that totally seems by design, in order to make it look busy. but the long long browseable rows upstairs squeeze a whole lot in, in the fashion Mike describes, and that t-shirt dungeon downstairs could fit way more stock in if they thought they could shift it. Glasgow has a fair bit of open space on the floor (contrastingly, making it look a bit welcoming as you come in) and makes good use of the balcony level to cram more stuff in). and the new London one stuck on the side of Waterstones is small, but too small? they're meant to be a mini-outlet, and still cram a great variety of new and deep catalogue in there.

Our Fopp in Nottingham is large, well stocked (I can generally find at least 80% of the CDs that I'm after), well laid out in a way that encourages serendipitous discoveries, with good-sized areas for a large number of genres, displays decently written blurbs for a large number of new releases including specialist stuff, is sensibly priced, busy, friendly... and five minutes' walk from the office. God, I'm spoilt.

Meh. It's okay, but it has no vinyl (well, zero to three records at any one time, no new releases), and isn't as esoteric as it could be. But then I'm just bitter because *maybe* if it had been one of the ones shut down Selectadisc might have survived.

My friend worked at Oxford Street HMV and it always sounded like quite a cool place - don't know if that was just because he got on really well with the people he worked with or what.

With regard to the Amazon conversation upthread, that doesn't really do it for me either - the vinyl stock is crazily haphazard and CDs don't usually seem as cheap as they often do things like DVDs for. I tend to use Norman or Boomkat or something similar.

Having said that, I can't complain - I have at least five great independent record shops within ten minutes walk of my house.

The best place I know for vinyl shops is Norwich. It has (at least) five, although the one in the market place was pretty much closing down when I was there.

the glasgow fopp on union st is ok spacewise, but the hillhead one gets seriously jammed at the wend (was in there on saturday w a friend from out of town who said to me 'they need bigger premises')

Re Tower in Dublin: it was independent of the main Tower company long before the latter crashed (can't remember the exact details), which turned out to be a good thing.

From http://www.towerrecords.ie/aboutus.asp

Tower Records is a leading specialist in Music, DVD, Books and Games Retailer based in Dublin and is wholly Irish owned by Records and Discs Ltd since July 2003. We are a licenced franchise of MTS Inc. (U.S.)

The company has two stores in Dublin on Wicklow Street and in the Easons Store on O'Connell Street.

it's good for cheap books. once bought a art spielgelman collection for £5 that was at least £25 everywhere else, even online.

I can't believe I didn't mention my most bad and hated thing about the last time I visited HMV. Admittedly, it was Christmas time, so it was never going to be a pleasant experience, but what was appalling had certainly happened before the mass influx of customers. What they had done was completely fuck up the alphabetical ordering of their DVDs. Not so that there was *no* ordering, though in fact that would have been infinitely preferable. Instead, they had put all their stuff in 'rough' alphabetical order. Consider searching for Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. Instead of:

Big
Big Trouble in Little China
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
Billy Liar

or similar, you'd have a system that looked more like:

Bullit
Big
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
Bedazzled
Barbarella.

INFURIATING. (Though not suitable for the innocuous things/irrational anger thread, as not innocuous at all.) It was definitely the staff and not the customers, too, as they would have large numbers of each film in their [horrendously wrong] place.

I've noticed that "system" in effect in most video rental stores.

What are these video rental stores of which you speak?

Sort of related:

Tesco is pushing music companies to accept minimal upfront payments for the compact discs they ship to the UK retailer, in a renegotiation that will test how record labels’ bargaining power has diminished in line with shoppers’ interest in CDs.

Instead of paying £7 or £8 upfront for a typical album, Tesco wants to pay just 50p initially, with the remainder handed over when it sells the disc, Rob Salter, Tesco’s entertainment director, told the Financial Times.

The proposal could have a painful effect on suppliers’ cash flows, some music executives warned, but others added that they were willing to test Tesco’s plan.

Similar tentative discussions had begun with US retailers, one said, and could reverse a global trend of stores devoting less shelf space to CDs, whose sales have more than halved since 2000.

Mr Salter said the change of terms would allow Tesco to stock a wider range of music in more of its stores. “I think we’ll all end up with more money,” he said.

“I think we’ll all end up with more money,” he said.

Tesco wants to pay just 50p initially, with the remainder handed over when it sells the disc

So CDs will replace lager as the Tesco loss leader - three chart CDs for £5 instead of three cases of Stella for £20, until the record companies are so fucked they all sell out to Tesco Music. Shit vision of hell but there it is.

