As you know by now, HMV have gone into administration. This has weirdly enough resulted in an outpouring of heartfelt #hmvmemories where people recount just how much the shop has meant to them over the years. Not the last few years though, when they were too busy buying music online if they weren’t downloading it for free. Given that HMV have spent the last five years becoming home to the world’s largest collection of shite TV series boxsets and over-priced headphones, it’s probably fair to say that the damage was done a long time ago and by the time the administrators arrived, the rot was set so deep within that it had repainted the walls and ordered new furniture for itself.
As much as one must lament the loss of jobs and the anger that shop-floor staff are going to face from customers who can’t redeem the vouchers they got at Christmas (a sly, dirty move that), the people to blame are the ones at the top who, for a decade and a half really, had been ignoring every development in the music retail industry and sticking fruitlessly to their ever-depleting guns. When Napster made it exceedingly simply to download as much music as you wanted for free at the end of the 90s, HMV did nothing. When Play and Amazon made it exceedingly simple to order as many CDs as you like from the comfort of your couch, for not very much money, and have them delivered to you promptly, HMV did nothing. Well, they diversified into DVD box-sets and electronics like headphones, iPods and video games, not realising that high-speed broadband would take care of the former and Amazon the latter.
HMV could not take the route that some of the indie record shops did and become self-consciously niche outlets, priding themselves on being more informed, more social and more adventurous, supposedly. No, HMV had to go the opposite direction and become totally reliant on major label support in a strange, too-big-to-fail kind of deal. Those at the head seemed to remain blind to the fact that major labels are now reliant on live entertainment spectacles involving massive technology company sponsorship and TV shows to make money. Their physical product is quite far down the list of priorities at this stage.
This all seems disturbingly obvious to almost everyone you talk to. Why it wasn’t disturbingly obvious to the people involved will remain a mystery, even to them probably. There are some things to be sad about, especially looking back on teenage years when three for a tenner CD options in HMV and places like it provided me with the bulk of my collection and introduced me to people like De La Soul, Public Image and Elliot Smith. Being able to walk into a massive shop and flick through loads of CDs by people who I knew or knew of and wanted to hear was great. It’s not exactly something I feel is missing from my life (hello, Youtube) but still, physically browsing is definitely its own thrill.
That little thing is not enough to save an obsolete behemoth from certain death though and nor should it be. If you’re going to take full advantage of the capitalist system for 25-30 years, then you must be willing to adapt with it or die in the dust of consumers marching elsewhere. Music as an object has moved from a dominant market/social position into something that is niche. It had its brief time in the sun but that’s now finished. Beats by Dre or iPads or flatscreen tvs have taken over. Its just how it works. You cannot stay static in a system predicated on constant change and HMV are paying the price for that now. C’est la vie.
Go buy a record in an independent shop if you feel bad. Buy one direct from an artist. There is no need for HMV, the market has decided.
