HMV goes bust

JUst wondering if what has happened in Ireland over the last few days with HMV is happening elsewhere. Are the UK and Ireland networks still interrelated?
Are there enough shops left in the UK to close only some of them or are they now only one per city/area?

LOoks like there will be something like 3 branches open in the greater dublin area, and possibly a couple in the South. I think one was supposed to be staying open in LImerick and possibly one in Cork but might have that wrong.

Weird to hear that the Grafton street branch which has been there since before I arrived in Dublin has closed today. It presumably closed 3 years ago but I think that was the only time. & I would have thought it was more popular tahn the Henry street branch which is staying open. But Grafton street rent is probably heavier. & price of rent was the first thing that I was told when I saw the place was closing yesterday.

Staff in Galway were apparently only told on Thursday that the place would be closing by the end of the month. Some of them had returned after suddenly havingf their place of business close 3 years ago too.

HMV Canada closing all stores.

:(

I have such good memories of buying records at their massive Vancouver location before it closed down. I was fourteen/fifteen at the time, right around the start of the vinyl revival, and I was learning more and more about music every day. Can't say I've shopped at one of their newer small locations lately but I liked how they were still trucking it out

When did the Yonge St. store open? Don't think I made a single memorable purchase there...My closest friend was a manager there for a while, but their lifetime comes after my heyday as a consumer.

I used to work at A&B sound and it felt like the dying last flame of the physical music store. In reality, this is really it for us Canadians.

The chain I used to work for, Sunrise, still has a store in Toronto's Cloverdale Mall. No idea why, and I'd be surprised if it's still there a year from now. Very small, with at least 10% of the floor space taken up by comically overpriced vinyl no sane person would buy.

Here we go again:
https://news.sky.com/story/2200-jobs-at-risk-as-hmv-on-brink-of-administration-11593091

Our Alice applied at hmv reading about 3 months ago, but I reckon she knew too much, music wise.

And again...

HMV news story = "Buyer found"

Here is a test for you.

Go to Google, enter "HMV" and your nearest/favourite branch, then click on the HMV store locator link.

If it says "Closed", then...

Or:

The alphabetical list follows:

Ayr
Bath
Bluewater
Bristol, Cribbs
Chichester
Exeter, Princesshay
Fopp, Bristol
Fopp, Glasgow Byres
Fopp, Manchester
Fopp, Oxford
Glasgow, Braehead
Guernsey
Hereford
Manchester, Trafford
Merry Hill
Oxford Street
Peterborough, Queensgate
Plymouth, Drake Circus
Reading
Sheffield, Meadowhall
Southport
Thurrock
Tunbridge
Uxbridge
Watford
Westfield
Wimbledon

Oxford Street!

yep.

sorry, what exactly is that a list of?

All the HMV stores that closed for good, today.

Well, strictly speaking, did not open today.

christ

> Westfield

rip. where am i going to buy my Funko Pop! vinyl figures of twin peaks characters now?

(i have been in for dvds and cds about 6 times in the last year, something like that, but it was increasingly t-shirts and funko pop figures)

Fopp Oxford Street?
I thought there was a Fopp Cambridge Circus (though not 100% sure taht's the given address) and an HMV Oxford st (near Bond St station).
So shame if that is permanently gone, has always been a destination point when I've been in London from elsewhere. I think I may have been more likely to go to other branches before that. BUt been so long since there were various branches in London hasn't it?

HMV Oxford St (Bond St)
& Fopp Oxford.

I think the Covent Garden Fopp is still safe... I can check later today.

I am most sad about Byres road, Glasgow ... that was a classic and one of the original Fopps.

I swear there were points in my life I had the vinyl racks in that Byres road Fopp memorised and was across the new inventory better than the staff.

noooooo not byres road fopp :((((

Yeah, I'm surprised about Byres Road - often seems quite busy, excellent location. Once saw Steven Stapleton of NWW shopping there.

Not surprised about the Braehead HMV tho - always near empty whenever I've looked in, and I imagine the shopping centre rates are pretty high.

BIt of a shame to see HMV Bond St go too. Did get along there last Xmas and they had a lot of good stuff in. But I was a bit broke by that point. Good to see you could get the Shirley collins dvd set off teh shelf somewhere mainstream even if i didn't get a copy.
& they used to have an interesting book selection in the 2 for £5 section.
Ah, shame to see taht place go too. I remember walking in there when i was about 13 in my moddy boy days. THough maybe the actual location moved a little over the years. Or was taht the actual original shop, as in the very first one tahtthings branched out from?

I think the current Oxford Street HMV was the original store, but for a while they moved almost directly across the road, and also had that massive flagship store a bit closer to Oxford Circus. At some point they closed down those two stores (plus the one in the Trocadero in Piccadilly Circus) and moved back into the original Oxford St premises.

I thought there was a Fopp Cambridge Circus (though not 100% sure taht's the given address)

There was, it was part of the Waterstone's shop. Didn't last too long.

there may have been one in a Waterstones but the Fopp at Cambridge Circus was/is? a separate shop

it's on Google Street View from April 2018 and I used to go there when I worked in Soho, so up to 10 years ago, so it lasted quite a long time

Oh yeah, always think of that one as "Covent Garden" so yeah.