Still on for that massive closing down sale:

HMV will this week outline to its banks a rescue plan that will include the possible sale of Waterstone's, its nationwide book chain, write Ben Marlow and Kate Walsh.

The struggling retailer's lenders have told Simon Fox, its chief executive, that the company needs to raise up to £75m in new funds in return for a relaxation of its lending covenants, which it is set to breach in the coming months.

Fox's other cash-raising plans include a possible share issue and further store closures. The chain has already committed itself to closing 60 across the HMV and Waterstone's portfolio - about 10% of its chain in the UK and Ireland. Analysts argued that this did not go far enough.

Potential buyers for Waterstone's include its founder Tim Waterstone, who may team up with Alexander Mamut, the Russian investor who owns a 6% stake in HMV.

HMV will be expected to use the money to repay part of its debts, which have piled up after poor sales triggered its fourth profit warning in six months. The company recently revealed that its debts had soared to £130m - double City expectations of £66m.

The company's banks have demanded that the costs of its recovery plan are shared among all its stakeholders, including shareholders.

HMV, the troubled entertainment retailer, issued its fifth profit alert since last September, warning that ongoing trading difficulties would see profits drop to about £30m for the year.

The group had earlier guided towards a pre-tax performance “moderately below” the £45m analysts had expected, and Tuesday’s news sent the group’s shares down a further 5 per cent to 14½p.

HMV, which has been struggling to reduce its £130m debt burden, also confirmed that it had struck an agreement with lenders to push back tests over its banking covenants.

“While negotiations regarding amended facilities continue, the group is pleased to report that its lenders have agreed to move the measurement period for all relevant financial covenant tests from the 12 months ending April 30 2011 to the 12 months ending July 2 2011,” HMV said.

The company added on Tuesday that its banking facilities remained fully available to it and that discussions with lenders were “constructive”.

Alexander Mamut, the Russian oligarch, has been given just over a fortnight to agree a deal to buy the Waterstone's books chain, I have learned.

Nomura, which is advising Waterstone's troubled owner, HMV Group, has offered Mamut and the chain's founder, Tim Waterstone, about 15 more days to come up with an offer to buy it.

The cynic in me wonders whether the banks have just bought themselves more time to continue preparations for HMV's post-mortem and subsequent dismemberment.

The troubled owner of HMV has admitted for the first time that it is considering a controversial move that would involve freeing itself from millions of pounds in rent obligations.

I can exclusively reveal that HMV Group, which also owns Waterstone's, this week asked advisers to assess the feasibility of a company voluntary arrangement, which would involve handing back the keys to some of its shops.

It is the clearest sign to date that HMV, one of Britain’s best-known high street names, is contemplating more drastic options than closing 60 shops and selling parts of its business. A CVA would need the approval of HMV's landlords and I should stress that people close to the company say such a move is not its preferred option.

In a statement issued to me today, HMV said:

“HMV Group has not initiated a CVA. The company remains in constructive discussions with its banks who continue to be supportive, and current facilities remain fully available. The Group is also continuing to explore strategic options for Waterstone's and HMV Canada.

As is entirely usual and appropriate in current circumstances, the Group continues to keep itself fully informed on all of its available options and keeps its contingency plans up to date, among which a CVA may or may not be considered.”

In yesterday's Sunday Times:

The 128-store Canadian HMV business is expected to be sold for less than £5m.

Fopp are selling it, clearly.

Dominic O'Connell of the Sunday Times writes today that bankers involved in the Waterstone's deal expect HMV to have to close 500 of its 600 music stores if the books chain is sold.

Good.

I'd rather have 100 awesome shops that I only get to once or twice a year, than 600 mediocre shops I never bother with...

HMV Group has sounded a private warning that it could see its annual profits slump to just £3m within two years under a management plan to salvage its future.

I have learned that a report prepared last month by HMV’s lending syndicate following a management presentation painted a bleak picture of the company’s future on the high street.

The bank report said that if Waterstone’s and HMV’s Canadian operations are sold as planned, that under one scenario, the profitability of the core HMV chain is likely to slip as low as £3m by 2013.

That’s a far cry from the group’s current annual earnings, projected to be £30m this year following a string of profit warnings, and reinforces the struggle that HMV faces if it is to secure a long-term future on the British high street.

