208. Sean McManus
February 3rd, 2011 | Published in Backers
www.sean.co.uk
www.wildmoodswings.co.uk
To the next generation, the idea of going to a shop to buy a recording will probably seem as bizarre as the idea of going to a red box to make a phone call does now. But with the loss of physical formats, I think you also lose an important part of the music experience. It’s all about flicking through racks of records or CDs, buying them, reading the sleeve on the way home, and then physically putting the record or CD on. This film represents a wonderful opportunity to catch a snapshot of record shops, and to show the role they play in their communities, bringing together music fans and giving them a chance to discover new music. I’d like to think that good record shops will survive in the long run by specialising and building up a community of regular customers, but I’ve seen so many shops close in the last ten years that I know we’ll lose many more in future. Even HMV is mainly a t-shirt and DVD shop now. A couple of years ago, I wrote a novel about the music business called University of Death and it seemed the industry was changing faster and taking more bizarre turns than I could invent for the story. The whole industry has struggled to adapt to changes in technology and increased competition from other entertainment products, and music retailers have suffered particularly badly. I hope that your film will inspire people to support their local record shops, and reassure record shop owners and customers that there are others out there like them.
the first and last records I bought:
First: Rat Rapping 7″ by Roland Rat.
Last: The last vinyl I bought was the America 12″ by Prince (the 22 minute remix).
I buy many more CDs than vinyl now. The last CD was The Orb/David Gilmour’s Metallic Spheres.