The Sound of Music

Nestled neatly amongst the largest names in designer brands and sports cars, just two weeks ago I found a flagship Virgin Megastore half way down the Champs Elysees Boulevard. Like a glittering beacon of music industry past, the humongous store sat adhorned by thousands of bustling Parisians all dodging in and around the doors. I take a few intrepid steps towards this seeming mirage: I can’t quite believe that there’s still an operational Virgin Megastore around. With a certain sense of nostalgia, I remember how this would normally be one of my first and last stops on a trip into Manchester. Certainly, it’s a mecca of my childhood: the endless stacks of CDs and the perilous piles of DVD boxsets. It seems somewhat surreal, which is all the more confounding, because I know I can browse the selection at any HMV when I return home.

Nipper has become a symbol of HMV record stores worldwide.
Image Credit:  Lienhard Schulz, Wikimedia Commons.

But this treasured retail paradise is now threatened too. With the announcement of HMV’s administration, there is a huge question mark sat poised above the music industry in the UK at least. HMV is not just a store for music, film and game: it is a British icon and institution. The comic logo of a dog playing with a phonograph is an endearing image renowned worldwide, and branded the company something more than a faceless corporation, but a music shop that was ready to be alert, be active, be intuitive with the music scene.

From irrevocably changing the face of British and world music in helping to launch The Beatles, to today offering free intimate gigs with huge artists up and down the country, HMV has always been at the forefront of the high street music consumption. And some may argue that it isn’t a surprise that this store, which maintained high prices in the face of strong supermarket competition and emerging internet markets, has gone bust. In fact, some may think that it should have happened sooner.

HMV once had rivals in the form of Virgin, Zavvi
and Woolworths. Now, all of these illustrious music
stores look set to disappear from the high street.
Image Credit: Captain Scarlet, Wikimedia Commons.

Yet, consider that HMV still retain close to a 40% share in the sale of physical CDs on the high street. Without the fierce competition of high street giants, such as Zavvi, Virgin Megastore and Woolworths, HMV remained an oasis, a safe haven of the CD back catalogue. Whilst prices of chart and new releases are frequently a couple of pounds dearer than supermarket counterparts, there is no denying both the reasonable pricing and the huge selection available from yesteryear. Without sounding too much like an independent record-store hippie, HMV had become synonymous with the idea of rediscovering music, just as much as it presented the opportunity to hear new music. The catalogue is not only impressive for a physical store, but in cities, such as Manchester, the HMV is a virtual Aladdin’s Cave, hoarding gems to suit all tastes.

Perhaps without the competition of Zavvi and Virgin Megastore, HMV became too complacent, and believed too much in their monopoly on the market. But considering that Woolworths, until now possibly the largest brand to collapse under the crisis, was a leading retailer in DVDs until it folded, it is hard to believe that HMV would not extrapolate some lessons. More than any previous administration, this is probably the most significant of changing markets, and the most evocative of a ruthless industry.

And this ruthless legacy sparks potential for an even more sinister future. As the internet giants that are Amazon and Apple come to dominate the entire market, inundating consumers with rock-bottom prices at marginal profit, the high street fails. With the escalating problems at HMV, the nation’s last specialist record chain may soon face rolling the shutters one last time.

The ups and downs of HMV.
Image Credit: Kantar Worldpanel.

As fewer physical stores are open, the decline of job opportunities and the rise of further unemployment is only further aggravated by the fact that without any competition, the internet stores will soon be able to demand the same premiums that these stores once charged. Only excepting the fact that less VAT will be paid back to the UK, leaving an even greater whole in the financial heart of the country which only ten years ago welcomed the advent of internet shopping as a second coming for economic gains.

More than this, nothing quite beats the record shop. This is why independent stores have gradually made a comeback recently, competing more and more strongly each quarter. While the fall of HMV may spell a boost in custom for these shops, it will certainly see a real shift in the pace of digital takeover. Not even a decade ago, physical sales were more than double what they are now, whilst digital was still struggling to break the mainstream market and was only warily accepted by a few. Should a buyer not be found the endangered chain, not only is the future of the high street uncertain amidst the collapse of GAME and Jessops, but the very presence of the physical CD is undermined.

His Master's Voice: HMV's flagship store on Oxford St.
Image Credit: Getty Images

Without a major store in which to browse an extensive collection of artists and albums, the supermarkets’ charts will become the only token existence of the CD. Even here, there tends only to be CDs available from within the Top 50: if you want to find releases from before the past six or so months, there will be little choice but to turn to download. Personally, this strikes me as a killer blow to music. Just as some may say that nothing sounds like a vinyl, the CD, more than the cassette before it, is proof of the adaptability of music. Sharing and mixing, ready to be played in the car or the house, offering a backup against computer malfunction or meltdown, the CD is versatile. I find myself swizzing an album on Spotify before buying: if it’s something I know I’ll want to come back to decades from now, I buy the CD.