HMV’s banks are led by the taxpayer-backed Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland, and are understood to be supportive of its efforts to restructure itself.

On Friday, HMV issues a statement confirming that it was in “advanced talks” to sell Waterstone’s, with Alexander Mamut, the Russian tycoon, among the contenders to buy it. I understand that HMV is keen to progress talks with Mamut and other bidders to the extent that it will be able to provide a further update later this week.

A sale of the Canadian business is also close, although any deal will be valued at “low-single digit millions of pounds”, according to people close to the company.

The next couple of weeks is likely to be crucial to HMV’s efforts to place itself on a sounder financial footing, because without a sale of its books chain, it’s unlikely to be able to meet its borrowing covenants when they are tested

HMV declined to comment.

cue daily mail letters asking when to start spelling "Great Britain" with the Rs backwards

the big we're not desperate sale has started. some new releases now £4 (recent glasvegas album !), lots are £3 etc.

I got the 2CD Screamadelica remaster for a fiver at Heathrow Airport.

they keep sending out ridiculous offers via email to; there was one where all pure cards members got £5 off any purchase with no minimum spend. so i bought a £5 book. for free.

and then another one with 20% off hmv online this week with no minimum spend

British taxpayers will become shareholders in struggling entertainment chain HMV as state-owned banks take a stake in the group.

As exclusively revealed by Sky City editor Mark Kleinman, HMV’s lenders will be granted warrants in the company worth up to 5 per cent of the company’s shares after striking a £220m refinancing deal.

The arrangement is designed to give the struggling retailer’s banks exposure to any recovery in HMV’s share price during the coming years.

It has already issued four profit warnings this year.

Fucked, in other words:

Struggling British music and DVD retailer HMV , which has been selling off assets in a bid to secure its future, said trading conditions were set to remain tough as it posted a 61 percent drop in annual profit.

The 90-year-old group, which has issued four profit warnings this year, said on Thursday it made a profit before tax and one-off items of 28.9 million pounds ($46.2 million) in the 53 weeks to April 30, in line with its latest guidance.

After tax and non-cash impairments charges from the assets it has sold, it plunged to a loss of 121.7 million pounds.

61%!!

The important bit is the last line I quoted, and this bit from Music Week:

The sale of Waterstone’s and HMV Canada resulted in a non-cash impairment of £111.5m, which led the company to a total group loss after tax and exceptional items of £121.7m, as compared to a profit of £49.2m in 2010.

HMV has said that money from the sales - £53m from Waterstone’s and £2.0m from HMV Canada – will go towards reducing debut, which has ballooned to £170.7m from £67.6m in 2010.

oh oh. i guess the 2 hold steady cds i bought for £3 each this week aint going to help much then.

The retailer, which reported a “disappointing and unsatisfactory” year, said today it hopes to have 150 stores reconfigured by Christmas to add more technology products. HMV recorded a 123.1 million-pound ($198.1 million) full-year loss after taking impairment charges on the Waterstone’s and Canada sales, the Maidenhead, England-based company said in a statement on Regulatory News Service.

Products such as MP3 players and headphones now represent 8 percent of HMV U.K. sales, and the company said it’s also trying to expand revenue by promoting events in stores. Waterstone’s book chain has been sold and agreement reached on selling its 121 Canadian stores as part of a 220 million-pound refinancing program.

“We believe that there is a clear place for HMV as a specialist retailer of entertainment products and that by rebalancing the space in many of our stores away from declining categories to a focused range of high-growth technology products we will both enhance our offering to our customers and strengthen our sales base,” Chairman Philip Rowley said in the statement.

A clue to future business strategy?

Soon to be 'HMV Headphone - Shut'

wonder if this is the new area that has appeared in the bristol shop.
they got rid off a whole are of console games, and built a new desk which is now full of gadgets you can play with.
just like pc world/apple ..
not really gone to look closer, as its of no interest to me.

I stopped going to HMV several months ago after the Oxford Circus branch said they couldn’t specially order in any CDs for a month (which were clearly orderable from their website) because they were going through a “drought.” In addition, several US imports (nu-R&B/gospel) abruptly disappeared from the OxCirc racks and the HMV website; I guess bills hadn’t been paid.

Really they’ve no one to blame but themselves. They should have concentrated on their music stock and not clog up the front of their stores with ugly displays of DVDs, games and 2 for £10 loss leaders. The Aspergic thinking that led to all the specialists in the regional stores being replaced by robots because Management Wanted Every Branch To Look The Same was also fatal.

