On the 15th of January this year, HMV went into administration. The store has been providing the public with music, film, technology and related merchandise since it was founded in 1921 with its now famous Oxford Street store, and is now set to close, with 103 outlets either already closed or in the process of closing.
The sale - or lack of sale - of music and film is a well discussed topic and one that is becoming increasingly controversial. Illegal downloading of music is rapidly increasing; in the first half of 2012, 33 million albums and 10 million singles were downloaded from one file sharing network alone. The process is fast, easy, and free, as is the process of pirating a film online. Both are also illegal.
As a firm supporter of buying and owning physical music, I was particularly sorry to see HMV enter administration. However, I was also fully aware of how rare it was for many people my own age to purchase physical copies of music and film. So what sort of impact would the closure of HMV actually have? I spoke to a variety of people in order to find out.
Generally, the responses split my interviewees into two halves, and can be summed up in two of the quotes - the 'having a collection of CDs is more satisfying than a collection of MP3 files' group versus 'I never used it, I just download or stream everything for free' group. As Harry, 17, put it, 'people are going to be reluctant to pay for something that they can download for free with seemingly no ramifications'. Euan, 18, agreed - 'instead of waiting for ages to go to the shops for an album, people can get it in minutes. It's laziness but they're more accessible online.'
Interestingly, many of those in strong support of downloading or streaming music online still used HMV regularly. Krystal, also 17, said 'I never used to buy music from HMV and I think I'll just continue using Spotify, but I will miss buying band and movie merch.' This was a common response - although they didn't buy physical music, they frequently purchased band t-shirts and posters.
Those in favour of physical music were split into two more groups - for HMV, and against HMV. Sara, 17, said 'there isn't really a high street alternative, if you knew exactly which obscure record you wanted you'd go to an independent store, and if you didn't, it's HMV or nothing. It's really sad.' Michael, 19, disagrees, saying that HMV 'overpriced their music and sold their films too cheaply, and took all the notice away from independent places which are much better for the music industry, like Rough Trade. It's not a big deal, I won't miss it at all'. Catherine, 18, agreed with Michael - 'I prefer paying for physical copies of my music, but not from HMV because it’s too expensive. I always use Amazon, and the only think I'll miss about HMV is the opportunity to browse - but it's not like I can't browse online.'
The majority decided that the loss of HMV would have little impact on them, but overall I agreed most with Edward, 17. His response was that 'although at the moment it won't have much of an impact, not on teenagers at least, I think in the long term it's going to be bad. HMV made physical music accessible and was less intimidating than an elitist record shop. I'll miss it and I think people will realise sooner or later that they miss it too.' We will have to wait and see.
