Why I won’t be missing HMV.

Two seemingly unconnected news stories: Statistics Canada releases the first data from our 2016 census, as the fallout continues to settle from the bankruptcy of Canada’s biggest chain music retailer, HMV. Well, what kind of columnist would I be if I couldn’t ferret out a secret link between the census and the death of the non-indie record store?

In its first daily release of new census data, StatCan tells us that, as ever, about two- thirds of Canadians live within 100 kilometres of the United States border. As someone who was born here in Edmonton, I always have the same reaction to this fact. “Ah, yes: the smart ones. The wise ones. The ones who can do the ‘crossborder shopping’ of which I have heard so many legends and ballads.”

In the Edmonton of my youth, a retailer like HMV was hard to love, and the more you liked music, the harder it was.

I do not know if music fans closer to the border really got to make much use of their hypothetically greater market power — whether kids in St. Catharines actually benefitted, in practice, from the permanent threat of Buffalo. But here in Greater Siberia, HMV, which did expand the selection of available CD material when it arrived, always seemed to pursue ultra- punitive pricing policies when it came to backcatalogue material.

That still is pretty nearly the only music in which I have any interest: somebody or other’s back catalogue.

I’m the sort of person who couldn’t enjoy music made when I was 35 until I turned 40.

But to be in this position as a young man of meagre means was an exasperating deal with the devil.

Congratulations! HMV and other chain stores always seemed to be saying: You can now buy old classic records that made back their costs 20 times over before compact discs even existed. And aren’t CDs fab? A cheap, indestructible format that offers tremendous audio fidelity, though, if we’re being honest, usually only on the second or third digital remaster of the same analog recording!

So, yeah: that’ll be $21.99, and not the four bucks you might have been expecting. But you say you’re curious about a lesser record from an otherwise good group or performer — Led Zeppelin’s Coda, peut- être? It’s in stock. But that’ ll still be $21.99.

Want to take a chance on some forgotten, questionably meritorious piece of prog- rock obscurity that would cost you $ 2 on used vinyl if you even owned a turntable? Still $ 21.99. Be thankful it’s not the usual $24.99.

It was just an awkward time and place to like music of any vintage whatsoever, unless you had an older parent or sibling with a great collection.

There was no YouTube or Spotify, which meant that if you wanted to become intimately familiar with one important pop group’s catalogue, you could expect to invest the cost of a university course.

God help you if you didn’t really turn out to be on the Rolling Stones’ groovy wavelength after all. Baby boomers, by contrast, remember their youths as an era when there was a mature secondary market for used long-playing records in the prevailing format. You could pursue a collecting interest, or indulge curiosity, at fairly minimal expense.

After the advent of the compact disc, chain music stores like HMV kept independent and used record stores on the defensive for 30 years or more — but the surviving ones have now prevailed.

HMV’s bankruptcy practically makes it official. It is the indie shop’s VE- Day. If you are reading the news this week you are probably running across quotes from the indie owners in your town, counting the revenue from new vinyl releases and trying not to sound too triumphant.

CBC business reporter Sophia Harris talked to a few holders of HMV customer loyalty cards on Tuesday: these people were left flat when the company declared bankruptcy, although they are theoretically on the list of the company’s creditors. ( No doubt under the heading “Yeah, these folks down here are screwed.”)

Their predicament, honestly, seems like an all-too-perfect summary of HMV’s relationship with customers.

As “Pure-HMV” members they paid $ 3 a year for their loyalty cards(!), verifiably spent thousands of dollars in HMV stores, built up enough points to buy a humble $50 or $60 worth of excruciatingly priced music ( keeping in mind that they were being billed all along for membership)... and they got cheated of their mite in the end anyway. If it were me, I imagine I’d feel it was almost worth it just to see the damn stores close already.

I’M THE SORT OF PERSON WHO COULDN’T ENJOY MUSIC MADE WHEN I WAS 35 UNTIL I TURNED 40.