In her recent virulently anti-HMV polemic in the Guardian's 'Comment is free' column Penny Anderson wrote that "smaller shops will survive", a message reflected in the subheadline of "Thankfully, small record shops will continue to serve true music fans". That is the fiction. My photographs show the facts. The one above was taken at a signing session and impromptu recital by Jordi Savall in Prelude Records, Norwich, one of the best smaller, traditional boutique record shops in the UK. Below is a photograph taken yesterday at exactly the same place. It shows the kitchen area of the Al Dente pasta bar that took over the premises when Prelude was forced out of business by predatory online competition. Al Dente's pasta is actually very good. But it can never replace the kind of nourishment that Prelude Records and countless other bricks and mortar record stores - including HMV - once provided.
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1 comment:
Boutique, independent shops are, even when they’re still there, limited to the kind of upmarket places that only the liberal elite can afford to live in.... I find her attitude repellent
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