Simon Rushworth
Self Made Man is back and there’s only one subject on the mind of our resident classic rock expert this week – the sad demise of HMV.
Every weekend one of the North East’s biggest music fans gives his views on the music he loves.
And there’s nobody better when it comes to the classic rock scene – read him here every week exclusively on RUSHONROCK.
Growing up on Tyneside, there were four main outlets to buy records, Windows, Virgin, HMV and Callers-Pegasus.
The latter was, primarily, a travel agent but on its first floor, it’s music department was at least the match of its competitors.
Indeed, while new LPs generally cost £3.99 elsewhere, Callers would sell them at £3.49 so for a time, it was the preferred choice for my mates and I. After all that spare 50 pence bought a pint of Exhibition!
Virgin used to be a small outlet in Ridley Place but when Eldon Square opened in 1976, it moved, occupying one of the prime spots in the new state-of-the-art shopping centre.
For an impressionable teenager, this new record store was a goldmine, boasting far more choice and a better layout than its rivals.
Then there was JG Windows, Newcastle’s very own music shop. Spread over three floors, it was downstairs to the basement that rock fans headed.
This Aladdin’s Cave boasted a unique atmosphere and assistants who gave the impression that their job was a labour of love.
For almost three decades, any shopping trip into the city would include a diversion to Windows, down those steep stairs and a few minutes flicking through its shelves.
Sadly, a few years ago, market forces decreed that rock and pop CDs could no longer justify their own department and so they merged with every other category of CD on the ground floor. The shop has never been the same since.
Its demise left HMV as the only mainstream music shop left in Newcastle.
HMV is situated bang in the centre of Northumberland Street, the city’s main outdoor shopping thoroughfare, but in the late 70s and for many years, its base was on a much smaller site lower down the same street.
Back then, if I’m honest, it was probably fourth in my own personal pecking order. Not as cheap as Callers, not as big as Virgins and not as local as Windows.
But HMV survived, indeed, flourished for a time and very soon became the High Street’s last remaining music shop – until now.
This week’s announcement that HMV has gone into administration is bad news for anyone who loves music and yet aren’t we all to blame for its demise?
I carried out a little survey on myself a few days ago and worked out that of the last 40 albums I’ve bought, six were downloaded while I purchased 34 hard copies.
Of those, 21 were ordered off Amazon, five were bought at the local supermarket while just eight came off the HMV shelves.
I would imagine that this ratio would be very similar for anyone in the 40 to 55 age group.
If consumer trends contributed to HMV’s collapse, I also believe more dynamic, proactive management could have saved the chain.
Walking into an HMV shop these days, you have to walk further and further to hit the shelves containing CDS, new releases notwithstanding.
Headphones, DVDs, tablets, MP3 players were all displayed far more prominently than the product which made His Master’s Voice famous in the first place.
There’s something of the self-fulfilling prophecy about this week’s sad announcement.
I hope HMV does carry on in some format and if it does, I’ll try to use it more than I have in recent times.
They say that only when something’s gone forever do you truly appreciate it. I don’t want that to be the case with the country’s last remaining major record store.
Ian Murtagh