I’ve been following this non-story about the slowing of “digital” sales and also the ongoing seemingly end days of HMV. Opposite sides of the same coin. Have you been in an HMV lately? It’s like going into Homebase or B&Q, a very depressing experience. There are bargains to be had if it’s landfill you’re after but it ceased to be a music store eons ago. Let it die and support the true independents that struggle on week to week.
The slippage in digi-sales is perhaps a direct ailment of getting nothing for your money. Oh, the tune? That’s incidental because there are several generations that aren’t educated to the fact that artists might have to be recompensed for their work. There are those who buck the trend, that work hard and get sales, but they’re way below what they used to be. Just today, I saw that ad at the cinema where they harp on about the film being recorded by a camera in the theatre and being made available for “download”. Who in their right mind, that you know, would seriously watch anything of that quality on their flat screen HD TV let alone anywhere else.
To my mind, anyone recording anything thusly is wasting their time or at best needs their heid looked. It’s greed that strangulating these industries, the same symptom that puts popcorn sales before the film and charges over the odds for (just the) tune(s). Ignorance of not respecting artwork/photos and liner notes or lyrics is not necessarily a crime. It’s about respect and valuing the work that has gone into creating it. Neither of these commodities is taught to any degree because we’re all caught in the glare of consumerism even at this late stage.
There was something on TV about selling hooky cigarettes and tobacco this week and how much the government is losing in revenue from this. Perhaps that's why petrol is going through the ceiling, the toffs have got to make their corn somehow. The garage that I go to is the closest one to the refinery but it's still nudging £1.30 a litre. Getting angry about something like this takes my mind off other matters and correlates with needing to find something beyond the bullshit we are constantly bombarded with.
A friend recently asked the pertinent question of “where would we be without music?” in relation to it helping them and theirs though a rough patch. It doesn’t even bear thinking about is perhaps the answer but it ain’t ever going back to how it was so we need to get used to that. So lap up the experience of the record store or the cinema while you still can because there those out there that won’t be happy until each and every one is boarded up and that you have to go through their cartel. Do everything you can to stop that.
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