It is what the beginning of the end of civilization will
look like, no doubt: bewildered tourists mutating into fluorescent locusts, as
around them flap gaudy signs filled with idiotic type blaring that everything
must go!
And it appeared that, at HMV, 150 Oxford Street, the cliché was
desperately, desperately true. We – those of us who toil in the more nebulous
bits of capitalism, the bits that make it look prettier than it is, basically –
spend so much of our time extolling you to buy, to try, to satisfy, all for a
better life, that we rarely give a thought to what happens when our
exhortations, the entreaties, the pleas to step across the threshold to pick up
the object, to click the button fail and all that is left to do is to empty out
the ark as quickly as possible.
The prevailing attitude in the air on Sunday morning was:
cash would be preferable, but if you have a skip outside that’ll do quite
nicely too. Not that everything was priced to go, mind, not yet, not yet, there’s
still some time left according to the shop assistant who was to be made
redundant next week, “and then I’ll spend all my time haunting independent record
stores.”
Also on view: the ennui that comes when you know the end is
in sight. The two copies of Saint Etienne’s Sound
of Water, one priced at £9.99, the other £7.99; the sticker on the empty
rack of shelves saying it was on sale for £25, other fixtures and fittings
available but no discounts would be applied; the banners that helped you
calculate your additional 10% off today, just in case you were a culture
vulture on a budget and couldn’t run wild yet.
Which isn’t to say that there wasn’t pride in place too. How
could there not be when The Beach Boys’ Smile
box set was still retailing for £129.99. But this pride was leaking away, the
pride that people once had in selling these physical artefacts of an
entertainment culture that they’d convinced themselves was in some way
important to their lives, and those of their customers. A Rasta Ted doll might
do that to you.
I felt that pride once. I never kept count of the thousands
of pounds I spent in the shop since I was 13. I felt in a small way guilty that
my frivolous consumption habits couldn’t prop the edifice up. All the time, all
the flicking through the racks, clack clack clack as I searched for the next 12
songs that meant more than the last 12… didn’t that investment – that commitment
– mean something to the great gods of capitalism?
Apparently not. It’s the saddest I’ve ever felt in a shop. I
thought for a moment about making one final purchase – a token, a votive for a
way of life that we thought was permanent but in the end turned out to be as
ephemeral and disposable as wiser heads said it was. But I couldn’t. I’ve never
been good at navigating crumbling retail stock systems.
The Who’s ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ was playing during this
final browse. And then the CD started skipping. Metaphor found, I left, for the
final time.
Labels: reportage HMV 150 oxford street closing down
