Last chain standing? The story of HMV

Last Chain Standing? The Story of HMV

How HMV came back from the brink and learned to love vinyl

It is easy to underestimate the role of HMV in facilitating the vinyl revival. If the chain had not taken decisive action to reverse its catastrophic decision to remove the format from their shops, then vinyl sales would be considerably below current rates. Not only did they put vinyl back on the shelves, they embraced it with gusto, giving the format a timely and much-needed boost.

I had the pleasure of working at HMV Liverpool for eight years during the mid-1980s. They were some of the best years of my life. To work in an environment with fellow music enthusiasts, selling to music fans while listening to new music was my idea of heaven. My previous job had been manufacturing the flavour for cheese and onion crisps, so it is easy to understand why I enjoyed working at HMV so much. These were the glory days of record retailing, when people queued outside the store on a Monday morning to purchase the new releases. It was also the period when CDs were retailing for up to £15 each.

Thirty years on, high street rents and rates have rocketed while many CDs sell for less than £10, so the profit margin on what was once HMV’s core product has been slashed dramatically. At its peak, the chain had 320 stores spread all over the globe with the majority being in the UK. HMV is the Last Chain Standing. Past competitors such as Zavvi, Our Price, Tower, MVC, Music Zone and Andys have all closed, leaving just HMV and the independent record shops to fly the flag for those wishing to buy physical music product on the high street. In 2013, HMV went into administration and if they had not been rescued by Hilco, 40% of our record retailers would have been lost in one go.

To understand both where it all went wrong for HMV and their remarkable comeback, you need to know the history. The inaugural HMV store in London was opened in London on July 20, 1921 at 363 Oxford Street, by the composer Sir Edward Elgar. They sold sheet music, recordings and HMV-brand gramophones, which were available for a mere £5. At that point, HMV was part of the Gramophone Company. In 1931, a merger with the Columbia Gramophone Group formed EMI, which stood for Electric and Musical Industries. The decision to use Nipper the dog as the HMV logo was an early stroke of marketing genius. The dog, which has become synonymous with the brand, was a stray fox terrier found on the streets of Bristol in 1884 by Mark Barraud. He was named Nipper due to his tendency to nip the backs of visitors' legs. After Mark’s death, his brother Francis Barraud, the Liverpool artist, took care of the dog. The picture titled His Master's Voice was painted in 1899 and showed the dog listening to a cylinder phonograph.   William Barry Owen of The Gramophone Company bought the picture for £50, which proved to be a very shrewd move. In 1901, the Gramophone Company registered the His Master’s Voice Nipper painting as a trademark in the UK. It was used in advertising by the Gramophone Company and became one of the world's most recognisable trademarks.

For the next four decades selling recording equipment was the core business. This all changed during the 1960s, thanks to the huge popularity of artists such as The Beatles and Elvis Presley. The stores stopped retailing record players and recording equipment to concentrate on selling singles and LPs.

I am grateful to a former work colleague and respected music journalist, Cliff White who wrote a piece for me (reprinted below), describing his time working at HMV during the Swinging Sixties. A wonderful man, Cliff, sadly, passed away in January 2018. As you will see his memories of HMV in a bygone era are fascinating.

I am happy to offer a few off-the-cuff memories of my time working at the original HMV record store - 363 Oxford Street, London - from mid-1964 to some brain-swiped day in early 1968.  Once employed there I was ever-ready to recommend my music preferences to customers but selling the hottest wax was the name of the game:  across the spectrum service with a smile.  

 Among those I served were Vera Lynn, Del Shannon, The Who (in full Union Jack regalia - them, not me), Jimi Hendrix and Kim Fowley who pranced around the department shouting, “Freak Out!”  Jimi came in to buy blues and soul records and I insisted he include Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “The Whammy” amongst his purchases - which may account for his subsequent career.