I’ve pretty much given up on record shops now and buy practically everything from Amazon and similar. Why did I wait so long? The prices are cheaper, the service is swift, you don’t get grumpy counter staff “characters” with an attitude problem, and all the parcels in the post make every day seem like Christmas.

The irony is, of course, that the reason I came to London thirty years ago was because of all the great record shops that sold stuff I could never find in Glasgow. Now I’m online because they sell stuff I can never find in London.

Or, at least, it was one of the main reasons.

you moving back up here then? ;)

Since you dont need to worry about no record shops in Hamilton now

haha it does make me wonder why I bothered moving in the first place! (well there were other more important reasons) but no - if we're going to move anywhere it'll probably be to Toronto (Rotate This, Sonic Boom, Penguin Music etc. etc.; terrific record shops).

oh i forgot you got married. Hamilton is really shit now. Dunno when you were last back up but its really sad there not being a record shop. Would even welcome a music magpie at the moment. i buy pretty much everything online now but its just not the same as killing 30 mins looking through a record shop 10 mins from my house. Even though our price etc had bugger all i liked occasionally i found something. Amazon or distros etc at least are cheaper than a £4 bus/train fare to Glasgow. But i know in my heart that a record store could not survive here. Esp one stocking stuff i like. But still, its nice to browse sometimes in hope.

just got 4 cheap jazz cds in mail from amazon as i typed this (3 coltrane 1 coleman)

when woolies shut down i did get some terrific bargains. Theres a wilkos there now. Good shop but its not woolies y'know

My mum loves Wilkinsons!

Was last up there in May and even the charity shops weren't up to much (you see all these Sydney Devine/Francie & Josie CDs and suddenly remember WHY YOU LEFT)

and all the parcels in the post make every day seem like Christmas.

Yes, except for that it's christmas for you/me, and not christmas for the wife/kids....

Oh no, it's Christmas for both myself and Lena! I get the CDs, she gets the cookbooks... ;-)

you see all these Sydney Devine/Francie & Josie CDs and suddenly remember WHY YOU LEFT

You mean Fran & Anna not Francie & Josie, don't you? I'm sure there are Francie & Josie CDs but could they be worse than Fran & Anna?

francie and josie rule so much

I'm waiting for Rollins' version of "The Glasgow Underground Song."

I bought a Sonny Rollins CD from HMV just last week! (First purchase from there in 6 months)

I bought Heavenly Creatures on blu-ray from HMV last Friday, and the smiling girl behind the counter complimented me on my t-shirt - beat that Amazon.com! (saying that, I came down this morning and found the George Harrison doc-film waiting for me on the doormat - thanks Amazon.com!)

HMV had sales of £1.8bn in the 2010 financial year, and apparently the future is worth...

The headphone market has nearly doubled in size in the past five years with 8.2m sets expected to be sold in the UK this year. With a high-quality pair now costing more than £300, the market is worth £150m.

I keep clicking this thread every time it appears, convinced it's going to announce a closing down/fire sale, in case I have a slim window to let it over and get those J&MC deluxe sets for the cheap. Oh, and maybe the Boo Radley ones which have always been stupidly expensive.

do HMV sell high-quality cans? i thought they just did those horrible primary coloured emo toys

HMV will launch a new retail venture, selling only electrical goods, to try to compensate for falling CD sales. The first store, under the banner of HMV Techshop, will open tomorrow in the One New Change shopping centre in the City of London. It will sell premium goods such as Apple iPads and headphones from Bose and Beats by Dr Dre.

i was in hmv yesterday. impressed by their 2 for £15 on bluray films. not that i bought any.

HMV head of technology Ewan Pinder said: “HMV’s remit has always been to give its customers the widest-possible access to music, film and games, however they want to discover and enjoy them.

“So our move into personal technology products, including through this new-style store, is actually a very natural next step for us that supports our continuing transformation into a broad-based entertainment brand.

“Headphones, in particular, are really taking off in a big way, and are set to be among the ‘must-have’ gift items this Christmas.”

I take off my headphones in the normal way, myself.

Yeah, but do you really take them off?

Do I ever really put them on?

Only Dr Dre can tell.

i find headphones odd as a "must-have item" as everybody who needs a pair already has a pair - they're an upgrade item, not a must-have.

that said, i saw three pairs of those Beats headphones on a single tube journey recently. and they start at £130 a piece.