My favourite albums are all owned in the physical. There’s something about being able to hold a CD, point at an iconic cover, finger the inlays of someone’s work, slip in the disc to something that transports you to a time, place, mood, invoking memory and nostalgia. With the close of HMV, this very aspect of music love is also threatened, and it was the very thing that made the store unique. HMV might not be the first place to look for a bargain, but it is the first stop for a boxset bonanza, a CD binge or a gaming back catalogue. Without it, the versatile disc may not be considered versatile much longer.

ITune Out.

Social dynamics have changed significantly over the past decade, in no small part thanks to the recently deceased Steve Jobs.

Visionary and spokesperson extraordinaire for Apple Inc, Jobs has become a household name and synonymous with the most exciting innovations in consumer technologies.

This month is of particular interest to techies as it marks a decade since the release of the IPod to the social scene. Whilst it may seem to a vast majority that the IPod has been around for eons, that is more a comment of the consumer market: for the IPod specialises in a teen and young adult niche.

Therefore, the relative adopting of the product is something that had been previously unprecedented. Despite it being designed with the rebel teenager and twenty something hopeful in mind, quickly the item was snapped up by peoples of all ages across all social fields and by as early in its infancy as 2004, even president George Bush was spotted using one of the handheld devices.

Marketed under the ‘1,000 songs in your pocket’ slogan, the IPod heralded a new age of personal music.

Previous products came with evident restrictions. The infamous Sony Walkman series operated on tapes and latterly CDs. Of course, this means that only a certain number of tracks were available: usually no more than around 22-24.

A hard drive based device not only revolutionised the medium and options by which we could listen and select tracks, but defined the passing of an era.

For although those twenty songs on the tape player were few, this ensured a continual timeframe for isolation. Periodically, each person would reengage in social activity after a small amount of downtime, of being tuned in to a different world.

However, the current trend is overwhelmingly different. Children sit in the back of cars, not talking or playing games, but listening to their own pop music. Commuters no longer casually browse the newspapers, after all there is little room to peruse at leisure. The choice of music is clearly simpler. People on runs, at the gym, even in their own work spaces all reflect the trend, with white cords stuck into their ears.

Prof Michael Bull, author of ‘Sound Moves’ estimated that by 2007 alone, over half of the Western world had been conquered by the the IPod or its counterpart equivalents. What was once the retreat and solace of the young few, now a viable means for all to zone out, for longer.

The forefather of the headphone indoctrinated nations is Andreas Pavel, who invented the first personal stereo in the 1970s, recalling that his experience was akin to “putting a soundtrack to life so as it becomes a film”.

Indeed, a great deal of the appeal for the headphone generation is to act as a diversion and distraction. A vast majority of today’s youth could not write an essay without a soundtrack, cannot walk to the shop without tuning into a radio station or playlist. It adds a colour to the mundane tasks without disturbing anyone else.

Yet, the frustrations of the headphones are all too numerous. A survey has lately revealed that many people believe that having headphones in restricts conversation, or should be taken as a sign not to talk to the person in question. Headphone etiquette is all the more troubling. Should a person take one or both headphones out in a shop? Or simply turn the volume down? Do we instantly undermine an authority if we keep our headphones blaring?

You may talk to Henry; but for how long?

In addition, Prof Bull's interviews with iPod users confirm this perception. Many iPod users told him they resented people interrupting their listening to talk to them.

“Self-absorbed” and “mindless” are often labels attached to those who indulge in this culture, their music makes them oblivious even to the person sitting next to them. However, would that be someone shouting into their mobile on a train, there seems to be some satisfaction in the opportunity to ignore one’s surroundings.

For all the debate, there is no questioning the scientific realities. With the unprecedented uptake of the IPod and other personal music players, there has come a greater number of people exposed to loud noise on a daily basis. Witness the advent of self-inflicted deafness.

Andrew Goodwin, outreach adviser at Deafness Research UK estimated that a third of 16 to 34 year-olds listen to their MP3 player for an hour a day, while 14% listen for 28 hours a week. Many of them listen at maximum volume.

In order to gain perspective, Goodwin cited that the kind of noise damage that went out with the shutting down of heavy industry in the 1970s, is now coming back. Many tested MP3s reach 100 decibels, 10 decibels higher than a pneumatic drill. We're going to have tens of thousands of people who'll need hearing aids in their 40s.

Consequently, has Jobs popularisation of the media player created a worthwhile diversion or created a temporary state of ignorance for teens that will develop into permanent problems in later life?

