"Do you have a soul?" "That all depends"

A couple of musically themed articles/pieces I've read today.  One writes off "rock" as a genre, and the other writes off the record shop due to the recent announcement of HMV closing.

I guess the second is more nostalgia for record shops of the past, like the one in High Fidelity.  The author yearns for the old days of spending hours in a record shop surrounded by other music fanatics and thinks that these are disappearing just because HMV is closing 60 stores.  Whilst I admit there is increased competition due to the internet and as a result the industry of a high street music store is definitely in decline I don't think this has particularly effected HMV.  I don't know their revenue split between high-street and online but it increased by 3% in 2010 and profit after tax rose by 11% and nothing in their financials gives me cause for concern, so people should stop digging their grave.  It would be foolish for them to withdraw from the high-street all together because it would reduce their exposure and the public would probably assume that it went the way of Woolworths.

That said, although the author specifically mentions HMV he is obviously not talking about the soulless corporate giant that it now is.  I do still go there but they are over priced and hardly offer that High Fidelity experience.  These places do exist though, they are just much harder to find.  I share Mr Manzoor's desire for this and I could not imagine a better job than working in a situation like High Fidelity.  So I hope Sarfraz doesn't give up on hitting 40 and resorting to just online orders.  It may be that in the long term the internet takes over from the shop but there is still the thrill of leafing through albums to make the spur of the moment purchase or get your hands on something the day it comes out.  It's also just nice to have something tangible in your hands when you've bought it.  There will also be people like me who obsessively collect, so I think CDs and the CD stores will be in fine health for a while yet, especially ones who have workers who really care about music.

The other piece is in the Independent and seems to think that rock music is dying because there are only 3 rock acts in the top 100 songs of the year.  On the opposite foot I would argue that this is no indication what so ever, alternative music has always been an "alternative" to the charts - rebellion to what the music industry machine wants you to listen to.  I will cede the point however that there are less young acts coming through.  This is something my friends and I have discussed on many occassions.  We were trying to think of bands that we listen to who were formed after the year 2000 and we really struggled.  Not a single one of the acts I own were formed after 2005 without having come from a previous band.  However, as long as those many acts I do like keep going is this anything to worry about?