Is that with an Oyster Card?

i find headphones odd as a "must-have item" as everybody who needs a pair already has a pair - they're an upgrade item, not a must-have.

But that's because you and I buy them for their utility, not for fashion.

Go to any HMV and wait for a while, you'll get all sorts of kids going in and pestering their parents to buy them Beats.

Beats headphones have arrived at ipod levels of one brand now representing an entire product type.

and that's a lot of kids who until a few months ago were happy with white earbuds, now wanting audiophile (price rather than quality) headphones.

I am not surprised that HMV are riding this wave of interested and happy to spend consumers, but with t-shirts > Videos > DVDs > video games > clothes > phones > headphones, the well HMV seems to be happy drawing from seems to get a little bit smaller each time and the amount of music int heir stores gets even smaller as well.

People used to buy music all the time, now a £100+ headphone purchase is a yearly thing (at absolute most)

WTF. Got email from HMV Tickets saying I just bought 4 tickets at £68. Rang them up saying I think I've just been defrauded, they claim it's an error on their system, that the tickets were bought with cash, and not to worry about it. They sounded a bit confused about it. Which doesn't give me a lot of confidence.

Oh dear, a bug in the system? Maybe they have laid off to many IT staff.

On another note, I saw in HMV Oxford St. that they were buying old CDs/DVDs and games. Maybe they are doing the same as Fopp. Fopp Gower St. has quite a selection of used £2 CDs now.

you just spoiled the wifes birthday surprise for you
xp

lol although it wasn't beyond the realms of the vaguely possible (it was for Ronnie Lane's old band after the (Small?) Faces, paying tribute) I was fairly (read 99.9658%) sure she wouldn't have booked tickets for that. The bloke on the phone reckoned it might be because someone with a similar address had bought tickets and someone made a typo entering it into the system. Which actually isn't that impossible, there's a mod looking woman prob about late 30s lives next door, she could've bought tickets to a Ronnie Lane's Old Band gig? Couldn't she? I'll just keep an eye on my statements for a bit.

Further to everything else about declining fortunes, I noticed that the big HMV store in Manchester's Arndale has now shut down, seemingly just after Christmas. They'd thrown the kitchen sink at this last year by trying to fill it with headphones, mp3 players etc, but the only times I've tried to buy music there recently the CD selection was so limited as to be useless. The shop closure gives me an endgame feeling for the chain though, there's been one in the Arndale (in various locations) for a *long* time.

fuck an HMV I only shop at THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT now

every canonical rap artist's second best album for £1.99 a pop

Spent £20 in a real live HMV shoppe yesterday, On Compact Discs. Exciting. I'd probably spend £20 a week if they had any fucking music in stock.

whereas if you can find cds you want in HMV you're lucky.

whereas if you can find cds you want in HMV you're lucky.

Wish there was a record shop in my town. Been a long long time since there was one.

Sometimes pick up the odd 2 for £10 CD and then spend *ages* trying to find one other good thing to get as part of the deal. Mostly fail and walk out empty-handed.

fuck an HMV I only shop at THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT now

every canonical rap artist's second best album for £1.99 a pop

This is true, got By All Means Necessary for 2 quid. That was in Head though

Further to everything else about declining fortunes, I noticed that the big HMV store in Manchester's Arndale has now shut down, seemingly just after Christmas. They'd thrown the kitchen sink at this last year by trying to fill it with headphones, mp3 players etc, but the only times I've tried to buy music there recently the CD selection was so limited as to be useless. The shop closure gives me an endgame feeling for the chain though, there's been one in the Arndale (in various locations) for a *long* time.
Is the big one at the top of Market Street still going? (haven't been in Manchester for quite a while obvs)

Was agog in bafflement at them over Xmas when Girlfriend's son was given an HMV gift card. He attempted to buy 5 or so films (Scooby Doo, mostly, he's a connoisseur) online, but at checkout we discovered after some googling that "The hmv Gift Card can only be spent in stores".

I did the sensible thing + paid for the films in exchange for the card. Thought I could use it in Fopp, but no, the HMV gift card "is only compatible with tills in hmv stores".

And the five films, ordered simultaneously, arrived in five separate packages by the same post.

>Is the big one at the top of Market Street still going?

Yeah, that's still there. I guess that's the final ship in the fleet, although 90% of the time I walk an extra 100yds and go round the corner to Fopp. Do HMV still own Fopp? Would be v sorry to see that go, still a great little shop.

kids got HMV gift cards at Xmas, advised them to spend them as fast as poss before HMV went tits up

I assume this thread is re: HMV uk, but I'd be amazed if the company still existed in Canada in 2013.

