Gramophone Douchebag

It’s sometime between 1991 and 1995 I’m in HMV on Princes Street in Edinburgh, I’ve walked into a very spacious shop with lilac carpet and white walls, it looks humongous, it feels like it goes on forever. I’m wandering about checking about the import CD singles (ooh look ‘˜Pictures of You’ Extended single remix and ‘˜Handbuilt By Perverts’) and T-shirts that are available (‘˜Sheriff Fatman’, a massive Ned’s Atomic Dustbin logo in orange and fluorescent yellow.) I’m not buying vinyl here, no, if I want that, I’m off searching Vinyl Villains, hunting down 7″ and 12″ singles by The Cure, Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine, The Wonder Stuff, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, Pop Will Eat Itself and Kingmaker. By comparison Vinyl Villains is small, dark and cramped, every inch of space used, notable 7″ records and picture discs mounted on the walls, and more prestigious 12″ singles and albums hanging from the ceiling.

I loved going round both shops, searching out interesting items, these days Discogs is where I’ll find something if I really want it these days, but nothing beats wandering around a record shop to see what treasures I can unearth. It’s a shame that HMV stopped being such a place, in the mid 90s, they did some structural work on the building and it was closed for the best part of two years, the Virgin Megastore had been alright, but it wasn’t the same, it was dark and dingy but still large, with not as good a selection of stuff as HMV had.

Back to the present, last week I randomly wandered in to escape the office at lunchtime and found it dark, dingy, feeling much smaller than it used to. New albums and DVDs, that was fine, the selection of CDs seeming far smaller than it had used to. I went upstairs and wandered round the DVD boxsets, the entire floor felt cheap and unloved. I’m seeing box sets and films, ultra cheap. Back in the 90s a video with two or three episodes of a TV series would cost about £12-13. It would probably have cost about £50-150 for the whole of a season of an American TV series. Now it’s costing £10 for 13+ episodes of a series. Is it me, or do other people get a feeling of devaluation? People stream music and only want to buy one or two tracks, there’s the suggestion that the album is dying. Music feels like it’s losing it’s value, but so are TV series and films, ‘œhere have a film out just six month ago, it’s only a fiver!’ I’m not sure what to make of it, I went back downstairs to escape the depressing air of worthlessness.

I wandered up the back of the shop, where they were now selling vinyl again, new pressings of old classics, The Cure’s ‘Head On The Door’ and a double gatefold LP of ‘˜Disintegration’ caught my eye, pleasantly surprising me, but price tags of £15 and £18 seemed a bit steep. I spotted Blur’s ‘Magic Whip’ LP for £25! Which you might think given my experience upstairs, I am devaluing the art, but for fuck sake! I paid that for a mint copy of the KLF’s ‘1987: What The Fuck Is Going On?’. I have bought vinyl albums by artists on Indie label, they cost £10 or not far above. How can anyone justify £25 for a newly released album, when smaller labels, printing far less copies, without the economies of scale can produce such items, for far less? It’s pure greed on behalf of the labels and retailers. Someone needs to remind them that vinyl isn’t just for hipster douchebags with gramophones.