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Music Stores (HMV, Virgin, Sunrise)

I'm sorry but HMV is the only place I would ever BUY music. The only problem is I haven't bought music in years. That said, HMV has done the right thing and switched focus from music to movies and DVDs, and I have bought DVDs there in the past, but Best Buy is typically cheaper and closer to me (the HMV at Heartland is further to drive to :p)
 
I haven't considered HMV a music store in many years. They're a DVD store that sells music too.

On the main level it's all movies (and has been for years), and now video games too.
 
Northern Light said:
I want staff you have in their head what Last.fm does with algorithms. If you like ' X '; you'll love 'Y'. Further if I can hum a tune, they should be able to name it, tell me the artist, the album, the year and where to find it!

I
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That's quite an unreasonable expectation of skill for a minimum wage job.
 
Darkstar416 said:
It also hasn't helped that they turned this "super" store into a boring and sterile environment that does't generate any excitement around the media that they sell.
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Very true - the renovations they did a few years ago eliminated the "cool" factor. I know I went there far less after that because the browsing/shopping experience had been diminished.
 
I don't download music unless I am looking for a very rare track, in which case I will download on iTunes. Everything else I buy cds and then sync them to my iPod. I don't download illegally because I think if you really like an artist and you want them to make more music, you have to support them. You have to buy the music, go to the concerts, etc. On the less moral side of the argument, I also like cds for their liner notes and artwork. You can really get to know the artist based on the pictures they include, and the thank you's they write in their cds.

As far as shopping for cds, I buy just about all of them at Future Shop. I find that they have the most competitive prices, because they are really on top of things. If you go to Wal-Mart to buy a cd that came out 1 or 2 years ago, they don't tend to mark their music down, but at Future Shop they mark down popular music over time, and often have 9.99 sales or 3 for 25, it is great.
 
khristopher said:
While that is true, people who work in music shops should really love music.
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Yup. And while it may be a "romantic" notion, it holds true nonetheless.

No one expects the cashier at Shoppers Drug Mart to be an expert on diapers or shampoo. But when I walked into HMV (mall, not 333) a couple of years ago and found a clerk unaware of "The Tragically Hip," I was astounded. And everyone should be. Working in a record shop shouldn't be like any other minimum wage gig and, yeah, a bit of passion for and/or knowledge of music should be a pre-requisite.

Personally, I used to enjoy trekking downtown to shop at HMV and Sam's. Back in the day, they had great prices in comparison to their mall outlets and (obviously) a superior selection. They were once defining parts of downtown but now HMV is just a big store.

Over the years the prices went up and things got more sterile. It might be as inevitable as the end of blacksmithing but it's still sad to see HMV (and Sam's, moresso) retreating.

I don't download that much nowadays but do find myself getting most CDs at Future Shop or Best Buy, venturing to Amazon for "rarer" albums. It's a darned shame, is the point.
 
When Sam's went into receivership about 10 or 15 years ago HMV discontinued their CD, Laserdisc & DVD "Rewards" cards and everything in the store went up by 10% within a couple of weeks. Sam's downtown survived but the poor timing - unintentional or strategic (I believe the latter) on HMV's behalf lost me as a customer for good.
I miss Sam's a lot, a sentimental loss and arguably the greatest "record" store in the city for decades. I have no love loss at all for HMV, I buy the odd CD and my DVD's/Blu ray discs at Future Shop and Best Buy.
Sam's had a passionate staff who knew their stuff in whatever department you went into. As the sign used to say, "Sam's has everything all you have to do is find it. Just ask Sam's staff, if you can find Sam's staff!".
 
I miss Sam's. :( I found a lot of rare cds and dvds there over the years and the staff i encountered knew their music. If HMV doesn't change their format soon i can see them joining Music World and Sam's in record store heaven. Kids these days don't buy music or movies at record stores. Future shop and Best Buy and Wal Mart seem to be the popular choice for your average shopper.
 
I'm surprised that anyone misses Sam's. That place always seemed so grungy/dingy/dirty to me.
 
TJ O'Pootertoot said:
No one expects the cashier at Shoppers Drug Mart to be an expert on diapers or shampoo. But when I walked into HMV (mall, not 333) a couple of years ago and found a clerk unaware of "The Tragically Hip," I was astounded. And everyone should be. Working in a record shop shouldn't be like any other minimum wage gig and, yeah, a bit of passion for and/or knowledge of music should be a pre-requisite.
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I never said they shouldn't be, and this is coming from someone who was once employed at the HMV superstore. Every single person who worked there while I was there, as far as I could tell, was very passionate about music, movies, or both - myself included. I think, however, that a lot of customer's expectations were totally unrealistic. Just think of how insanely broad the world of music is, yet so many people expect you to know everything, without considering genres, just because you work in a music store.

A perfect example: I worked in the classical section, which had its own, clearly labeled room. One day a middle aged man approached me to ask if we had any George Benson cd's. I said I wasn't sure because I wasn't familiar with the artist but that I would be more than happy to check the database for him. Before I even had a chance to do so, his face turned beet red and contorted into a frightening grimace before exploding: "WHAT?!?!? You've never heard of George Benson???? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU??! HOW DID YOU GET HIRED IN A MUSIC STORE????? FUCK!!!!!!" He then promptly stormed out, practically foaming at the mouth with outrage. Embarrassed, I asked some colleagues who this allegedly famous George Benson was and they told me he was a jazz guitarist.

You know, there's a very logical reason why I asked to be put in the classical section when I got hired instead of the jazz section - I don't know anything about jazz since I've never gone out of my way to listen to it. I would have been equally useless as a source of information on hip hop, country, world music, or electronic music. It's simply physically impossible to possess expertise even in the broad genres that music stores carry. That's why people are stationed in the sections where they have the most knowledge. That man was a complete idiot for going into the classical department to ask about a jazz artist. Anyway, there were many such occurrences but that was the most extreme case. That job required quite a bit of patience, let me tell you...
 
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Yeah...that customer was a bit extreme :)
I'd probably also expect a staff member to know George Benson, but not in the classical section.

That's why I used my Tragically Hip example. I don't expect the kid in the mall store to know George Benson or even, say, Wilco (though it would be nice).

But when that kid responds to your, "Is the new Tragically Hip in?" with, "Um, is that rock?" you have a fundamental problem. It's probably more of a symptom of the death of music stores than a cause but it's still sad.

I don't think this is old farts bemoaning the changing winds. I think these stores were great forums for lovers of music and somehow they just blew this whole transition. The record labels I could care less for - they did it to themselves. But Sam's, HMV, Tower etc really brought something to the table.

Even at a corporate level, I recall a couple of years ago the president of HMV Canada offering a "money back guarantee" on Springteen's MAGIC album. That's not a business decision; that's a MUSIC decision, but I don't think there are many of those left in the tank.

And to Coruscanti; the atmosphere was part of the charm. Kinda like Honest Eds. Record shopping isn't supposed to be like furniture shopping. It's because of the beat-up signs and uneven floors that people loved Sam's.
 
Coruscanti Cognoscente said:
I'm surprised that anyone misses Sam's. That place always seemed so grungy/dingy/dirty to me.
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That's part of it's charm! stepping back in time like shopping in tower records in greenwich village. I'm glad it didn't turn into a modern chic store like HMV or FYE.
 
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