It was recently announced that HMV had gone into administration for the second time in six years, and in some small way, I feel partly responsible. Years ago I liked nothing more than browsing in record shops - and as names like Harlequin, Our Price Records, and Virgin disappeared from our High Streets - HMV became just about the only one left. But even as I was still browsing, I was buying less from them. Gradually I found myself walking through their doors less and less. In fact my only visits to HMV would either be at Christmas (generally to buy a CD or DVD as a gift that I had left it too late to buy online), or while on a visit to Lakeside or Bluewater when, not having the patience to follow my wife around a store she wanted to visit, I would mooch around the displays in HMV.
On such visits to HMV, I usually gravitate to the racks featuring bands I like and more often than not find myself comparing the prices that HMV charge and the price I paid online. That is, of course, if HMV stock these artists anyway. It may be an unsupported belief on my part, but HMV has always struck me as a bit expensive, although that said my most recent purchase from them, Steve Winwood's 1980 album, Arc Of A Diver, was no cheaper on Amazon.
But even if they have been competitive on price, HMV's business has been vulnerable for a while, thanks to a general change in our shopping habits, and a change specific to the way in which we consume HMV's two main product lines, music and video.[1] When I was in HMV in Romford just before Christmas it was noticeable that the number of shoppers queuing at the tills was much smaller than I've seen in the past; downloads and streaming have meant fewer people wanting to buy physical media, and those who do increasingly buy it online.
In the wake of the news about HMV, Guardian journalist Penny Anderson wrote a piece about the chain's demise and why we don't need them any more (Thank you for the music, HMV, but we don’t need you any more) which I - and many others if my Twitter feed is anything to go by - found to be a rather unnecessary hatchet job on the retailer. " You wouldn’t expect to find knowledgeable advice," Anderson wrote, which was not my experience. She described HMV as " the first port of call for beginners and general music consumers," as if this was a bad thing. By definition, beginners have to start somewhere, and where better than a store like HMV that stocks a huge and diverse range of artists? And where better for your maiden aunt, or grandmother, with no understanding of your musical taste beyond the name of a band you like, and no access to online shopping, to go buy you a CD for your birthday?
Streaming and downloads have done for HMV's business what online shopping has done for others, and although I'm not a fan of streaming or downloading music - I'd much rather have a CD - I admit that I'm increasingly less likely to buy DVDs these days, preferring to stream them since I'm likely to watch films and TV programmes just once, and of course since my internet connection is now up to the task. I do occasionally download music, but only if a physical CD of the material is not available - and sometimes it isn't. Sometimes this can be because the album in question is old or because the band have only released it in mp3 format. This latter reason is due to the fact that many of the bands I like are either not signed up to major labels and therefore release their music through companies like Bandcamp as downloads only - like The Swan Chorus - or whose CDs HMV don't stock - Lifesigns, or Doris Brendel for example - or IQ, whose back catalogue of eleven studio albums, eight live albums and four compilations is represented at HMV by just one, the 25th anniversary remix of Ever.
The internet has made the world a radically different place to what it was when I first started buying records, and I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to browse through the racks in HMV, Virgin et al, over the years. In the future, it looks like the supermarkets are going to be one of the few options for people who want to go out and buy a CD or DVD, which will only be OK if you want something from the top twenty of either.
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| HMV's Bluewater store, one of the stores likely to go the same way as Harlequin Records. |
One of the HMV stores likely to close is my local one in Romford, and if the list of others set to close is right, then it's possible that I'll never set foot in one of their stores again, even if the chain does survive.[2] While this is an inevitable consequence of the way the world of retail is changing, that is as much my fault as anyones.
[1] Note: I'm using video as a convenient coverall for DVD and Blu-ray, movies and TV programmes.
[2] A full list of stores that will probably close can be found here: https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/full-list-hmv-stores-risk-13785534
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