During my tenure with HMV it was owned by EMI who began experimenting with a self-service department and started acquiring other record shops to convert into suburban and regional HMV outlets.  More of which later.  When I was first employed it was still the sole flagship, managed by the rotund figure of Mr Robert (Bob) Boast, who had reputedly joined the store before the Second World War.  All staff were issued with uniform jackets or blouses and obliged to address each other as Mr., Miss or Mrs.

Song publishers Ardmore & Beechwood occupied the top floor of the building.  This was a bonus as they’d occasionally offload boxes of American 45s they’d been sent for review.  It was important to get wind of this bonanza in advance to be first at the trough for the freebies.  There were usually obscure soul gems among the discarded discs.  

Adjacent to them, was a small recording studio where engineer Jim Foy taped Cliff Richard, the Beatles and others recording messages of gush for their fan clubs.  I believe other artists recorded demos in this little-known hidey-hole.  History tells that after the Beatles had been rejected by Decca it was Jim Foy who recommended Brian Epstein to Ardmore & Beechwood who then sent him on to George Martin at EMI - so the mop tops’ success was all Jim’s fault, folks. 

Cosmopolitan Corner, specialising in what is now termed “world music”, was tucked away on the mezzanine. Ground floor was the classical department.  “Pop” music (including folk, jazz, blues, soul, easy listening, etc.) was consigned to the basement.

It was a lively basement, descended upon each lunchtime and end of working day by hordes of young persons asking to be played the latest hits in the open sound booths around the walls.  We also had a couple of enclosed listening rooms for the more “serious” customers, who tended to drop in during the afternoon lull.  Bribing me with a lunch, The Who’s manager Kit Lambert used one of the listening rooms to promote an acetate of “I Can’t Explain” to likely takers.  Apparently, he didn’t have an office at the time.

The stockroom extended under Oxford Street, where in quiet moments one could lift a hatch in the floor to watch thousands of cockroaches scuttling from the sudden light, presumably back down to the Central Line that rumbled below.   

Pop sales staff were corralled in a large enclosure in the middle of the basement, surrounded by a ring of browser boxes full of empty record sleeves - the 45s had hand-written cardboard inserts.  The discs themselves were filed on our side of the fence, where we also had record playing turntables for all the listening booths.  It was then the store’s policy to stock at least one copy of every UK record release still in catalogue.  As the record companies didn’t delete their products, particularly LPs, as rapidly as they might cast them aside today, we were the custodians of an impressive library of vinyl, some items dating back to, ooh, when I was a lad.

Being under the EMI umbrella, HMV staff were urged to “bump up” sales figures of EMI releases.  In a shocking exposé I can now reveal that EMI releases were automatically ranked higher than they should have been on the in-store sales chart, which was then a key contributor to the national pop chart.  As EMI had acquired the Motown franchise from Oriole and launched its Stateside label this didn’t conflict too much with my sensitivities. 

Every so often we’d get wealthy owners of continental discotheques swanning in, flashing wads of cash and requesting “the latest two hundred hip 45s” (or words to that effect).  Oh joy!  As a responsible salesman it was my bound duty to include all the most recent Brit beat group hits but that still left plenty of room to fill up the box with blues kings, James Brown, Guy Stevens’ Sue releases, other soul favourites and whatever else I fancied.  In my imagination, somewhere in France or Spain or Italy or Germany there is now a demented record collector who was sparked off by something I snuck into a care package to their local disco. 

At the other extreme, another colleague was a big fan of Cilla Black.  He contrived to get an invitation to meet Cilla backstage at a London theatre, masquerading as a PR person from EMI’s Manchester Square headquarters, looking after three visiting delegates from EMI Sweden, aka the HMV store.  As one of those “delegates” I put on my best Swedish accent to chat to Cilla in her dressing room before nipping along the corridor to say hello to the stars of the show, the Everly Brothers.

I don’t think I bothered to try to be Scandinavian with Don & Phil. Have occasionally thought about confronting Miss Black again and saying “Surprise! Surprise!”

