HMV demise a blow for the joy of record shops

Once there, that cash would soon disappear in exchange for the latest offering from our favourite bands which would be rushed home and played over and over again (usually accompanied by a backing track of 'Turn that down' from the parents downstairs).

But with the demise of HMV today, that pleasure seems to have been lost forever.

Commentators have been quick to point out that the company's decision to call in the administrators is nothing short of the sounding of the death-knell for the high street we once loved.

If all the people that HMV employs lose their jobs, that would be 12,000 retail posts wiped out in a matter of just six weeks.

HMV employs 4,000 people. Last week 1,300 shop staff were left jobless when camera retailer Jessops closed its 187 stores across the UK.

Before that it was electrical retailer Comet – 236 shops, more than 6,000 staff.

The list, it seems, is endless.

The finger of blame has been pointed at out of town supermarkets and internet firms without the overheads that come with a high street presence.

But buying things like music is more than a simple cash transaction.

Of course you can go online and listen to a track on Spotify or iTunes before downloading it from there.

But, and I don't want to sound over the top or all 'rose-tinted glasses' about this, for us teenagers who trudged out to the high street it was an experience.

There is a joy to found in rifling through the shelves and uncovering a previously undiscovered gem. It is the same with books. It is why, to me, the Kindle will never replace the hardback, even though book shops must be the next ones looking over their shoulders.

When I was an impressionable youth, there was no end of choice on where to pick up the latest music release.

If HMV didn't have it, Our Price probably did. If not there was always Rainbow Records. If you wanted something a bit more rare, Shropshire residents of my vintage may well recall heading to Cobweb Records.

I still remember to this day going to the shop on the way to an exam in 1986 to ensure I was one of the first amongst my circle of friends to buy the new Queen album A Kind Of Magic.

The exam was made more torturous by the fact that I had this record in my bag that I was desperate to listen to.

And it wasn't just the music on the album. It was the albums themselves. The covers were works of art and contained inside were the words to each of the songs. We didn't simply download these things and then listen to them, we sat back reading the words as they came out of the speakers, and admiring the artwork during the guitar solos.

A quick look at my record collection now would reveal other gems.

I have 7ins and 12ins records, EPs, LPs and even cassingles. Some people reading this will have no idea what that means.

Not only that, but I have picture disks.

Records as artwork. The pride of my collection is a 12ins extended remix of the Queen single The Invisible Man - on clear vinyl!

A record you can see through. I bought that one from Cobweb Records.

Singles used to have B-sides. Songs that didn't make the album, available only to the committed fans. That is now lost. Boy bands have to work a lot less hard for their money than the rock bands that came before them did.

Record stores were also more than just shops. Bands played gigs inside them. Signed records for queuing fans. I waited in such queues myself. An album signed by the band Skin sits in my collection.

HMV's flagship London store famously played its part in helping The Beatles land their record deal, setting them on the path to becoming the biggest band in the world. In early February 1962 the group had been rejected by Decca Records, leading to the group's newly appointed manager Brian Epstein to fume that they would one day "be bigger than Elvis Presley".

It was Epstein's visit to the HMV shop in Oxford Street which set their eventual deal in motion.

Epstein called in to see a friend he had made on a retail management course, who suggested his tapes should be transferred to discs – to make it easier to hawk the songs around.

The shop engineer was so impressed that he called down a music publisher from a top floor office of the building, and he in turn, made a call to the secretary of producer and Parlophone executive George Martin.

By September 4, the band was back at Abbey Road to record their first single Love Me Do and the rest is pop history.

HMV's fall from those halcyon days is a tragedy for those who earn their living working for them and a worry for customers with outstanding gift vouchers or warranties on goods.

But for those of us of a certain age it marks the end of the high street record store.

The loss of an experience, replaced with a simple cash transaction.

Buying music will never be the same.