An old idea that might just save HMV

I'm sure all of us who are passionate about recorded music have pondered possible solutions to the precarious position HMV find themselves in. Two significant trump cards that physical shops have over online retailers are immediately obvious:

1. Customers can hold the product before buying it. This is particularly significant with lavish box-sets like the recent Solti Ring box. Having had the pleasure of laying hands on it myself, I can honestly say I would snap it up in a second if it were in front of me, but I would definitely pass by if all I had was a small picture on my computer screen. HMV should fill their shops with beautiful physical objects. Not just CDs that are cheaper online or easier to download.

2. Knowledgeable, enthusiastic staff. Independent record shops everywhere understand this and they stay afloat largely because they employ the right people.

But I think we may have overlooked a much older solution: group listening. In the early days of the gramophone, when equipment was very expensive and you had to save up for weeks before you could afford a record, gramophone societies were formed where people could come together and listen to an hour's worth of music and talk about what they thought at the end of the session. So important were these societies to many of Gramophone's readers that we used to publish the minutes of their society meetings.

Here's an example from June 1925:
DEWSBURY AND DISTRICT GRAMOPHONE SOCIETY. 'The second meeting of the above Society was held at the Church House, Church Street, Dewsbury, on Tuesday, April 21st, when the programme was kindly given by Mr H Pritchard, of Batley. Mr GH Hirst, of Dewsbury, presided. The following are a few of the records worthy of special mention: Songs of the Sea, Robert Radford and Ivor Foster; Ruslan and Ludmila, Symphony Orchestra; Sea Pictures, Leila Regana; Early one Morning, Labbette (Dora); Suite, Old English Dances, HM Coldstream Guards.'

It's a charming portrait of a forgotten world, isn't it? But how does this help a megaton commercial enterprise like HMV?

If HMV organised half-hour or hour-long listening sessions curated by an aforementioned knowledgeable member of staff who would guide you through a particular area of the repertoire that you were interested in, and then if those recordings were readily available to buy at the end of the session, don't you think that you might be more inclined to splash out on a few recordings while the music was still coursing through your veins? Wouldn't it be great to just escape from the hubbub of the high street for a little while to sit with a group of like-minded people and discover some new music, and maybe even have the opportunity to talk about it and find out more?

For many years orchestras have understood the power of offering recordings at the end of concerts. Some orchestras, like the Gürzenich Orchestra of Cologne, record all of their concerts live and then have the recording available to buy in the foyer five minutes after the end of the concert. Others will record some repertoire in a studio and then offer it in the foyer after they've just played it live. Either way, there is a clear understanding that people are far more likely to buy recordings if they have been given an opportunity to sample some of it in a carefully presented atmosphere beforehand.

I don't imagine there would be room in some of the smaller HMV shops, but certainly they could create a bespoke listening space in the larger shops by clearing a space amongst the t-shirts and posters of Justin Bieber.

As Philip Clark correctly stated in his perceptive blog on the demise of HMV, ‘If a new HMV does emerge, it needs to return…to music.'

What do you think? Is this kind of communal listening the sort of thing that might interest you? Could this actually work or am I just barking down the wrong gramophone horn?