I’m bound to also mention in passing a memorable colleague who shall remain nameless.  A tall, grey-faced, ravaged-looking individual (with whom I shared a flat for a time; he wasn’t as scary as he appeared to be), he’d had an unconventional upbringing and was a clinically diagnosed schizophrenic.  This did not affect his salesmanship except in moments of extreme stress, when the hordes were swarming.  He’d then lie on the floor in the middle of our corral and howl like a rabid dog.  Always guaranteed to grab the customers’ attention.  A real crowd pleaser. 

In January 66 I left HMV for five months to tour Germany as lead “singer” (I use the term loosely) with my cousin’s beat combo, and then to loon about with Screamin' Jay on his second UK tour.  That’s an entirely different ramble.  In my second stint with the store, now managed by former assistant manager Ken Whitmarsh, there were grand plans afoot.  Incidentally, Ken, who had employed me in the first place and remained a friend until his premature death, was principally a jazz man - a knowledgeable buff - but that didn’t blinker his retailing acumen.  However it did mean that HMV always had as strong a stock of jazz albums as our specialist competitors Asman’s, Collet’s, Dobell’s and Ray‘s.

  

Circa 1966 HMV opened its first self-service department (where the discs were now in the sleeves in the browser bins) and bought a shop in the Edgware Road to be run on the same principal.  Our in-house prototype, by the main entrance on the ground floor, was of immediate benefit to a trader who had a record stall just off Cambridge Circus at the junction of Charing Cross Road and Shaftesbury Avenue.  He’d come in, select an armful of albums of his choice, and then sprint off with them along Oxford Street.  Our security guard, an elderly ex-war sergeant with a gammy leg, was thwarted every time.  I believe the arrangements were eventually tightened up. 

Being part of the team revamping purchased shops could be interesting.  We’d go in and log all the existing stock for removal; builders would follow us to convert the premises into an HMV; we’d go back in to restock the new store.  I clearly remember one shop in North London that had been harbouring a stockroom full of unsold LPs and 45s, piled high in dusty boxes.  I picked the sellotape off the first box I came to:  Jeez, 25 mint copies of Gene Vincent’s “Be-Bop-A-Lula”.  Unfortunately, I was only a poorly paid salesman otherwise I’d have bought the entire contents of the room.  Never did know what happened to all that old stock, although I suspect a couple of copies of Mr Vincent’s single inadvertently fell into my knapsack.   

Towards the end of my days at HMV I had been promoted to the dizzy rank of Assistant Manager of the Pop department and was earmarked to manage one of the growing number of branch stores.  At the same time, I had been initiated into the mysteries of marijuana by a summer-break temping university student and to LSD by a young temptress in Bayswater.  No contest:  I tuned in, turned on and dropped out. 

Cliff White (1945-2018)

HMV went through rapid expansion in the late 1960s and 1970s. Although the chain faced stiff competition from Richard Branson’s Virgin Records shops, which were set up in 1971, and the iconic Our Price, which appeared on the scene in 1972, they became the country’s leading music retailer.

The 1980s were a huge decade for HMV, as they were in the perfect position to capitalise on the new exciting format of CD. They could use the power of MTV to promote music via the rapidly expanding video market. Sales of 12-inch singles were showing dramatic rises as many music fans would buy multiple copies of the same song on various versions. Cassette singles were also big sellers.

In 1988, they acquired the 18-shop Midlands chain Revolver, which increased HMV UK’s stores to 126. HMV believed in promoting from within, so the key positions in the company were filled by people who had worked their way through the ranks. The environment was incredibly competitive with store competing against store, area against area and, at head office, department against department.

A particular emphasis was placed on league tables. When I worked at HMV in Liverpool, each Monday we would discuss our position in the regional table.  It was like a football league. We always wanted to finish above Manchester and were always confident we could beat the likes of Bolton, Blackburn, Preston and Blackpool. If you were near the bottom of the league you knew that the area manager would virtually camp in your store so that he could monitor everything you did to see how he could improve things. Stores that finished top of the league were rewarded with prizes such as holidays. These were the golden days for HMV. The 1980s was the decade of “loadsamoney“. People seemed to have money to burn and the increasing value of property was the main conversation at UK dinner parties.

