Friday, October 12, 2007

Gennaro Castaldo Watch: Let's not panic, eh?

The Sun turns to a man who should know, Gennaro Castaldo of HMV, to find out if Radiohead's pay-as-you-like offer marks the end of record shops as we know them. Surprise! He doesn't think so:

HMV spokesman Gennaro Castaldo doesn’t think so. He said: "Let’s face it, Radiohead are one of the few acts that can pull this sort of thing off. Fans appreciate the versatility of downloads, but they also love to collect albums."

Of course, what jhe's effectively said is that only big acts can afford to turn their back on traditional distribution methods - which, for a record shop spokesperson is on a par with a butcher saying that new rules will mean he'll still have everything except beef, lamb and pork in future.


1 comment:

Paul Wells said...

yes, people do like to collect albums. I'd be surprised if any 'collectors' still go to HMV these days though. Half the floor space is for selling DVDs, games and other 'merchandise' and the area left for music is mostly given over to a sale section trying to flog James Blunt albums for 6 quid.
With the postal strike and whatnot i went in to HMV the other day to buy the Beirut album, Iron and Wine and Manu chao. 2 of those they didn't stock and the other was sold out (this means they had sold the only copy they had).
Don't mention that butcher thing too flippantly, that's probably HMV's new business model: "get some luvverly sausages with yr latte and Mcfly album!"

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