An Ode to HMV

Does anyone remember record stores? I was 5 years old when I bought my first CD. I really liked the song 'Girls Just Want To Have Fun' by Cyndi Lauper after hearing it on a classic hits radio station and I just craved more, like an obese child at a buffet. That was when my obsession with music began.

Those days feel so innocent in retrospect. The pure, unfiltered joy of a child opening his favourite CD cover and flicking through the pages to see the bright glossy photos of a pop star, frozen in time yet seemingly enjoying it. Spotify just doesn't give me that feeling. I enjoy the sounds, yes but I don't get the whole package, the emotion of it all. Albums used to be an event but now it just seems like they're just something that drops with a loud rumble but fizzles out like a punctured balloon.

I had met my first best friend before at school, but when we really started to connect it was in HMV coincidentally. As Madonna says immortally in her number one single, 'Music makes the people come together.' I never agreed more. That day, something was solidified, a connection unlike any other and I would be lying if I said that it wasn't to do with the time and place.

This is an ode to HMV. Where all my best memories lie. The shop that I loved and lost. The place where I fell in love with music. It will never die, as long as we remember it.