HMV thrived during this period, with the CD being a badge of honour. As the CD buyer for HMV Liverpool at the time, I was instructed to buy at least one of every CD released by the record companies. It is now hard to believe that from 1985 until 1992, the cassette was the biggest-selling music format in the UK. Its advantages over vinyl were that it was a small, portable way of listening to music. The CD offered the same advantages in a vastly superior format, which boasted greater resilience and higher sound quality than cassettes as well as the option to skip back and forth between tracks.

With the arrival of CDs, the vinyl format was abandoned by record companies as music consumers were encouraged to replace their LP collections. HMV positioned itself at the heart of the CD revolution. A new flagship store at 150 Oxford Street, which had more than 50,000 square feet dedicated to customers’ listening pleasure, was opened by Bob Geldof.

The tragic famine in Africa that prompted such an admirable response from the international music industry through Band Aid and Live Aid, energised interest in music, across the board. I had numerous customers at HMV who bought 10 or more copies of the Band Aid single “Do They Know it’s Christmas?“ to give away as Christmas gifts to family and friends. HMV and all record shops gave their share of the sales of the record to the appeal. As is often the case, it was the music industry that led the way when it came to helping in a time of need.

The good times continued throughout the 1990s with the great Blur v Oasis battle and the Spice Girls helping fuel demand for the physical format. HMV was quick to recognise the potential of the DVD, just as they had done a decade earlier with CDs, and dedicated a much greater percentage of the store to promoting the new format than any of its rivals did.

A fundamental change occurred during this period when HMV began purchasing the majority of its stock via its head office. Central buying as it was called made economic sense as it gave the company stronger bargaining power with the record companies, and improved consistency and sales in most areas. Previously, individual shop managers had a lot of flexibility to stock titles they wanted, resulting in HMV promoting a lot of local music. Head Office certainly considered local variations when they scaled product out to the stores, but stocking local fanzines and small local releases were no longer a priority.

HMV had profited from selling talking books, and took a major decision to buy the book chain Waterstones, merging them with Dillons, another bookseller they already owned. Later, Ottakar’s bookshops were also added to their portfolio. The timing turned out to be poor and, in hindsight, there was no practical benefit to the merger with Waterstones. It coincided with a slump in book sales as Amazon steamed into that market and drove prices down. There was not enough space in HMV or Waterstones to introduce proper cross-merchandising, which might have been a good strategic move for the long-term.

In the early 2000s HMV took the decision to remove vinyl from all but their largest stores. This opened the door for the independent record shops to be the gatekeepers of the format. In a strange twist of fate, by abandoning the format it created a vacuum that the indies were happy to fulfil. It was from the momentum created by this that the seeds of the vinyl revival were sown. Suddenly independent record shops had a virtual monopoly on the format. The decision was taken, not because the chain did not like the format, but for a purely economic reason. The ratio of sales to stock was very poor compared to CD. For example, 5 feet of LP racking held around 160-200 titles of vinyl whereas CD held 400-500.

Vinyl had become a low priority for record companies due to the massive sales being achieved by CD and DVD. During this period the industry and the media were all telling us how superior the CD was. Many releases were not released on vinyl, so if you were a fan the only way you could purchase a lot of music was on CD. With the extra cost of manufacturing, storage and a higher return of faulty product, it is easy to understand why the record companies lost enthusiasm for vinyl and why HMV took the decision to decommission it in all but their larger shops.

In 2002, the HMV group was floated on the London Stock Exchange. It was valued at around a billion pounds. Senior staff received shares which turned out not to be a great investment. It was a critical point in the history of HMV. The timing was unfortunate insofar as the flotation occurred just before it became evident how much iTunes and Amazon would impact on the music retailing business. The requirement to report quarterly to the city on what became, within months, a downward trend, meant there was a media story about CD decline which was constantly fed.

