Head To Head
Log In
Register
Unsung Forum »
HMV about to enter adminastration!
Log In to post a reply

Pages: 13 – [ Previous | 1 2 3 4 5 6 | Next ]
Topic View: Flat | Threaded
ars moriendi
ars moriendi
433 posts

Re: HMV about to enter adminastration!
Jan 14, 2013, 23:52
I find their shops soulless, their 'sales' cynical, their overall pricing a piss take, their door staff intimidating, and their till staff frustratingly banal.

However I LOVE this shop (my local) http://www.musemusicandlovecafe.co.uk/about-muse-music/
anthonyqkiernan
anthonyqkiernan
7087 posts

Re: HMV about to enter adminastration!
Jan 15, 2013, 00:42
Moon Cat wrote:
And it's a nice little place to potter round.

The problem with HMV, for me, had been its lack of rummagibility or potteringness
dave clarkson
2988 posts

Edited Jan 15, 2013, 02:49
Re: HMV about to enter adminastration!
Jan 15, 2013, 02:08
Not too sad about this news really apart from the jobs going. Tend to agree with Ars Moriendi above. HMV global left behind the innocence of youth many many years back. Anyone could see the signs of closure - pc tablets, clothes, m and m's, etc. I've also never seen a shop sell so many different types of shit head phones.

HMV were always expensive. Slightly less so then Our Price records back in the day but still taking the piss. No wonder they acquired FOPP and Zavvi - they were serious threats to their business. Their biggest mistake was not reforming their business model especially as a commercial website retailer embracing new methods of music acquisition.

HMV never stocked or supported small labels unless you had the cash for bar coding your CDs. They didn't support new music. FOPP were slightly better in this way and remain the traditional or 'hippy' angle of the HMV business model. Hopefully they can find a way of the FOPP survival - think there's definitely the market for it.

Got a HMV token as a Xmas present and spent nearly a whole afternoon looking for something new and interesting - ended up spending it on a music magazine and a box set of Most Haunted. If it was an Amazon token it would have taken me 30 minutes to find something.

It's kind of nice thinking that the tangible stuff is increasingly being left to folks like us trading through websites and the small gathering of independent shops too. Less is more.

8)
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.
dave clarkson
2988 posts

Edited Jan 15, 2013, 03:21
Re: HMV about to enter adminastration!
Jan 15, 2013, 03:05
If FOPP survives then kids could still hang out but think they are more likely to want something different.

Take your point about Our Price. My opinion based on past purchasing and bad memory. Mate of mine worked for OP and remember a general vibe of educated music fans employed in the shop. He even had control one day of promoting the new Foetus album and playing it all day when the boss was absent! Guess those were the days of less aggressive retailers.

8)
Kid Calamity
9042 posts

Re: HMV about to enter adminastration!
Jan 15, 2013, 08:25
Sorry, but I'm not in mourning.

The likes of HMV drove small, independent stores from our towns. Then, they started stocking mainstream music. Then, they even reduced that, in favour of mainstream DVDs.

Maybe now, those little record shops will return.
Toni Torino
2299 posts

Re: HMV about to enter adminastration!
Jan 15, 2013, 08:28
Yeah, Our Price in Ealing Broadway was a decent record store, HMV in Ealing Broadway was a DVD store with some CDs in the basement.
Kid Calamity
9042 posts

Re: HMV about to enter adminastration!
Jan 15, 2013, 08:57
Yup. I think I'll go along with that. Nice one, Dave.
veneta1
223 posts

Re: HMV about to enter adminastration!
Jan 15, 2013, 09:09
What I could never understand about HMV (apart from the ludicrously inflated prices) was the inability to understand the market they were dealing with, and the lack of a response to change. With the rekindling of interest in vinyl you would have thought that this would have been an area for HMV to exploit but the shop in Manchester had a magazine style rack pinned to a pillar that held no more than 40-50 albums and that was it.

Fopp, on the other hand, have expanded their vinyl section and it's a great place to shop for decently priced reissues. I bought a couple of Isaac Hayes albums for a tenner each only last Saturday.

Apart from the loss of jobs I really couldn't care less about HMV disappearing but I hope that Fopp can be salvaged from the wreckage.
Sin Agog
Sin Agog
2253 posts

Re: HMV about to enter adminastration!
Jan 15, 2013, 09:23
Canne say I disagree but 1960s His Master's Voice looked pretty swank!

http://londonist.com/2011/08/in-pictures-inside-the-1960s-oxford-street-hmv.php?showpage=1#gallery-1
Pages: 13 – [ Previous | 1 2 3 4 5 6 | Next ] Add a reply to this topic

Unsung Forum Index