Considering the momentous success of the Apple range, there should be more focus on hearing awareness in the marketing process, akin to the ‘Drink Aware’ campaigns. It is all too common that people unconsciously alter their music levels when a favourite track plays, on the tube, to avoid conversation. However, such continued usage encourages anti-social behaviour, a loss of manners and a deviation from health issues.

Poetically, a recent sign read that “10 years ago, we had Steve Jobs, Johnny Cash and Bob Hope. Today, we have no jobs, no cash and no hope”. Perhaps it’s a sign that our society has become stagnant of late, and there need be a revival of social feeling and interaction.

An ironic take on a future dominated by the IPod. 

World Wide Wake

Shocking in timing and emotional in the response it produced, the death of Steve Jobs earlier this month left an apple sized hole in the technology industry.

Jobs, who had been battling cancer for some time, notably without prescribed medicines over a lengthy period, died at the premature age of 56. His ingenuity has seen a complete transformation of the role that technology plays in our daily life and the way in which most people interact with such inventions.

Even just over a decade ago, computers were only just becoming a personal item; previous they had been the reserve of the social elite at science universities and laboratories. Alongside competition from Bill Gates’ infamous Windows operating system, Apple launched their own brand of computer and had seen its ‘fruitition’ into one of the most promising pieces of home computing available to the public.

However, whilst the advent of the personal computer was heralded as a marvel and a breakthrough, with the benefit of hindsight, it is easy to reflect that this was an inevitable and not so shocking development in the spectrum of technology use.

Evidently, such an idea of progression was not lost on Jobs. Quickly, he started to expand the apple corporation from this small niche into the most exciting market adventure.

While great swathes of technologists spend painstaking hours attempting to reinvent current products, working out kinks that were probably insignificant in the first place, Jobs took a novel approach to his work. In combining latest ideas and technologies, Jobs wanted Apple to represent the latest consumer products that had never been imagined.

Consider for a moment, the idea of a multifunctional MP3, with large screen and wheel for easy navigation. Back in 2001, that was not only unique, it was quite unimagined in the testing infancy of such portable devices. The IPhone, again, was revolutionary in that it almost pre-empted a consumer fantasy of compact that has now permeated to be the norm. Who needs to carry two items, when one suffices?

King of the off-the-wall-come-instantly-appreciated techy gadgets sits the IPad. Upon its inception, the IPad baffled a number of people. A tablet computer that seemed to operate as a large model of an IPhone. Where was the market? What was its purpose? It almost appeared an invention for the sake of invention.

Yet within very little time, it was soon comprehended that due to excellent battery life, apps, and compatible features, this device could revolutionise the way business is transacted on one hand, whilst being able to support student projects and family face time all in one. A cumbersome Windows laptop needed to boast new Intel processors in order to revive any competitivity.

The Genius of Jobs then was not so much his ability to bring out cutting edge products; it was his ability to conceive devices of which no one had considered the proper functionability.

Nowadays, in any global city, you can barely walk for chance of accosting someone with an Apple product on their being: be that the daydreamer plugged into their IPod, or awkward attempts to sneak a peek at the IPad sat across from you on the daily commute. Apple have managed to infiltrate social norms by proffering a swifter and more dynamic way to keep in touch and manage one’s life whilst ‘on-the-go’

In fact, it has been suggested that if you were to try and get a picture of what drives social evolution in the 21^st century, you could do a lot worse than take time to muse over Apple’s sudden dominance.

Whilst Jobs understood that the 21^st century was about becoming an individual and increasingly independent in our approach (after all, we are increasingly only in touch through social networking and emails), this trend is one in which everyone shares.

Therefore, Jobs has managed to capture the spirit and essence of two domains: the business and the personal in all of his products. The range of apps and downloads and styli available for each variant device is astronomical: there is a personal touch to every Apple appliance, for each user is unique. This allows them to break away from corporations that dominated the 1990s.

However, at the same time, Apple has built itself to be a community: every one shares in their collective experiences of these contraptions, so as not to become isolated and confused in a world that is ever so more connected by the internet and computing.

Jobs own spin was to claim that “It’s not the consumers’ job to know what they want.”

Poignant, the remark goes against the grain of fundamental capitalism, wherein a company should be able to provide services in a market designed by a clientele.

Revolutionising not just our communication pattern then, Jobs altered the way in which a market should respond to its customers. His apparently random approach actually serves as a lesson to a great number of inventors and techie-folk: during a period of down-turn, the items that are to see companies through varying problems are those which capture, inspire and are totally unpredicted by their public.

Ironically, Steve Jobs understood public sentiment better than most politicians in this case.

The essence of the IPad is that it can be anything that you want it to be. Jobs, it seemed, was a visionary who could imagine anything that we wanted.

Perhaps the greatest testament to his legacy is that his death was first brought to the public attention on a device he himself launched.