This coincided with a change in the broader cultural context. Traditionally, the business pages in newspapers tended to be dry, boring and stuck to the facts. But by this point, the business pages were becoming as sensationalist as the rest of the papers, and there was more of a narrative spin put on the facts. Lazy journalism and a desire to reiterate that physical music was dead started to dominate reporting. Young, rich, city types were not early converts to the vinyl revival, quite the reverse and there was a uniformity of opinion in the business pages that digital music was the future.

A major problem created by the floatation was that HMV constantly made short-term decisions to improve the figures in an effort to satisfy shareholders and supply the press with good news. In retrospect, a proper long-term plan with external input, commitment to investment in streaming (the HMV jukebox was an early subscription model very similar to Spotify which they gave up on) and investment in HMV.com which was competing with Amazon for a while, would have made more sense.

HMV had benefited from the demise of other music chains. When the independently-owned Fopp chain was forced to close in 2007, HMV bought the name and six of its best performing stores from the receivers: Glasgow, Edinburgh, Cambridge, Nottingham, Manchester and Covent Garden.

By 2008 music retailing was in big trouble. Independent record shops were closing at an average rate of one every three days and things were to get worse. In January Woolworths closed. The high street retailer employed more than 30,000 people and though music was only a part of its business, it was a massive blow to the music industry. However, many former Woolworths music purchasers took their custom to HMV. On Christmas Eve the Zavvi chain of music shops entered administration, ensuring its staff had a woeful Christmas. HMV took this opportunity to purchase 20 of their best performing stores.

Being the last chain standing did have some advantages. But HMV was also beginning to feel the pinch. There were many reasons beyond HMV’s control for the decline in sales, but the key mistake they made was not to plan for the next decade but to keep concentrating on being the number one entertainment retailer on the high street. HMV had been a major player in the video market and were in the perfect position when the DVD took off to replace the videos. By the late 1990s DVDs accounted for more than 50% of HMV’s business.

There was not much HMV could do about the many illegal downloading sites that sprang up, but as people were now obtaining music free of charge, the feeling among the public was that CDs were overpriced. The media picked up on this, reminding the public that CDs could be manufactured for 50p but were being sold for £12. Nobody in the music industry was countering this argument. The content of a CD had to be written, recorded, produced and then marketed and distributed.  All these things cost money and they were still fantastic value for the pleasure they gave.

The internet created both challenges and opportunities for music retailers. At first HMV embraced it, as the first major music retailer to set up a website. However, instead of aggressively promoting the website in their stores and on their carrier bags, it was left to limp along unsupported. HMV were slow out of the blocks when music started being sold online. Amazon and Play and several other online traders recognised the potential of this new concept in selling music. The HMV website was always playing catch up and was never able to attract enough customers away from other online retailers. The fact that Apple launched iTunes in 2001, but it wasn’t until 2010 that HMV Digital started up is a measure of just how slow they were. Like a lot of other companies in the music industry, the powers-that-be at HMV were convinced that digital downloading was just a passing fad.

The policy of promoting from within was a mistake in an industry that can change so quickly. With the emergence of Amazon and digital music, HMV needed fresh people who understood these new competitors and could enable HMV to compete with them. There was a general feeling within the company that selling physical music in bricks and mortar stores on high streets was the cornerstone of the business and that is what they should concentrate on. The result was that Amazon had a free run at establishing itself as the website from which to purchase CDs. It was internet and digital that exposed the flaw in HMV’s policy of internal promotion. There were no young, dynamic personnel within the company with the vision to see that in the future, digital and internet sales were going to be a big part of music retailing. HMV had the opportunity to be one of the biggest players on the internet, but they did not grasp the nettle and others took advantage.

