Something Lost

Heard some news today, oh boy, about HMV, the major High Street retailers for music in the UK shutting up shop. Felt a bit sad, not for the various suits they employ losing their bonuses - chances are some if not most will do very well out of all this - but for the store workers losing their jobs, and shoppers, like myself, losing the opportunity to browse CDs racks. Here in this Far Place it's almost impossible to find music stores with a reasonable range of stock anywhere; the newer malls don't seem to have such outlets, or bookshops, for that matter, and I presume the HMV brand over here is now under threat.

I understand the dreary economics of all this - how downloading has cut massively into actual CD sales - and I am aware that it's worth celebrating the fact you can download almost anything (legally, happily) or buy almost actual CD you want on-line and get it delivered. But something has been lost, and I don't mean a place of refuge for myself when out shopping with the Missus, important as that may be.

I'm thinking here of the simple joy of browsing those racks of CDs, or the LPs of long ago, and feeling so close to something you knew might turn into a treasured possession. (One at a time only, of course; it was all I could afford.) I remember going out in the lunch hour from school to a little record shop on the main road and flipping through shelf after shelf of albums, dreaming of being able to get them home, as friends would excitedly attempt to give some idea of what they sounded like. And, of course, those were the days when album covers were album covers. Seriously, how could you not buy the first Crimson album after seeing that Schizoid face screaming out at you?