And the five films, ordered simultaneously, arrived in five separate packages by the same post.

play.com do this too. I bought some little packs of Lego minifigures as stocking fillers, typed "3" in the quantity box and all 3 were shipped separately. Which was in my favour in the end as they actually sent 4, ahem...

Was in HMV last week, could barely even find the music section. Bought a Hunter S Thompson book and a Nick Kent book for 2 quid each from the cheapy pile at the end of the vast shelf of celeb biographies

They sent them separately as this keeps them under-the-wire regarding VAT.

Yeah, a lot of that stuff will have been posted from Jersey or other offshore tax loophole locations.

'Low Value Consignment Relief' is the trick, I believe.

not for much longer if the government gets their way

Yes, hopefully. It is a very serious issue for smaller mainland shops like us.

not so good for the punter trying to save money though

Getting what you want at the absolute lowest price possible should not be one's driving aim, I believe. It is short-term, immediate gratification thinking which is detrimental to the music industry on a larger, longer-term scale.

i think in a recession/post-recession the punters mostly have a choice - cheap cd or free downloads though.

saving a quid or 2 here and there is the name of the game for most people. Also buy saving a quid or 2 here and there it means they can afford an extra cd.

I'm as poor & desirous of music as anyone else, but I think that as someone who is interested in anything beyond the mass-market it is important to try and support outlets who themselves support that kind of thing, i.e. bands, labels, smaller independent shops (both physical and online), regardless of whether or not they are a bit more expensive than Amazon et al, who will plough on regardless of whether I buy from them or not.

Anyway, we're getting off the specific point, which is that utilising the offshore tax loophole puts the bigger players at an unfair financial advantage over anyone selling from mainland UK and though technically legal is not within the spirit of the law it is loopholing.

Hence I think that it is a decidedly good thing that it be put a stop to, even if it does mean that goods aren't available quite as cheaply to end consumers.

oh i know that. Im just saying that the punters might not be happy about it and i dont think its going to make them anymore likely to buy in shops. They will still go to whoevers cheapest and thats almost never a shop due to all the overheads they have.

Yeah, that is true. Sadly.

CDs are routinely cheaper for us to buy from Amazon than from distributors, which is messed up.

im kinda amazed (and glad) $andy keeps things still going.

We're in it forever! No giving up!

Sorry, a bit OT but: Krakow, what was the score with the glasgow Avalanche? Was it a franchise, or formerly owned by the Edinburgh ones, or just affiliated..?

Avalanche started in Edinburgh and the Glasgow shop was a branch thereof until about 5 years ago when the long-running manager of the Glasgow incarnation bought it out as a franchise. The franchise deal came to an end a couple of years ago, hence the name change. We now run completely and utterly separately, though the only connection was by name for many years.

My time-scales are a bit off, probably, as time flies faster than I think, but that's the gist. Originally a branch of Avalanche, then a franchise, now completely separate. Always ran reasonably autonomously though.

Ah. Thanks - had wondered!

I've still not set foot in Avalanche Edinburgh since the owner tried to take the total piss with his pricing of a big collection of second hand vinyl he got in. It's a shame because I've shopped their consistently for 15 years plus and I was into the ethos of supporting indie shops.

If I lived in Glasgow I'd be hitting Mono daily.

Still, at least we have a Fopp left here.

HMV is one of only a couple remaining cd shops in town here. It does still have a surprisingly large and somewhat eclectic range compared to other HMV shops that I'm aware of.
They got the 2cd 13th Floor elevator sets in for example. Not sure what market there is for those.

I picked up the PJ Harvey let england shake & Neutral Milk Hotel's Aeroplane in a 2 for 14Eur deal a couple weeks ago.

Will keep looking in there on trips to town for a while yet.

this week i picked up the latest On-U cd by Little Axe in HMV/bristol for £15 !
i knew i was paying over the odds, but i wanted it there and then (birthday treat for myself) and not seen it anywhere else so decided to just go with it.
still, i reckon £15 is a lot given that Head just around the corner were selling other recent On-U cds for £11 (just not the Little Axe one)

Nasty shock this afternoon, the Galway HMV has just reorganised so that downstairs now ahs 2 desks , one saying Technology and the music section has been moved upstairs.

