Why browse in a dusty shop or sparkling new shopping "mall" when you can listen and buy in the comfort of your own home. Everything is available online. I don't give a hoot about the format either, just the music.

Record shops are dying off because most people don't want 'em any more.
Great record shops were killed off by Megastores, now it's their turn.

Gone? One in Manchester, although owned by HMV. Vinyl Exchange still popular also but mainly second-hand and promo CDs.

Video games and consoles have migrated to the front of the store.

The rock and pop section occupies approximately half the shelf space it did a month ago. It's beginning to remind me of Our Price in terms of scale.

I was in HMV in Colchester last week and, apart from a small chart stand front of store, music has been relegated to some racks along the back wall of the shop.
There must be sound retail reasoning behind this though. HMV are doing their best, and not unsuccessfully, to make the maximum profit and a difficult time on the high street when the whole future of their key product is in doubt.

people like us were griping that sheet music was being relegated to the backs of shops in preference to these 'gramophone' things.

To be fair HMV have developed quite a good 2 for £10 range (I got the recent REM and Goldfrapp there a couple of weeks ago) and I very occasionally find a bargain in Zavvi. That said, most of my cd buying - and I still want my music on CD - is done online these days.

I find online shopping is great when I know what I want to get, but browsing through an online seller's sale that can have hundreds and often thousands of items takes forever and is no substitute at all for the enjoyment I used to get going to the Dundee Fopp after work most Fridays and browsing their sale racks.

One of the happiest nights of my life was on a London trip a couple of years ago when, one evening, my girlfriend was meeting her sister to go see a show and my plan was to go find Fopp for a bit of late night CD shopping then head back to our hotel. Instead I managed to spend the whole evening in first the Covent Garden Fopp then up to the massive store (it had levels, and a cafe - if it had beds I could have moved in). I ended up meeting my girlfriend outside the theatre laden with bags full of CDs, and my claim she could listen to any of them she wanted fell on deaf ears when she looked in the bag and didn't recognise any of the artists.

Last time I was in Edinburgh I visited the Fopp there. It was packed with customers and also still full of the sorts of bargains and artists I just don't find online.

The Fopp website's been saying they'll have an online store for ages. Wonder if that'll ever come to fruition?

I was in London in May for the first time in 17 years and was very disappointed to find the Fopp in Camden was closed (still with stock visible) - weeping, whining and pounding on the door didn't get me in. Happily I found an independent record shop (with vinyl) along the road which sated me for a while.
Berlin a week later was a little lean when it came to music stores and when I did find them (such as one near Zoo Station it seemed very expensive and the selection was quite limited.

Later in July I was in Sapporo, Japan and was very impressed with the range available at HMV in the main railway station - I picked up the latest from Joan as Policewoman, The Hold Steady and Frightened Rabbit.

Back home in Wellington (NZ) we are lucky to still have the venerable Slow Boat Records, a musty smelling secondhand record store that years ago smelled strongly of fish in its old premises next to ... a fish shop. How it keeps going I don't know but I am very glad it does.

Up the road Real Groovy seems to be going great guns, with its huge premises (by NZ standards) and lots of attractive and pierced counter staff - tho' the DVD section and its online store is getting bigger and bigger as time goes on

After the Virin Megastore on Edinburgh's Princes Street was rebranded to Zavvi it seemed to actually have a detrimental effect on the amount of people shopping in there! I think shoppers were confused as they thought they were going in to a record store but it seemed to carry such a pathetic selection of cds in amongst the budget dvds, tshirts, badges etc. To the shops credit they did try to introduce a good selection of vinyl, but to no avail - the store closed at the beginning of September leaving a large vacant site on Edinburgh's main shopping street. It's hard to think such a thing could happen to a store that I remember would be absolutely packed on all three floors on a Saturday afternoon. (However, HMV are probably rejoicing as the demise of their main competitor will probably mean a few more punters going into their shop two doors up the road, postponing its inevitable closure for a few more months) The end of the Megastore is nigh...

How good to know it's still going. I used to spend many happy hours in there when I worked in Broomhill...