Events such as the London bombings of 2007 and the dramatic rise in parking charges in city centres contributed to a sea change in consumer attitudes. People were less inclined to come into town with all the associated cost and hassle of getting there when, with the simple click of a mouse, they could purchase music without leaving the comfort of their armchair. Things were looking so grim that even Nipper the dog was retired to the old dog’s home. Gromit, the dog from Nick Parks’s Wallace and Gromit replaced Nipper during a promotional period. The public wondered whether they had seen the last of Nipper, but the faithful old dog later returned to carry on representing the chain.

The stock market crash of 2008 was the last thing the beleaguered chain needed. When times are tough, non-essential items such as CDs are among the first things that consumers cut back on. HMV began to lose its identity as it desperately tried to encourage customers to visit the shops. It had been known to the public as a great record shop - probably the best music chain in the world - but it now decided it no longer wanted to be the best music retailer, it wanted to be a one-stop shop for all things entertainment. The chain stopped stocking vinyl records, just as vinyl sales started to pick up again. Stocks of music genres such as metal, jazz, folk, blues, country, world music as well as classic rock back catalogue were greatly reduced to make way for computer games, books, headphones and clothes. They gave over more sales space to computer software and hardware, DVDs, Blu-ray discs, MP3 players and tablet computers.

This all seemed a great idea to the people in head office, but the message did not get through to the public, who still thought of HMV as a music store. Soon the chain was forced to cut back. If you are selling mobile phones and clothes, you don’t need specialist music knowledge. They started losing many long-term staff who had become disillusioned with the direction HMV was taking. These staff members had joined the company because they loved music not fashion or technology. HMV had always had a policy of employing music fans to work there. Product knowledge was deemed fundamentally important. As the chain had expanded there were not enough people with that expertise for the number of stores they opened.

Opening new shops was the quickest return on investment but created major overheads and impacted on the quality as they were appointing increasingly inexperienced staff to management positions while stretching the resources of regional and divisional management too far.

It is fair to say that the exceptional customer service HMV offered did contribute to standards rising through the whole of music retail. One of the reasons for the decline of indies was the standard of service in many shops. HMV identified merchandising and service as priorities back in the 1980s and really went for it (sometimes to an extreme). The revival of independent record shops has seen a growth not just in vinyl but in standards of presentation and communication.

Many music fans abandoned the chain and turned to independent record shops or the internet to purchase the genres HMV had chosen no longer to stock. Other retailers sold clothes and computer games far more cheaply. Independent record shops were the place to go if you wanted advice on records, and especially to buy vinyl - the format HMV had virtually given up on.

In 2006 Simon Fox was appointed CEO of HMV. He launched a radical three-year plan to turn around the company’s fortunes. The aim was to engage with the customer more. In a blaze of publicity, HMV launched the “Get Closer” social network. The idea was that fans would discover content through the site and buy more music. Thus It allowed users to import music and film files and create their own library. They were then linked to other users with similar tastes. Once again the message did not seem to get through to staff or the public. Surprisingly, they did not take the opportunity to advertise the scheme on their carrier bags and promote it at every opportunity and the idea failed to catch on. The site was popular with the people that were using it but there were not enough of them. Reluctantly, HMV closed the site in 2009.

At this point, the cash reserves HMV had at the beginning of the decade were no longer there. It was more important than ever to prioritise where they were going to spend their money. They had invested heavily in “purehmv”, a loyalty card scheme where members paid £3 to join. More than 2 million people had signed up and these members collected points every time they shopped either online or in the shops. Points could be exchanged for money-can’t-buy rewards such as tickets to gigs, film screenings, VIP experiences and signed items. They could also be exchanged for digital tracks. These experiences included opportunities to meet bands backstage or at sound checks before gigs.  The most famous event was probably an exclusive preview screening of the Take That DVD The Circus Live at the Hammersmith Apollo. The band was in attendance and the event was free to purehmv members.