I was told that there was actually more space give over to music now than previously but with it being said that so many of them have largely given up on music this came as a nasty shock. I was told they may actually start getting vinyl in now but will see how this pans over the next while.

Oxford Street has had a minor reshuffle, tech, merch and games edging out the books on the ground floor.

I went into an HMV for the first time in years the other week and looked at their £50-man/Later vinyl selection. A couple of blokes next to me were buying a present for someone, "She likes this band doesn't she? How about this one?" They decided on one after a while declaring that "this will look really good on the wall".

the hmv shop in cribbs causeway has 4 racks for music now.

tragic.

i get a better choice in my local charity shops.

£16 for the Magical Mystery Tour DVD? Does HMV WANT to go out of business?

(Also: £20 in Rough Trade, ditto as above)

For a very long time, Beatles' *anything* was prevented from being offered at 'discount' prices.

Even now, it's unusual. (Excepting 'second-hand' obv)

Just been to HMV..

That MMT DVD £16, build quality = DVD section in everythings's £1

Still, the one I went to had most of the Blur deluxe editions for £3 each!

Whats in the deluxe editions?

1. Original album on CD
2. "Extra tracks' CD
3. 4 postcards
4. Booklet
in: Nice box

e.g. http://shop.blur.co.uk/media/AbstractArticle/image/WarehouseArticle-60134/Blur-Blur-2CD-Special-Edition.jpg

Fuck me, that's a drop from a tenner a couple of months ago on those Blur sets. Still full price here in Newport, but they are selling all their books for a quid, like they've realised they aren't going to be Waterstones anymore.

I reckon somebody made a mistake and lumped these in with the 'original' CD issues.

The only ones I didn't get were 'Think Tank' which I'd bought already, and Parklife which wasn't there.

Just checked the sale box in HMV Newport (it wasn't there yesterday) - the old Blur issues are there for three quid but not the new boxes. Millions of copies of the Villagers album for a pound, though. Did anyone buy that, ever?

this week i got the recent s.cu.m., apparet, zola jesus, and girls cds for £3 each from the hmv in bristol!

and they had the blur reissues for £3 each - but i skipped on those ..

Local HMV had alll the Blur reissues for £3 apart from 'Parklife'. Did a swap shop for my old Blur cd's so effectively got them for £2.

i guess there was a massive mismatch between expected demand, and sales re the blur reissues for them to crash the price so quickly following their release ..

Don't really know how their pricing works, £3 for the new Blur reissues. Was looking at getting the Coen Brothers bluray box, £30 in HMV, £14 on Amazon. Don't expect every thing to price match Amazon but £16 more expensive, will give it a body swerve and wait for the postie to deliver.

Grrrr.. Why can't the Blur boxes be in Newport? I may need to travel... I was considering the Morrissey HMV / Parlophone singles 3 cd set from HMV for £15 then check on Amazon and it was £8 so no contest there.

HMV staff are nearly always of the nu-metal fan type..tattoos and piercings etc. Nothing wrong with that but just seems odd to me. I only use the Southport branch now for browsing. Their prices make me laugh and every monday you will see me walking up and down the aisles giggling and smiling to myself.

Picked up the most recent Malkmus, Beach Boys and Gruff Rhys albums for £3 each between the two remaining Glasgow shops today. The Blur thing seems to be a regional pricing screw-up, sadly

Incidentally, all 3 of these albums were on my 'wait til they go down to £3 in Fopp' mental list. Seems to be working out rather well

Well, Billy Dodds, depends on which HMV he tried...

Well, I got the "Parklife" one, £10, just to complete the set..

fuck blur reissues.
today i picked up a ton of kiss cds for £3 each (all of the original band releases basically)
under normal circumstances i would feel ilm-duty bound to report that they are all crap.
but the fact is that they are not.
they are chocka with glam'd up low grade fun that really hits the spot at the moment, and makes me realise just where urge overkill got a lot of their sound from.

oh yeah, I saw those too.

Also, the Beach boys latest...

classic era kiss vs revival beach boys : hmmmmm .. lemme think !

well, quite.

how boring

got the Peter Hook Joy division and Neil Young autobio for something like half price, actually less since the listed one is in £s & I paid €s.

Was also looking at the new Barney Hoskyns Led zep and Pete Townshend autobio.

bought the 1st Kiss & Alive about a month and a bit ago. & they do have some pretty toe-tapping stuff on them.

