On a Tuesday evening Flashback Records is full of customers carefully picking their way through LPs. The picture is far from what some might believe after the change in fortunes of high street music giant HMV.
Both chains and independent record shops like Flashback Records face stiff competition from online download sales, now the norm for music purchases. Just 567,000 (0.3 per cent) of the 189m singles sold last year were physical products while downloads mostly from Apple’s iTunes store surpassed 183m (97 per cent).
In spite of this, independent music shops, particularly ones in affluent urban areas like Islington are having something of a renaissance.
Manager of Flashback Records, Ossie Hirst, is “crazy busy” and doesn’t have time to discuss the rising fortunes of the store but owner Mark Burgess is more than happy to talk shop. He has been speaking to the press regularly over the last year, a sign of how well the indie industry is doing.
“I set up Flashback 15 years ago starting in Islington. Up to three to five years ago it was all secondhand but we started to get new vinyl in. We noticed it was starting to become a real sought after commodity.
“Now we’re thriving mainly through selling vinyl but we also sell CDs and DVDs.
“The last five years have been the turn around. 2005 was a nadir and now it’s just come back to its strength.
“It’s an evolving thing. About 5-10 years ago an 18-year-old wouldn’t have seen vinyl and wouldn’t have known what an LP was. Weirdly as these people have got older they’ve become bored with the MP3 market and the people now who are more likely to think MP3 is still cool are 30-somethings.
“One of the skills of running a music shop is recognising what those trends are and reacting to them.”
Mark is frequently asked for his take on HMV-the downfall of the longstanding high street fixture has been the most important shake-up of the physical music market in recent times. The closing of a third of the chain’s outlets is not something to which he is particularly sympathetic.
“They tried to turn HMV into a Sainsbury’s for music and there’s already a Sainsbury’s for music – that’s Sainsbury’s.
“It was well-known that it had been struggling for years. It isn’t dead – certainly it has undergone some severe pruning – but I won’t be going to the funeral just yet.
“I think there is a model out there for a sustainable high street chain and maybe they do have someone who can do that but it is doubtful.
“The fact is people who are looking for CDs are looking for something like an obscure jazz CD. Even supermarkets are trying to work out whether it’s worth having a physical product. You aren’t going to sell Britney Spears or One Direction – that’s for the MP3 market.”
