Yesterdays business new was that the UKs last national chain of Media (Music and Video) shops has filed for bankruptcy for the second time in four years https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46700080 I must admit that I have only been in there once in about the last five years, buying one DVD while I was there. I did enjoy my visit though being a bit of a nostalgia trip. Back in the 1990s I was probably buying an item in HMV every month or two, and twice that amount in Woolworths, which had a branch on my local high street. Nowadays the majority of my media comes from charity shops. CDs and DVDs for less than £1 are just too tempting. A couple of weeks ago I picked up this LP When the Fame series was on TV I was a big fan. Other UK viewers were as well as this LP was Number 1 in the UK charts for twelve weeks However, the thing that I thought was most interesting was the fact that it still had the original price label on the front £5.49. Assuming it was bought in 1982, when most of these were sold, the Bank of England inflation calculator says that is the equivalent of £18.45 today. About the same as vinyl today. The difference is that I could imagine them selling hundreds of thousands of these. Michael Jacksons Thriller from the same year sold over four million copies in the UK. That is a lot of turnover which just doesn't exist for Physical media shops these days. The local antiques market has two stalls selling Vinyl. Will that, and small independents be the only place to get Physical Media in the future ?
I heard that on the news about HMV being in trouble again. I go to HMV most weeks and I do buy stuff most weeks, the last thing I bought was a few days before Christmas and it was the DVD of Deer Hunter. Everything is stacked up against HMV these days and I think their days are numbered, shame really. Times have changed, they cannot compete with the online retailers or the downloading and streaming brigade. For them to survive they would need to seriously downsize and diversify.
There have been various articles all year about how town centres in general are struggling. A common complaint in the comments is the price of parking. Here in Bournemouth the large Marks and Spencer in the town centre closed down this year. The similar size one on the edge of town (where parking is free) is still there. I think part of the problem is that the decline is self perpetuating. Before the internet you would have gone to buy something in M&S (or BHS or C&A which were all within 100m of each other), had a look at the latest gadgets in Dixons opposite, over to HMV behind M&S to have a browse and end up buying a CD or two. Now the only reason to go to the town centre is to visit the bank. Back to pricing of media I have just started spring cleaning and have found about 6 CDs and DVDs that hadn't even made it out of the shopping bags. One is Goldfrapp - Black Cherry, bought from that well known Music Retailer Poundland as part of their shrink-wrapped replay range. A big change from the 1980s when I would go into town specifically to visit a shop that sold LPs (Greek imports of UK bands) for the bargain price of £4 instead of the usual £5.49
Physically owning a movie or album back in the 80's and 90's was such a big deal and consumers would have shelves lined with media, just like owning books was popular before that. With the change in delivery and the younger generation's desire to be less encumbered, the old model is no longer effective. Not only that but we've really gone towards one hit on the album and lot's of filler after that, so there's little reason to buy an entire album. Luckily there's still a ton of value in older music and smaller mom-and-pop stores are doing ok reselling "used" music. While I rarely look at new music in a commercial setting, if I see a vintage shop I'll stop in and check it out and sometimes come out with a tape or album. I feel like the stores were much cooler in the old days, ours had albums, a waterbed showroom, Japanese Clothes (cuz Bruce Lee was big), bongs, and a nice selection of "underground comics" They had in-store visits whenever a big band was playing the local arena and it was cozy like some of the newer coffee shops. We have Best Buy over here and they are still holding on but it was panic time a few years ago. I rarely shop there because everything I bought in the 90's would quit working 6-12 months after I bought it and they would do nothing to replace it.
I was going to add this, it seems music review magazines are dropping off a cliff as well. https://longreads.com/2018/12/27/where-have-all-the-music-magazines-gone/
Best Buy lasted four years over here. I don't think the name worked very well as everyone expected them to be much cheaper than long established retailers Currys and at the time Comet. Interestingly, apart from in Department stores and Supermarkets the crossover between electrical stores and media stores seemed to disappear by the end of the 1960s in the UK. Regarding magazines, Smash Hits, which at one time was hugely popular, ceased publishing in 2006, a year after Top of the Pops stopped being shown regularly. These days I have to wait until their Christmas day special to see who many of the people and groups I here at Dance class actually are. NME - New Musical Express only survived by becoming a website and free magazine https://www.nme.com/ Along with Vinyl, the one growth area in Magazines and Music TV seems to be Nostalgia. Looking at the NME site proved my point completely, with Yoko Ono, and Sly and the Family Stone on the home page Over Christmas you could hardly go two days without there being a "Christmas Hits" programme inevitably showing Slade and Wizard back in the 1970s. In the Newsagents there seems to be a rotating schedule of thick, expensive magazines about David Bowie, Fleetwood Mac, or Queen. Referring to the latter the Bohemian Rhapsody film (which gets a 10/10 from me) must have raised interest interest in them even more. I guess people will still remember Queen when people like Adele have been long forgotten
HMV sucked the life out of the soho record stores by putting a giant store at the top of Berwick Street. So it’s done enough damage, and now it’s dead. That, and it’s a dvd shop more than a music store, for the last 20 years. Won’t miss it
A related article about the decline in CD sales in both the UK and USA over the last ten years https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-46735093 of course it doesn't include second hand CD sales. Seeing Fleetwod Mac - Rumours at No.2 in Vinyl sales made me think about how you never see classic albums like that in Charity shops. In contrast CDs like Robbie Williams - Sing when you're winning seem to appear all the time. I once found three copies in the same shop ! Back on subject the BBC has a programme "Desert Island Discs" which has been going since 1942 in which a famous person has to choose eight pieces of music they would like if marooned, Robinson Crusoe style, on a Desert Island and talk about their choices. https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/articles/1c9f8ee5-147e-4eeb-ad9a-3417443a0436 Of course the concept would never work if the person had an unlimited amount of streaming (although of course if they had an internet connection they could simply ask to be rescued) which would completely remove the key point of the programme. Personally I think it will be a shame that in forty years time kids won't be able to go through their parents music collection and ask "who was Ed Sheeran". Without some kind of physical media artists could be forgotten as fast as they came to fame.
I'll be sorry to see it go, I much prefer to own a physical copy of something over a download, and seeing as there isn't much choice other than HMV to buy actual cd's and the like from (other than some of the supermarkets but their music and film selection is somewhat limited), it does leave us with hardly anywhere to actually buy from. Sure there are a few independents around, but they are few and far between these days as well. It screams of mis-management to me, like most companies that fold (Woolworths I'm looking at you!)
I would agree with you on that regarding Woolworths. The first thing I thought when I went in Wilko was that it is just like Woolworths circa 1979. One of my Christmas presents from my sister was a large pot of Wilko own brand Pick and Mix. However, I doubt whether many people would want to pick up a single at the same time these days. Something I heard recently about Woolworths was it was them who suggested to Pete Waterman that if he got Kylie and Jason to do a single together they would order 250000 copies. "Especially for You" sold over a 1million copies in the UK alone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Especially_for_You Whether you like that type of music or not it kept a lot of shops and pressing plants busy.
The latest news is that they have been rescued again with more than one company interested. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47127520 Is anyone here familiar with the Canadian Sunrise Records ?