HMV borrowed extensively to purchase MAMA’s live venue business at a cost of £46 million. It was a long-term investment as MAMA ran thirteen music venues including the Hammersmith Apollo, the Forum, the Jazz Cafe and the Borderline. The idea was sound, as HMV had become one of the UK’s largest ticket sellers. It also started a joint venture with Curzon Artificial Eye to bring cinemas to the high street. The first trial store was in Wimbledon, south west London. The cinema was located above the store in a former stock room that had been converted into three separate screens and a bar. It had its own entrance so it could be accessed outside store hours. In the short term, it had swallowed up more money and was beginning to make the banks jittery.

The company had lots of great ideas and in order to implement them, investment was more important than ever. Christmas 2010 was the crunch moment. Already under extreme pressure from their banks to reduce borrowing, HMV needed good Christmas sales to relieve the pressure and ease their cash flow situation. Unfortunately, it was a disaster for all high-street retailers. Appalling weather conditions kept many shoppers at home. Shopping Centres such as Brent Cross were closed completely.

HMV’s profits were down by £6 million on the six-week run up to Christmas 2010. HMV would normally do 45% of their annual sales during this period, which would usually generate 65% of HMV’s profits. January 2011 got off to a bad start as VAT was increased to 20%, which had a negative effect on trade. The media vultures were circling, speculating who would be the first high street retailer to close. It was clear they had HMV down as the next victim, drawing unfair parallels with Woolworths.

Soon, four profit warnings were issued. These are statements issued by a company advising the stock market that profits will be lower than expected. This triggered more negative publicity from the press, who were already giving them a hard time. Every bit of bad news was seized on by the media, who would start articles with the phrase “Troubled music retailer HMV”. Any good news was virtually ignored. The company had still managed to post a £30 million profit despite its troubles. But the negative publicity was sufficient to make people uneasy about using the stores.

In May 2011, HMV sold Waterstones to Russian billionaire Alexander Mamut to reduce debt. The following month they agreed new credit facilities with the Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland. With a £240 million loan, it was going to take a monumental effort to turn the chain around. Other assets soon followed as in 2012 they sold the Hammersmith Apollo to AEG Live, the concert promoter, and Eventim, the ticket agency. Later in the year they sold the remainder of the MAMA group to Lloyds Development Capital.

HMV was still much loved by the music industry, which supported the changes.  The chain’s long-term vision made sense, but it needed the support of the British public more than ever. Unfortunately, it was too late. HMV had too many stores, and they were now in a position where, due to the high overheads of prime high street locations and staff wages, they were no longer competing with the online retailers on price, could not offer the personal service of independent record shops and were missing out on the beginning of the vinyl revival as they were excluded from Record Store Day. HMV no longer had anything much to offer music fans.

In January 2013 HMV announced that it was going into administration. It would continue to trade whilst they tried to find a purchaser for the business. HMV's shares were suspended from trading while financial firm Deloitte was appointed to administrate the chain's 239 stores. The chain was bought out of receivership by Hilco who have turned out to be true knights in shining armour. They restructured the company by keeping 141 of the 239 stores as well as the nine Fopp shops, saving more than 2,500 jobs. Rents were renegotiated with landlords and trading terms improved with suppliers. At the time of going into receivership HMV accounted for more than 20% of physical music sales, which is why the music industry did all it could to get the chain up and running again. Helped along by the industry itself, some amazing offers appeared in the shops to encourage people back in. Hilco recognised that it had been a mistake to pull away from vinyl and embraced it with gusto. Soon the shops had new racking installed and were bulging with vinyl bargains.

HMV had lobbied the Entertainment Retail Association to be part of Record Store Day. The Entertainment Retail Association balloted their members on whether the chain should be allowed to take part. This was akin to asking foxes if they wanted to bring back hunting. Most Entertainment Retail Association members are record shops. With many releases on Record Store Day only being pressed in quantities of 500–2,000 copies, why would any record shop vote for a major chain to come in and take half the cake away? The decision of the ERA ballot was a resounding “No”.

