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HMV about to enter adminastration!
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vince
vince
1628 posts

Re: HMV about to enter adminastration!
Jan 15, 2013, 02:47
"HMV were also always expensive. Slightly less so then Our Price..."

I worked for OP/Virgin for about 14 years and this wasn't strictly true...OP were always cheaper than HMV...until WH Smith, and then Virgin took over, then things were never the same again.
In their early days (pre-86) OP were just about the cheapest on the High St. Sure, we were a large-ish organisation trying to make money but at it's core, the over-riding feeling was that it was always about the music. Always. It's no surprise to me that most of the people who write for Record Collector and those who run the back catalogue reissue schedules for Sony, Warners, Universal etc are all ex-OP folk. All music obsessives.
OP were always - in my humble opinion at least - unfairly maligned. The beauty of OP was that every store was different, each had it's own personality built around both the people that shopped there AND those who worked there. And that is what Virgin (in their later years)and HMV always lacked - the ability to be unique.

It's a myth also that retailers didn't try to get a grip on the impending technlogy changes...they were fighting tooth and nail to be heard but the labels just didn't get it. They were warned on an almost daily basis (I was in some of those meetings!)but the majors figured they were big enough to beat it by doing the same old thing. They were complacent, ignorant & more than anything else...frightened. Ultimately, retailers are only as strong as the quality & range of the product they sell.

Nevertheless....it's the end of an era. Where are teenagers going to hang out, meet up & form bands without record stores? I had many great friends who worked for Nipper. It's very sad. But ultimately very predictable.
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