A right royal victory for HMV

All hail! His Master's Voice (HMV) - favoured music retail emporium of queens everywhere - is saved by the Canadians!

Read the story on the BBC

Read my blog "Nipper is dead?"

Nipper is dead?

Yet another High Street institution is going to the wall...

Unlike Jessops camera stores, or JJB Sports, Comet Electrical, cheap clothes shop Peacock's and the like that have all gone recently - but more in the vein of the death of "Good Old Woolies" (Woolworths) - HMV music stores are deeply imbued with fond memories. Where else (when we had money) could we envelop ourselves in an entire concert-hall-sized room full of our kind of "easy listening" CDs, or while away several hours just browsing through the exotic and the unknown music of all the continents of the world?

Amazon and the inevitable iTunes may have displaced this sensual experience in the eyes (and ears) of a majority of music buyers, but I cannot believe that there could be a substitute for just walking past a shelf, spotting a familiar photo, and shrieking "it's on CD - at last!" when a cherished old vinyl album appears in silver plastic form for the first time!

Call me a Luddite if you like, but I like to handle my music in physical format. The loss of HMV is not just the "march of progress", it is another significant part of my life's pleasures that will be annihilated forever, and I don't like that.

HMV goes into administration

His Master's Voice (HMV) on Wikipedia