HMV therefore founded their own version of Record Store Day, which has been highly successful. They offered big discounts on vinyl they already stocked. The limited-edition vinyl exclusives were available in all stores and online on a first-come-first-served basis. These were the exclusive titles:

Sex Pistols: Never Mind the Bollocks (1000 copies on pink vinyl)

Manic Street Preachers: Everything Must Go (1000 copies on blue vinyl)

Various Artists: Let's Bop – Sun Records Collection (1000 copies on black vinyl)

Teenage Fanclub: Bandwagonesque (500 numbered copies on pink vinyl)

The Clash: The Clash (1000 copies on green vinyl)

Velvet Underground: Loaded (1000 copies on white vinyl)

Deep Purple: In Rock (1000 copies on marbled vinyl)

Alex Turner: Submarine OST (500 copies on 10-inch black vinyl)

Ben Salisbury & Geoff Barrow: Ex Machina OST (500 copies on frosted vinyl)

John Martyn: Solid Air (500 copies on green vinyl).

IniJanuary 2015, the company overtook Amazon to become the largest retailer of physical music in the UK.

I feel that HMV should be more loved than it is. The pleasure it has given us music fans for more than 90 years is such that it should be held in the same regard as HP sauce, Heinz baked beans, Marks & Spencer or the Mini Cooper. We should cherish the brand and recognise the joy it has brought to millions of music fans.

On 28 December 2018 HMV filed for administration for a second time following poor sales on the lead up to Christmas. For its 2200 staff in the chains125 stores it was the worst possible news.

Hilco immediately appointed KPMG as administrators.

2018 witnessed sales of DVD falling off a cliff and Executive Chairman Paul McGowan issued the following statement

‘During the key Christmas trading period the market for DVD fell by over 30% compared to the previous year and, whilst HMV performed considerably better than that, such a deterioration in a key sector of the market is unsustainable.

HMV has clearly not been insulated from the general malaise of the UK High Street and has suffered the same challenges with Business Rates and other government-centric policies which have led to increased fixed costs in the business.

Business Rates alone represent an annual cost to HMV in excess of £15m. Even an exceptionally well-run and much-loved business such as HMV cannot withstand the tsunami of challenges facing UK retailers over the last 12 months on top of such a dramatic change in consumer behavior in the entertainment market.’

HMV had been the retailer to go to for DVD but streaming sites such as Netflix had eaten in to their market. It would be a disaster for the music industry if HMV were to close as I fear the record industry would feel less inclined to support physical product that in turn would have a negative impact on independent record shops. Let’s hope they survive.,

 

Luckily a night in shining armour Doug Putman, who describes himself as a vinyl nut saved the chain and the last couple of years thw chain made a remarkable recovery. 2020 of course has seen a big challenge for all retailers not just for HMV.

Show HMV some love and buy something from them this Christmas.

 

It is even more important why we need to support independent record shops and it is crucial that government needs to review the support it gives to bricks and mortar retailers.

 

 

 

 

The books of Graham Jones are available in record shops or online. The latest book The Vinyl Revival and the Shops that Made it Happen has been turned in to a film. It has just been released on DVD and is available in record shops or online. Distributed by Proper Music.

Each week I record The Vinyl Revival Record Shop Podcast. It contains lots of funny tales from the crazy world of record retailing. It is also available on Spotify.

Twitter: @Revival_Vinyl

My blog has over 100 features on record shops and vinyl.

grahamjonesvinylrevival.blogspot.com

For film screenings and talks contact Graham. 

As the person who has visited more record shops than any other human, I often get asked my advice on buying turntables. I always say do not purchase a budget model. What is the point of buying one that costs the price of a few albums? The sound will not do the recordings justice. For a long time, I have recommended Rega Turntables as they are superb quality at great prices. They got more brownie points for sponsoring 'Record Store Day' and manufacturing limited editions just for record shops. 

 

 

Read the full story in Graham Jones' book 'The Vinyl Revival and the Shops That Made it Happen'.  Support the Vinyl Revival by buying Graham's book here.