Elbow - Cast of Thousands - £3
Gene Clark - Gene Clark (remastered plus bonus tracks) - £3
Elliot Smith - Figure 8 - £3
Undertones - The Sin of Pride (+ bonus tracks) - £3
Syd Barrett - Barrett (+ bonus tracks) - £5
Syd Barrett - The Madcap Laughs (+ bonus tracks) - £5

Total - £22

At the till - informed conversation about Elliot Smith's sad demise.

I love Fopp.

Plymouth and Exeter stores of HMV and Zavvi now have much smaller areas for CD sales. browsing around these stores was the only incentive to a days shopping as far as i am concerned. All the cds they now stock are in the 2 for £10 offer , some new releases or plain boring and obvious stuff. they used to have recommendations etc and they have now gone. As it is a few years since i have gone to any of our great cities this means i shall only be buying on line . the independant shop in Exeter has also now closed. perhaps if you wish to browse the best place is a cd and record fair or second hand shop. i have recently noticed a sign stating ' record / cd fair ' , unfortunately the event was the day before i saw the sign ! So is it worth a trip to london or birmingham ( they are closest) to reminisce , if so where would you go before they all close !

we never had the pleasure of Fopp, being stuck with Virgin and HMV and a couple of local chains. The local chains have all closed in the past 5 years, leaving just a couple of second hand shops. Zavvi opened a new Belfast store in the spring as part of a new shopping complex and whilst CD's only take up less than a 1/4 of the store I was quite impressed by the sale they had in the summer.

Was in Amsterdam a few weeks ago and was impressed by a large store there (can't remember the name) which though most of its prices were utterly extortionate at least had a comprehensive selection through which to browse.

Haven't been over to London for the best part of 8 years, but surely Berwick Street is still worth a visit?

The end is nigh. One of the joys of holidaying in the US was blowing the remaining travellers cheques in record shops. When in Vegas nearly two years ago, there was every kind of retail outlet apart from one selling CDs and DVDs. Not one, anywhere.

Spent a wonderful day searching the record shops 2 years ago. Nevermind the "it's-expensive-over-there" brigade. There was an HMV on every corner (almost) stocking everything its UK counterpart did not and was also cheaper. Then I found a nice local store (name forgotten) where I picked up a map of other record shops in the area and attempted to find them all.

That's what it is to be a tourist.

enjoyed a little trip to totnes yesterday and made a purchase , also buying some very nice cheese in ticklemore street.

These guys ditched the CD in a hurry to make to way for DVDs and now those are only worth a couple of quid too they are pretty much stuffed.

I was in Oxford Street last Sunday and saw a Zavvi and as I always have done, automatically went in. There was Elbow being played too loud (and I do like Elbow) and piles of sorry looking random DVDs and CDs in various offers, and like I always do these days I walked out shaking my head in bemusement. I don't buy Cds and if I did I would do it online I guess. There was nothing about the whole experience that made me want to do anything but get out asap. I think sooner or later I'll kick the habit and stop going in all together. HMV produces similar results.

Fopp seems to sell stuff for £2 or £3 and you get the impression they are saying: 'Please take this. We don't know what to do with it. We've got 2000 copies of The Tears album and no bugger want's em'. I think we're a year away from market stall inside the stores with people shouting 'I'll throw in this copy of the new Primal Scream album if you buy the Glasvegas album for 6 quid'.

Saw an ad on TV last week for a "New Version" of Rihanna's CD Good Girl Gone Bad. So what? Record companies advertise on TV all the time. It was not an ad for Zavvi or HMV or whoever is left.

This was being promoted on the fact it had extra tracks, etc. It was also £5. So who is not making money on this?

While looking up on Wikipedia as to the meaning of Zavvi (probably ripped off savvy) it mentions it still operates ELVIS - EPOS Linked Virgin Information System. Pity I did not see the other announcement made on 21 September 2007 when a press release revealed "Zavvi would be making a fresh start in the entertainment retail space. This included the plans to focus more on the sale of games, to compete with GAME and Gamestation"

I could have saved time searching for music in their stores.

FOPP News. Today I purchased both series of Early Doors on DVD for £4 each and C.P.Lee's book When We Were Thin, about the Albertos, for £3. Could even be autographed (could be a printed signature, not sure) but may be because it came from the Manchester store.