And yes, it's still there. Popped in after the Ned meetup. Bought nowt.

Google street view of hmv Oxford st is... what exactly is going on there?

hmm, bit dark..

it's just dark?

it also looks like it was done during that pedestrian shopping takeover thing they do in the runup to christmas given the amount of people on the road.

also, raining.

(oh, it says september, so not that)

also, 6 police cars just down a bit

Fopp w'Waterstones in London was Gower st, and a weird hybrid but I see how a premises so close to UCL would be a good bet for Books & CD's. Like most other stores the music got so generic, it was not really able to compete with Spotify.

We had an HMV in Harvard Square and a Waterstones in downtown Boston in the 90s. Great places, frequented them often. They were gone by the early 00's. Who wants to carry books and CDs when you can have it all in your pocket? I get it but I still enjoy physical media.

So, if the HMV in Oxford Street and in Westfield are closed (surprised about the former, not about the latter), are there any HMV stores left in London Zone 1 or 2?

When did FOPP arrive in London. Surprised to see that it only got to Manchester in 2005 if it was starting from Glasgow. But maybe you go to Capital city before you go to closer 2nd or 3rd city?

Not long before that, if it was before it.

Was trying to remember. Thought it was around before i left london. Could swear I was going down to it on Kensington High St.
I'm not finding much of a detailed history online so far.

Most detailed one I can find so far has the shop spreading across the country prior to its appearance in manchester

Waas the Glasgow location the original, initial shop or was it a larger premises they'd moved to?

I think it started as a market stall!

in one of the galleries whose name escapes me

Yes, that's right.

Wonder if I'm thinking about a branch of Tower being on Kensington High st towards where that other market , Hyper Hyper(?) than the famous Kensignton Market.

xp. De’couycey’s Arcade in the West End just off Bryres Road

Used to go into a video game shop in there called CA games lots when i was a kid

That's the one.

De Courcy's even

Lost In Music was in there too and the comics/books/football programmes shop

i vaguely remember that. i only had eyes for the japanese import SNES games however

Lost In Music was great for krautrock or blues. Was never into the latter

Haven't been in De Courcy's arcade since Lost in Music closed, made a nice one-two with the bookshop (Arthurs?).

So is that Byres Road without any record shops?

In a saner world the west end would be consumed by gilets jaunes style unrest, although carefully avoiding damage to the Waitrose

My first encounter with Fopp was when it was a wee corner of an arcade in Sauchiehall St and it was then called A-One Sounds, c. 1985

There's still the Oxfam music shop on Byres Road for yr vinyls and overpriced CDs, but no 'new' record shops that I can think of.

Dearie me, where will the next Belle & Sebastian come from?

rest assured that stuart murdoch is still actively reaching out to younger west end residents

i bought a jimmie dale gilmore album from the byres road Fopp! RIP.

There's still the second hand shop down Ruthven Lane too.

When I moved to Glasgow there was Echo, John Smith's, Fopp, The Lost Chord and Missing all with 1/4 of a mile of each other. Also that shop in the church on Gibson Street, whatever that was called>

?

see y'all back here in 6 years guys

Are we counting the CD shop on the top floor of Smiths? Where crucially you could exchange book tokens for CDs? I laundered well meaning book token presents for CDs there for years....

did stephen pastel serve you?

I get weirdly sentimental for Glasgow record shops, I loved the original Rat records in the Virginia Galleries so much.

Fopp, Oxford

aw RIP. I'll miss it at least as much for the cheapo books as the music tbh (also the international DVD section)

there were a few books and gifts I was eyeing over xmas, should've bought myself more presents

xxp I was most disappointed when I went to Mono a few years ago that Stephen Pastel wasn't working that day

You hoped he would service you.

I loved theJohn Smith's record shop even though I only had access to it for under a year. Came back after Summer 2000 and was gutted to discover it had become a Starbucks. Obviously, Monorail replaced it 2 or 3 years later but there was something special about it. I ended up being able to use that space as a practice room for about 5 years until the third or so new manager couldn't work out why were there and had access to the top floor and their electricity, so eventually got booted out, but it was nice to occupy what had once been a brilliant shop.

I worked in braehead for a few years and nearly every day I passed HMV they were playing Reef's "Place Your Hands", that alone made me question what business decisions were being made across the business

I still don't get why they haven't started doing trade-ins like Game, also their tech section is a grisly experience regardless of whatever brance you venture into looking for replacement headphones

HMV had a scheme a few years back where they'd buy secondhand CDs and give you credit to use in store. I got rid of a right load of rubbish which I'd acquired over the years and then bought box sets and blu rays with my credit.

Trade ins on Video Games, have a lifespan of about 6 months and after that drop in value quite quickly, as the new price in stores drops quickly. The console generation changes also keep things limited to most recent generations. You also can complete Video games, so they lose their worth to the consumer as well.

With Music Trade ins you might well be trading in stuff over a decade old, or stuff that easily available elsewhere. It just fills the store with Melanie Chisholm solo albums and MOS dubstep compilations.

http://i67.tinypic.com/15rbloh.png

try Glasgow more, indeed