The death of the high street record store

Today I was shocked by the news that HMV is to close 60 stores and its shares have plummeted. Shocked is perhaps the wrong word, I suppose the writing has been on the wall for some time, what with record industry in freefall and pretty much everything being available cheaper online. So I thought I would jot down some of my memories.

I remember my first experience of purchasing music, I can still picture the old Our Price in Exeter (I think it's a Starbucks now). I used to love Our Price, which as a chain was later consumed by Virgin Megastores, and I have a vivid memory of purchasing Kula Shaker 'K' on tape in the old Exeter store.

I worked at this HMV on Exeter High St. for over 2 years. My job there was as a back catalogue Cd buyer (I bought all the Cds for the shop that weren't chart or singles), I look back on that job with mostly fond memories. I used to often be the only person downstairs during the week and pretty much had a free reign as to what I wanted to play in the shop. It seemed then like the high street record shop was booming, we were increasing our year on year sales and getting nice bonuses.

After my degree I worked at Virgin Megastores for a while, which shortly after became Zavvi, and shortly after that folded completely. The original Virgin Megastores in Exeter was where the new Next is, I remember going into that shop the day it opened and buying a Blur cd. Tribute should also be played to Solo Records in Exeter, where I've bought too many albums and seen a few good bands play too. Solo is now a Shaker Maker, milkshake outlet.....

OK I may still be young but I remember the high street record shop to be somewhere I used to waste my Saturday afternoons, whether as an employee or customer. So where did it all go wrong? We can't put this down purely to illegal downloading, even if the record companies would have us believe this is the case. I think another factor has to lie in the prices that are offered by the Amazons and Play.coms of this world.

Whatever the cause of this decline, a decline we are in, and one we have no control over. With independant record stores pretty much wiped out, except for the wonderful Banquet Records, it would be a shame if we lost the high street record shop too. I for one would much rather spend my Saturday afternoon flicking through CDs in our Fopp records, Exeter only real last bastion than trawl through its online competitors.

A sad day indeeed.