In Oxford Circus HMV yesterday, buying stuff; picking up (amongst other things) the new Martha Wainright (on CD) when this old bloke slopes up next to me and picks up the vinyl copy. "Ooh, nothing loike voinyl, is there-a!" he hissed. "WHAT IS THIS THE FUCKING JIMMY SAVILE FAN CLUB?" I yelled and got him chucked out.

I mean, record shops, if you want to stay open and attract people, keep the Jimmy Savile types out, otherwise we'll all just stick to Amazon.

sp. Martha WAINWRIGHT, sigh ilx introduce edit post function.

Hadn't realised until today's trip into town that the other place that was selling the books I got from HMV was selling paperbacks for pretty much the same price, I think Hook was even maybe €5 more. & that was part of a current offer, 3 for the price of 2, cheapest free but also most of the books around €15 each. Pricetagged on the back about €21.50.
HMV had them all in hardback at about that, Hook €10, Zep €13

I got the Hook one for £20, it was a slipcase edition with interview cd included. On opening, I found it was also signed and numbered, so hey.

well the Neil Young came with postcards anyway, so that's lovely

Didn't look at the books, but got the following from Dundee: Flaming Lips + Heady Fwends, Amanda Mair (s/t), Sweet Billy Pilgrim 'Crown and Treaty', Orbital 'Wonky' and Luke Haines' 'Outsider/In: the Collection' for £3 each and the Human League 'Dare/Fascination!' 2CD for a fiver.

The only Blur stuff in the small sale section was the original 1CD versions. Quite a few of the recent Mute realises for £3 - Apparat and Cold Specks (already have and love both), SCUM, Bethe Jeans Houghton, etc.

In Oxford Circus HMV yesterday, buying stuff; picking up (amongst other things) the new Martha Wainright (on CD) when this old bloke slopes up next to me and picks up the vinyl copy. "Ooh, nothing loike voinyl, is there-a!" he hissed. "WHAT IS THIS THE FUCKING JIMMY SAVILE FAN CLUB?" I yelled and got him chucked out.

I mean, record shops, if you want to stay open and attract people, keep the Jimmy Savile types out, otherwise we'll all just stick to Amazon.

wtf?!?

No cheap Blur 2 CD sets in the Edinburgh (Princes St) HMV today but there were a couple in the Fopp on Rose St for a fiver.

That's dull but thanks for the warning treefell. That would've been a wasted trip into town today.

i dont understand what marcello was getting at either

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2008/sep/04/whyrecordsshouldfacethevi

Yes, but unfortunately vinyl outlasted Steven Wells...

only for sad cases and jimmy savile fans/lookalikes/behavealikes.

i am just absolutely sick to the back teeth of record shops being ruined by these stupid pervy old men. obviously the state pension is still too high.

Albums, hmm..

I mean, the racks of "180ton" pressings in HMV right now, hey kids, you like the Arctic Monkeys? Buy the nice LP for £20...

No.

like i said in whatever other thread i said it in, no bias against vinyl per se, just against ageing pervy vinyl fetishists who would doubtless hand over £150 (where do they get it from? *CONTROVERSIAL MOD EDIT*) for a nineteen-cylinder box set of Ron Wood's I've Got My Own Album To Do complete with replica life-size guitar and a phial of Wood's purplish sputum.

There are box sets that have lots of music.

And there are others that (also) have souvenir scarves.

Yeah, coasters I can understand, people use coasters when they are at that 'box set' stage in life.. And they aren't too huge.. Theres some in that "Oh By Rhe Way" Pink Floyd set, and it's still a compact size, hray. but that 'immersion' box for Dark Side.. are you going to dance around the room with the scarf around yr wrist? Oh, sorry, OK, if you want to..

Stil, I don't actually use those coasters (all the CDs after "Obscured" ho ho)

also an actual live tarantula to represent herbie hancock's moog spider jiving, plus your dinner will be cooked specially by stalwart andy newmark and willie weeks.

"This guy George Foreman, years ago, he was a bass player, invented the Foreman grill, absolutely no distortion, totally clean, totally pure sound."

I've never seen these old men in record shops that marcello speaks of. Oldest people I see are usually marcello's age and either buying neil young (cd) box sets or a girls aloud or sugababes cd

Are you suggesting Marcello was talking to his reflection?

absolutely not! he was vile (as in Sa-VILE).

in hamilton all i ever see is old folk buying tommy scott and francie and josie cds out of the charity shop.