SPECIAL POST ALERT – HMV Love

Save HMV! Look at the cute dog - don't let him starve!

Right. I was just on Le Twittere when I started to talk about HMV and I realised I couldn’t do it in just a couple of tweets – this deserves a whole blog post! And my first off-topic blog post too. Extra special.

Basically, I went Christmas shopping back in December in Brent Cross shopping centre and I was hoping to buy some DVDs and a CD. So, first port of call – HMV. Since Zavvi and Virgin Megastore went under it is the go-to place to buy media items when you’re on the high street. Obviously it would be better to buy them from an independent store, but the effort to keep most of those afloat died a death a long time ago, making it tricky to find one unless you make a special effort.

Anyway, so there I was looking around for an HMV and I found a shopping centre map (I’m dragging this out to make it more dramatic – can you tell?) – I looked under ‘H’: nothing. Under ‘Technology’, or whatever category there was,: nothing. Shock horror! Where am I supposed to go for CDs or DVDs? WHSmith? No! Well then my buying plans are screwed and I can’t make those purchases today, I have to either buy them from Amazon or on another day. And it is here that I realise how much I love, and need, HMV.

I have nothing against Amazon and other online stores, in fact they are pretty amazing, if you want something a bit more obscure especially, but by driving down their prices they have completely pushed HMV out and now they are in danger of folding. Not only is this bad for business, economy, staff etc., it means if you want to buy physical items like albums and DVDs whilst out shopping, you just can’t, you are forced to do it online.

Yes, online shopping is the norm now, prices are low, and you can get almost anything you want, but it does mean you have to wait for your items to be delivered, rely on the post system and have the faff of collecting bigger parcels if you’re not in when it’s delivered (and most people who work won’t be). And, this is my main annoyance with Amazon and the rest, you can’t properly browse. I mean, they do offer you items based on your past purchases and pages dedicated to genres and the like, but there’s only so much there until you have to start searching yourself. The good thing about HMV is that there is so much laid out on display, particularly at the front of the store, that you can find things you would never have thought of searching for, and probably wouldn’t have been suggested to you by Amazon. It reminds you of films that you remember being released at the cinema but never bothered to see (usually the not great films but which are fun, easy-viewing types) and it’s useful for finding things for other people as it gives you more ideas – though probably more dilemmas too – than you would usually have.

HMV is obviously also at risk of dying because of digital downloads from iTunes and streaming or downloading films and TV programmes on the internet. I think eventually everything will probably become digital – we’ve been slowly making storage devices smaller and smaller and I think it’s natural for media to be found on the smallest form yet – digital megabytes. But for now, and I do hope it continues as long as it can, I like having something tangible. I always feel with music if it’s a band/artist/album I really like, then I need to have the physical copy of it. There’s something about examining the cover and the sleeve notes that you can’t replace online. And it feels like you’ve made an effort when you’ve bought a physical copy – an effort that you feel that band deserves for making such great music. I have also made a conscious decision to buy more music physically since I realised my love and pride for HMV, hoping that I can do my little bit to keep them going.

Basically, HMV is a hub for music, films, TV and games; all the things that bring me, and most people, much joy. It would be a damn shame if there was no longer a physical space for you to go and explore these things. I also feel similarly about Waterstones and books. We need to keep these stores alive that allow us to be in the same place as all these words, lyrics, notes, scenes and pictures.

So, I don’t know if it needs it yet, but I want to start the Save HMV campaign. I’ve seen there is a page on Facebook already for it, but as I’m not on there I can’t ‘Like’ it, or whatever you do these days. The problem is I don’t know how to run a campaign. Am I supposed to organise an event? Maybe we could all have HMV parties where we go to our local HMV with as many people as possible and just spend the evening there (hopefully buying things but not going broke)?? That would be cool, but I don’t really have enough of a ‘following’ to start something, so I’m just going to have to state my love for them and get quietly very annoyed and angered if, or probably when, they go under.

So: Save HMV! Save the high street! LOVE HMV!

OK, ramble over.

L x