The Death of HMV: The Limits of a Digital World

The Cost of Freedom: The Limits of a Digital World

By Grant Kanigan

Francis Barraud's painting "His Master's Voice," after which HMV was named 

   

"I can't believe it,

The way you look sometimes,

Like a trampled flag on a city street,

Oh yeah.

And I don't want it,

The things you're offering me,

Symbolized bar code, quick ID, oh yeah

I'm a 21st century digital boy,

I don't know how to read

But I've got a lot of toys,

My daddy is a lazy middle class intellectual,

My mommy's on valium,

She's so ineffectual..."

- Bad Religion, "21st Century Digital Boy" 

     The news hit without subtlety, like a bag of bricks to the forehead; HMV is closing it's doors forever. Some might say it's just a store, a retail chain, or a big business in need of closing; out with the old, in with the new; all change is good change, the times, they are-a changin', and so on and so forth. But the shuttering of a chain that largely sold physical copies of audio and visual entertainment isn't so simple. HMV was for movie and music lovers. We didn't want to see a movie before it came out in theatres, we didn't want a ripped version of Fugazi's Repeater. We wanted to physical copy of the real thing; that was hand designed by the director or musician; an extension of the art itself, and an actual physical thing that was ours, and ours alone. Owning a CD of System of A Down's Mezmerize/Hypnotize or the specially designed, two-disc collectors set of Apocalypse Now and Apocalypse Now: Redux, was like owning a small part of Bach's Cello Suite, or Jackson Pollock's White Light, all to yourself. Even the terrible movies, like Hard Rain, Dude, Where's My Car, or The Postman had their special charm. A certain wonky, foolish decency that could win you over. Now, in the day of algorithms, artificial intelligence and targeted advertising, there won't be room for the off-colour misfires, the cheesy remakes. It's all comic books, meta-irony, self-awareness and impotent Oscar bait, catered to your specific tastes and desires. 

     The trouble with having everything handed to you on a digital platter is that it becomes a lot harder to be challenged about your views, your tastes, your prejudices, or your very being. I would have never discovered who Akira Kurosawa was had I not watched a special feature on one of Martin Scorsese's DVD's, or never would have discovered the joy's of 80's horror if I hadn't seen the enticing cover of John Carpenter's The Thing while browsing the aisles. Music wise too, would I have ever discovered Black Flag if I hadn't been looking for Billy Talent or Against Me! in the Punk section? When you have all of your whims and desires catered directly to you, everyone will find that their distinct, personal tastes aren't very unique, and are pretty damn boring.
     It may look like I'm just a guy who loves music, movies and writing, and can find a way to wax poetic about something as banal as a DVD retailer, but it's a little deeper than that. As HMV, the last of the DVD retail titans falls, so will the DVD manufacturing industry. If nobody exists to sell the DVD's, then it follows that nobody is going to make them. Sure, we'll still have some mom and pop outfits and boutique sellers like Criterion, but those aren't accessible to the everyday viewer.  As Rage Against the Machine once sang, "They don't gotta burn the books, they just remove 'em." In our day and age, music, movies, art, and even, (to a lesser degree), books, are all consumed digitally. Corporations, (and depending of whether or not those corporations share their information with governments), can track our every move, every purchase, everything we read, watch and hear.* It's not because they want to know what you're thinking - people are pretty stupid - they already know what we're thinking; corporations want to sell you as much as they can for as little as it costs to do so. When you buy a digital copy of a newspaper, magazine, movie, album, or anything of the like, you don't actually own anything. You're literally buying nothing. When your Apple Music or Spotify subscription runs out, you don't get to keep whatever you love listening to, you get nothing - and they get your money. I guess most of us reap what we sow - you can't expect to pirate movies and music for decades and not see repercussions.
     People deserve money for their art and their effort, whether or not they're broke or millionaires. You don't know if you'll like a single? Or if you'll really enjoy Michael Moore's new documentary? So you'll steal it? How would you feel if a person took your car for a joyride, slept in your house, took your dog, just because they felt like they deserved to see what it was like? If you can't afford to pay ten bucks for a CD, then tough shit, listen to the radio. This isn't the fault of the corporations, or the retailers, it's you, it's me, it's all of us. We did this to ourselves. Like Fugazi sang: "never mind what's been selling/it's what you're buying/and receiving undefiled." We haven't been paying for a lot of our art; the very thing that helps us express our feelings, commiserate, love, hate, and feel seen.              Art is the very essence of the human condition, and one of the closest things we, as a whole, have to immortality. We won't remember what Galileo wore, or what he bought for lunch - but we can still go look at the Mona Lisa; nobody will care what brand of wine Plato drank, but we still read the Republic, nobody care what status Mozart held in his time, but everyone loves listening to his Requiem. If money is what we work for, sometimes working until our joints give out, then shouldn't we spend it on something that holds meaning; even after we're gone? Alas, have we ever done so? As NPR shows, over 80% of modern households have major debt. We've sure been buying a lot. What the hell have we been receiving? As we hurtle through space, orbiting a giant ball of plasma which will eventually engulf the planet and destroy everything mankind has ever created, shouldn't we at least try to appreciate the beauty, expression and love of art, of all kinds? Or should we just be complacent to buy nothing important, appreciate nothing, and then die? I choose to rage, "against the dying of the light:"

Interstellar: "Do not go gentle into that good night"

ARTSY 
Support Film: Criterion, The Plaza, (Calgary)
Support Art: Calgary Arts Development
Support Music: Calgary Philharmonic 
More local resources: Here

*Please put on your tinfoil hat now, dear reader!