The end of the high street music retailer?

What about Borders? They had a whole floor of music and movies last time I was in Kingston....and still do, according to their website

I did try Borders - not much to write home about. DVDs and CDs shared half the basement floor, and it didn't amount to much imho. Indeed I was the only person on the floor. Felt like being in Woolworths and Zavvi in their final days (the CD section, not Borders as a whole).

As for the Beatles, they had a small stand with a selection (I'm sure it wasn't all of them) of the individual cd's, but certainly no sign of the box-set.

I was just a stone's throw away in Richmond Park, enjoying the sun

 

Thanks to Government policies, music retailers will disappear soon. You get huge bargains when you buy them online, as many of the warehouses are located in Jersey etc, & do not attract taxes. Tesco has started some DVDs & CDs through vending machines, which again escapes the taxes, for some reason.

The only place to buy music from in my town centre is W H Smiths! That's it!

margetti:

Went into Kingston today to see (and touch and feel i.e. what you can't do with internet shopping) the Beatles box-set before deciding on whether to buy or just go down the individual cd route.

I don't understand this. Why does it matter? Aren't you buying the music? You can't touch music.

Rip the CDs and bung them in the loft.

Just think with all the people who buy on-line,it gonna eat away at the high street,We only have ourselves to blame,And not just the goverment.

Messiah:

The only place to buy music from in my town centre is W H Smiths! That's it!

Same here!

In my local town centre (Fareham, Hampshire) the following retailers who sold CDs, DVDs etc, have closed down over the past decade:

Our Price, Sam Goody, Woolworths, MVC, and John Menzies.

Boots (who are still open) stopped selling CDs years ago!

 

Brian123:

Messiah:

The only place to buy music from in my town centre is W H Smiths! That's it!

Same here!

In my local town centre (Fareham, Hampshire) the following retailers who sold CDs, DVDs etc, have closed down over the past decade:

Our Price, Sam Goody, Woolworths, MVC, and John Menzies.

Boots (who are still open) stopped selling CDs years ago!

 

Pretty much like ours ( Redditch, Worc's ) only WH Smiths stopped selling them about 18 months ago.

We just have HMV in the town centre now.

PJPro:

margetti:

Went into Kingston today to see (and touch and feel i.e. what you can't do with internet shopping) the Beatles box-set before deciding on whether to buy or just go down the individual cd route.

I don't understand this. Why does it matter? Aren't you buying the music? You can't touch music.Rip the CDs and bung them in the loft.

Because on this occasion I wanted to see for myself what the £170 box-set offered over buying the cd's individually, which I felt I could do easier and quicker in-store than reading the marketing blurb on the online retailers websites. There has been a lot of talk about the packaging that comes with these albums, so that was something I wanted to check for myself that you can't really do online.

 On a more general note, the trip out turned out to be a bit of nostalgia for the days of going out to the local music shop and having a good old browse... of finding an unexpected bargain or an unplanned purchase... comparing prices with the shop down the road... I guess you can argue you can do that online, but it's not quite the same in my book...

If any of you fancy a day out try the West End of Glasgow. I had to put my car in for a recall and it was a nice day so I went for a walk. Called in at Sevenoaks and Glasgow Audio for a nosey about. Then went to Fopp and they had a load of King Crimson albums for a fiver each. Then went to the Oxfam Record shop, another second hand record shop down a lane off Byres Rd, the Shelter charity shop and finally Lost In Music in Park Rd. I aso spent an hour on the internet for free checking out the forum at Hillhead library, where they enrolled me as a visitor there and then. A nice lunch at one of the numerous cafes and returned to a fixed, washed and hoovered car. I also had a look around a little car dealership who do classics. They had a Ferrari Dino, a nineties Lotus Elan, a fabulous 1960s Mercedes and various Jaguars.

I too felt it was the end of the High St music retailer when Fopp closed down. But now it is opened again, I make a point of buying stuff there to keep it open.

Surely there are second hand music or charity shops with a good selection in your area?

It is getting harder to find things on the high street, particularly the classical stuff. I was in HMV in Edinborough the other day and was shocked at the poor selection in their classical department. J.G. Windows was a little better but still lots of gaps in their stock.

Back home in Lancashire its virtually impossible. Local HMV stores have miniscule classical sections. It seems to be a policy these days for HMV to reduce their classical music coverage.

So I now buy most of my music online. Actually I've been using Amazon for a while but I'm increasingly finding gaps in their offering as well and I'm going to start using the Presto Classical site.

PJPro:

margetti:

Went into Kingston today to see (and touch and feel i.e. what you can't do with internet shopping) the Beatles box-set before deciding on whether to buy or just go down the individual cd route.

I don't understand this. Why does it matter? Aren't you buying the music? You can't touch music.

Rip the CDs and bung them in the loft.

That's the whole point though, isn't it? For some people, it's more than just owning the music. There is, or at least was, a whole sub-culture surrounding the local record shop. You were buying an experience, as well as a product. Not that I'm suggesting that there is anything wrong with preferring the convenience of downloading it off iTunes or wherever; it's just that it's a different thing.

Really, though, the whole record shop experience was largely killed off years ago not by the internet, but by the growth of music superstores like Virgin (RIP), latterly Zavvi (RIP), and HMV, who in turn were battered into submission by high-street retailers like Woolworths (RIP), in turn decimated by out-of-town behemoths like Tesco.

If anything, the internet, whether used to purchase digital downloads or hard copy CDs, has turned out to be the saviour of niche music tastes.

Would you not say?

tractorboy:

There is, or at least was, a whole sub-culture surrounding the local record shop. You were buying an experience, as well as a product.

Hmmm. You think?

Flipping through vinyl never really held much of an attraction to me and CDs even less so.

I used to work for a record exporting company for a while....perhaps that killed off my enthusiasm? I remember I was paid a pitiful wage. I went to the boss of the company (Ferrari driver) and asked for more money. He won't budge on salary and seemed to think that the glamour of working in the music industry was more than enough to offset my poor wages. Needless to say, I jacked it in on the spot.

Well it seems the shops died years ago, outside Scotland and London.

Nearest to me would be Rugby in Warks. Just a smiths now tho. Havent bought music form a physical store for ages, except the odd disc here and there.

EDIT - thats incorrect there is also a first and second hand indie called strand in Rugby.