HMV in administration (again).....

I don't usually agree with Barbara Ellen's columns in The Observer, but this one is spot on.  As she says, many of today's music consumers are as lazy and over-entitled as the old music biz was.

https://www.theguardian.com/co...mv#comment-124167409

Yes, it sums things up pretty well. Out of interest, is TheKevster your good self? ‘Immiseration’ sounds familiar....

hungryhalibut posted:

Out of interest, is TheKevster your good self? ‘Immiseration’ sounds familiar....

Yes Nigel it is... well spotted!

It’s a good comment. It amazes me how bands keep going, and even more how they get started, with record sales being so low. When I was in my teens, in Worthing, we had two excellent independent record shops, as well as extensive vinyl sections in Smiths, Boots and Woolworths. That’s five shops in one ordinary town. They didn’t have all the indie stuff, so it was a case of hopping on the train to Virgin in Brighton, which at that time was a wonderful shop. HMV, certainly in Chichester, is a pretty sad state of affairs, with a very limited range, but at least it’s there, and gives jobs to its knowledgeable staff. I of course have contributed to their woes, as I no longer buy physical albums but download from Qobuz, Bandcamp and various labels. 

If you have a look at companies house, there are at least NINE companies that could possibly be related to the HMV retail scandal. Maplin had at least 5 companies. It is all one big game of start another company when one is having financial problems until it all goes pop. 

ursus262 posted:

And yet independent dealers are doing really well.  There is an excellent dealer in the Antiques Centre in Hebden Bridge where we get our records from.  He really knows his stuff and is highly recommended.

He’s very good, also worth trying the Muse store opposite the CoOp where Sid has a good selection of albums in good nick. And his wife’s café in the other half of the shop does some excellent cakes. (My late wife used  to describe it as the most expensive café in the world as I walked out with a bulging bag of vinyl and CDs after 2 tea and cakes.) 

I think this actually explains the other aspect of HMV’s demise, I go into the dealer in Hebden Bridge mentioned above and Muse I mentioned, and Revo I n Halifax. Both Muse and Revo have a lot of good second hand vinyl and silver disc, but also a selection of the newer remastered box-sets aimed at the older music buyer, so the new Bowie/Beatles/Zep... box-sets. So they get my custom for those if they have them, HMV doesn’t have the same pull to bring me in as they lack the wide choice in my genres that these people have in the second hand section.

hungryhalibut posted:

It’s a good comment. It amazes me how bands keep going, and even more how they get started, with record sales being so low. 

I think it may be somewhat easier in this day and age than it was before Digital took over. Casting my mind back to the mid-eighties when I was part of a band starting out with a recording contract, the company "advance" was used to pay for a studio (and all that entails), plus the first single pressing. These days, there's no physical media (vinyl, cassette, CD), to pay for so overheads are lower and profits therefore higher. I think it's genius - you can't buy digital music secondhand unlike like CD's, cassettes and vinyl so it's a cash cow for artists and labels.

It's very sad and I feel sorry for the many staff affected.  I used to periodically go in to their Southampton store (but it closed earlier this year) and each time their classical section had diminished in size and quality making me even less likely to buy, as a result my visits tailed off.  It's a vicious circle, stop stocking items and fewer people visit and fewer of them buy.  HMV's prices were almost always higher than buying on line - often similar to the extortionate cost of online hi-res purchases.  Amazon is undercutting every market it sells in, and when their competition goes out of business, guess what Amazon will do with its prices!  You have been warned!

HMV used to be a real pleasure to visit - you could spend hours searching the racks and making discoveries you knew nothing about beforehand.  Browsing on line is convenient, but there is no substitute for seeing physical stock - I think of complete sets of operas, boxed sets and some of the educational type of releases which are often accompanied by informative and attractive booklets.

I read somewhere recently that many of the HMV stores are in themselves profitable - hard to reconcile this with the second visit from administrators. 

