Who's next?

It's been a bad few weeks for high street retailers. Nothing unusual in that, at the moment, but the last couple to have gone (or at least look like they're going) are names which we're all very, very familiar with.

I've never been into music, and though I do really enjoy films, I'm not an obsessive watcher of them by any means. Even so, hearing that HMV had gone into receivership struck a chord that will resonate in all of us. As a kid I used to go into the big HMV in Churchill Square in Brighton and browse the film section - videos when I was young, DVDs later, of course – or, rarely, the music section. This is one of those shared experiences which pretty much anybody can relate to - it didn't matter if you were a hardcore death metal-head or a serious classicist, what you were looking for could probably be bought there. Later, they added head- and earphones, books and mags, 'cool' bags and T-shirts, everything the yoof of the day may need. Ultimately, it didn't matter – a very long, drawn-out death is finally coming to its conclusion and 4,000 people are, in all likelihood, going to lose their jobs.

Blockbuster is another one; another of those collective experiences most of us have shared at some point. When videos arrived for the masses, they used to have to get multiple copies of the big blockbusters when they came in, and there'd still occasionally be a wait for the very biggest of them. Disappointed, you'd have to browse the racks of cases looking for an alternative, now and then taking a chance on something you'd never heard of. What was that chance based on? Who starred? The design on the case? What the shop staff said? That shared experience has also died a slow death, and now it seems Blockbuster too is in the final throes.

It's easy to see what's killed off these high-street institutions. "Internet killed the video star," said the local paper in Brighton, where HMV still had (has? I don't know) a store in the main shopping centre. Indeed the internet is, of course, the killer, but it has millions of accomplices – everybody buys their films and music from Amazon, Play.com and the like now, don't they? At Christmas, you can do all your shopping without getting off your backside, if you're so inclined. And millions are so inclined. The market simply moves the trade from the high-street to the large online retailers, goes the capitalist thinking, and the jobs move with it. Adapt or die – pretty simple economics.

We should, though, stop and think on what we're doing here for a moment. The big online stores employ, of course, far fewer people than they would if they ran shops selling similar quantities of merchandise. It's how, no doubt, they can offer products so much cheaper – lower wage bill, lower rent, lower utility charges; just a few fuck-off warehouses in strategic bits of the countryside and a sophisticated distribution network and Bob's your mother's brother. It certainly lacks something of the romance of our younger selves' experience of shopping for the latest must-have album.

I am no different to anybody else – I've used these online retailers plenty of times, though I don't buy music at all, but even I have bought books, gifts, household appliances, all sorts online. And I believe we've lost something valuable in ditching those collective experiences I mentioned earlier. These days, people don't even necessarily buy an actual artefact at all – they download films, music and books digitally. These objects, sometimes things of beauty and collectability even before the actual content – the music, film or story – is taken into account, have been reduced to a series of binary data, nothing more than electronic pulses to convey the creative efforts of all those people who conceived and produced them. So we're losing something there as well.

All these things have a knock-on affect. If fewer and fewer of the packages are being designed and produced, there's a net harm done to the design and production industries which feed off them. And if retailers keep closing, shopping centres become run-down agglomerations of charity shops, pound shops, pawnbrokers and the like, the grim flag bearers of hard economic times. I fear, though, it's too late. The small, independent places which survive (I assume because of a resurgence of interest in vinyl) now stand out even more as little beacons – when I pass Fopp, one such place right by my work, it's always full of earnest-looking men (always, always men) still scratching that itch, searching through racks of music or film for some arcane gem. So the need is still out there. Just not, it seems, in sufficient numbers to sustain these familiar names. And that, for me, is a loss to all of us.

Slaughtered with a Blunt instrument

I bought a Sunday paper the weekend just gone, a rarity in itself these days, as I had the luxury of the time to sit and read it on the train back from York. Not being into music, and being a self-confessed ignoramus on the matter, I usually don't bother to read reviews of singles or albums, but I did happen to catch their review of the new James Blunt album. The digital version is here, should you wish to read a review as vituperative, venomous, angry and scathing as any they're ever likely to publish.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/album-james-blunt-some-kind-of-trouble-rocket-2127747.html

The passions that this bloke incite in people have always intrigued me. A mate who's into his music in the same way I am football is moved to visible fury just by talking about him. I suggested that he's just an inoffensive warbler, but that was what seemed to move my mate to such ire in the first place. Mr Blunt's very inoffensiveness was what so offended said friend. Apparently he, and others like him, would rather listen to a diabolical, assault-on-the-senses cacophany than any of James Blunt's efforts because at least they incite a visceral response, even if it's a negative one.

This idea baffles me. You could probably put Blunt's album on in the background and, unless you're of a similar mind to my muso mate, not even notice it's there. The same could not be said of loud, tuneless, cacophonous shite. This is probably one of the reasons I'm not really into music, I just can't see what can get somebody so cross about something because it doesn't offend you. I simply don't care if it's just musak, fit for the lift or as hold music. Let it go! You musical types out there are a funny lot.

I suspect that there are plenty of people out there who will buy this thing and I seriously doubt Blunt gives a toss what the IoS make of his album as the royalties come in, but it's most interesting to note the almost plaintively furious response of the critics like Simon Price, who seems almost personally affronted that he should put it out. Unlike many of the things that get me wound up (X-Factor being the main culprit, surely a more deserving candidate for such ferocious opprobrium from music professionals) it's not sufficiently ubiquitous as to be unavoidable, so just don't listen to it.

That said, the album cover is faintly irritating.

With apologies to Shaky and Henry V

A night in the company of a group of friends who count among them an incredible number of excellent singers and musicians yesterday, to effectively banish the memory of an abhorrent couple of points dropped at home to Bournemouth, of which more in a later entry.

Gathering at a less than salubrious but extremely accommodating and very welcoming pub in Colliers Wood, I found myself as usual surrounded by mates whose talents for music-making leave me gasping for breath. Put together in a few weeks, a mixture of styles from Rage Against the Machine rock to self-penned Country & Western parody, all performed with elan, ostensibly to mark the ever-nearing arrival of the first child of a couple of friends, but really I suspect done for the mere pleasure of doing so.

A fantastic occasion - shit karaoke it wasn't. I'm amazed at the singing, song writing and musicianship of many of my mates, and find myself a barren, rocky outcrop of musical incompetence in a sea of talent. The upside of this is that I can just stand by the bar, have a drink, and bloody well enjoy myself. I loved it - years from now, those Absent Without Good Reason will look back and think themselves accursed that they were not there.

There was mention of doing it again in the closing words. While I suspect the poor sod who had to organise it, play with several of the acts and then pack much of the kit up afterwards may have had palpitations at the very mention of it, a very high benchmark has been set which it would be an absolute joy to see them try to better in future. Cheers, all.