May 29, 2008
HMV's Got Something to Bragg About
From Napster to Morpheus, iTunes to .torrents (not to mention the popularity of indie-kid and kid-at-heart collector's favorite record shops), CD sales are on the decline. While this isn't exactly a news-making statement today, it becomes one when the retail giants finally decide to step up and er, face the music.
HMV (His Master's Voice, inspired by the 1899 Francis Barraud painting of his dog listening to a gramophone) announced yesterday that the new "Store of the Future" concept shop (not to be confused with Future Shop) will replace the store of the past at its 50 Bloor Street West location. Eye Weekly's Marc Weisblott first let us know that the revamped edition opens June 17th with an 8 a.m. breakfast reception, ribbon-cutting ceremony, the inevitable freebies and giveaways, and oh, did we mention politically-charged performer Billy Bragg is performing? HMV is a UK-based company, which likely explains Bragg's appearance, but that doesn't keep us from wishing Wilco were tagging along.
Beyond a store redesign, HMV is implanting futuristic, Jetsons-like features, including gaming stations, multitasking media-focused phones, and a multi iMac-equipped interactive "hub" giving access to a wide variety of "entertainment and social networking sites." Yep, now you can do your Facebooking from HMV. Reworked in celebration of its 20th year in maple-leaf land, HMV's most advanced Canadian store offers a selection of video games, DVDs, iPods, phones, and books. Oh, and just announced—they're still be selling CDs too.
Photo by Kasandra Bracken.
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sigh. WHERE is my music-automat, where I can sit down, pour through an enormous library of music, spanning thousands of artists, albums, tracks, genres, labels, all in one place, where I pick what I want how I want, and then have it burned, DRM-free to a CD/DVD while I sip on a latte and chat with my friends?
Oh right, that's my house!
But, newsflash to HMV: I will pay HMV money to do this in their store. God help HMV if Apple ever opens an iTunes Music Store kiosk somewhere, like say in a Starbucks. Oh, wait, they're kind of on the verge of doing this in the States...
Oh good, another lifestyle store to saturate our social time with branding and glitter.
I just want to see Billy Bragg play.
well that sounds just terrible. i used to avoid hmv like the plague, and now i guess that i will avoid it like...a worse plague?
I'm a litte mystified about what you could possibly post about on facebook while standing at HMV.
"Hai guise, I r at HMV!111one"?
Much like the Apple store, this promises to be nothing less than a public, multimedia babysitter for loitering nerds.
But aren't you the likely type of person who loves MP3 downloading, and putting said MP3's onto MP3 players like the iPod? If you are, than this store is for you, and therefore that makes you....A LOITERING NERD!