I must admit to using HMV, I work in London and so pop into the Oxford St store to get stuff. I still find it amazing they never seen to have any classical vinyl in their flagship store. Sadly I have a loyalty card which I stupidly was "saving up" for a shop and had over £200 on it .... I will never learn.

On another note I do like to take my kids to a more local one as I was finding they were downloading music and just going with the "you downloaded this and so might like..." buttons and seem to be listening to the same sort of stuff over and over. I remember as a kid (like many on here) going to a shop and spending hours looking through the racks and buying stuff because I liked the cover artwork or seeing an album I had forgotten about but a mate said was good etc. I think my tastes are pretty broad and it all stems from that and so am trying to get my kids off streaming and onto physical stuff for this very reason. I don't want to get into the whole streaming/physical debate but I do think as a kid and when you are growing up it is good to listen to as many different types of music as you can rather than just sticking with same stuff. My kids get inflicted with everything from Joy Division/Classical/Bowie/Orbital/Fat boy slim etc etc and it is lovely to hear them say "I quite like this Dad, what is it?" I really feel downloading is getting the yoof to be more silo'd in their tastes for it.

Kevin-W posted:

ChrisSU posted:

I don't see it as sad at all. Music has never been more accessible than it is now, which is a change for the good in my books, and HMV weren't a part of that. People bemoan the loss of Post Offices, coal mines, and all sorts of things, but the truth is that when we have better alternatives, it's time to move on.

There may be better alternatives to coal mines, but there isn't a better alternative to a Post Office or a good record shop. If there is/are, do enlighten us.

There is also a price to be paid for the "acccessibilty" you drool over, which is the commodification of music. All artistic endeavour depends on scarcity and/or inaccessibility to some extent. Ever-easier access to music does little except to devalue it. 

Once something has no perceived or real value, it becomes disposable. This leads to the immiseration of artists and increased homogeneity. If things carry on as they are at some point we'll reach a moment when nobody is willing to pay for music and artists won't create it. Everyone loses.

HMV may not be a class-leading retailer, but its demise is sad and a dismal sign of the times; and your post is rather crass and short sighted.

Identifying changes in the external environment and responding accordingly is a critical management responsibility in all businesses. I don’t see the point in lamenting the loss of High Street retailers that have failed to spot changes in consumer behaviour or the impact of advances in technology. “Business” is subject to the laws of natural selection just as much as we are, so if HMV (etc) consistently fail to evolve or adapt to their external environment then, at some point, extinction (bankruptcy) becomes inevitable. This is a sad and dismal sign of poor management (imho).

I don’t see a connection between the demise of HMV and “commodification” or immiseration theory - I think you have conflated these matters.

ynwa250505 posted:

Identifying changes in the external environment and responding accordingly is a critical management responsibility in all businesses. I don’t see the point in lamenting the loss of High Street retailers that have failed to spot changes in consumer behaviour or the impact of advances in technology. “Business” is subject to the laws of natural selection just as much as we are, so if HMV (etc) consistently fail to evolve or adapt to their external environment then, at some point, extinction (bankruptcy) becomes inevitable. This is a sad and dismal sign of poor management (imho).

I don’t see a connection between the demise of HMV and “commodification” or immiseration theory - I think you have conflated these matters.

I think HMV has faced multiple challenges which were still a hangover from it's first bail-out. Some of these (such as a poorly-conceived digital download business) and maintaining unprofitable stores), could have been addressed. Others, such as the cultural shift away from physical media and the tax advantages competitors like Amazon enjoy, weren't. I do not think it's anything to do with the demise of the high street - Waterstone's is an example of a company which has seemingly bucked the digital trend. Curry's and Argos are also holding their own. Whilst I think it's a shame when well-established high street brands disappear, it also makes me angry when it comes to light that the business could have been saved had it not been for the reluctance of Directors and Management, and a lack of intervention by investors. This has been borne out by Mike Ashley who saw a viable business in HOF and whose first action upon taking over the reins was to fire the entire management team. It probably boils down to a retail "natural selection" process where some businesses succeed and some don't.