| SANITY |
| No, not an essay on actual mental health, instead an opinion on record stores. Sanity. Excuse me? Is it V Shop or Our Price or what? Up until 3 years ago, Our Price was a popular high street music shop, bracketed its music in clear sections (Rock, Pop, Jazz, etc.) had reasonable prices and was generally a fun place to go. Then malaise crept in, shelves started disappearing, Virgin mobiles filled in the gaps and before anyone knew what was happening a V Shop appeared in its place. Crumbs, haven't Virgin got a big enough market share already without having two major high street music chains (V Shop and Virgin Megastores) at once? Actually that sentence should be in past tense (see next paragraph). V Shop seemed to fit into a mediocre, let's-play-to-the-majority mentality, where all the nice 'underground' sections were thrown out to be replaced by possibly the most mainstream album sections around, seemingly composed of records culled from Q Magazine top 100 lists, completely alienating fans of less commercial music (Hey, who needs Ben Folds new record when you can buy Automatic For The People again and again?). If a new less-mainstream record came out, you had to buy it in its week of release or you'd never see it again. And 2 albums for �20? That's not a good offer! You could go into Sainsbury's, buy 2 albums with �20 and actually get change! And they pushed their mobile phones into your face at every opportunity. Bah to the V Shop. But wait! V Shop is no more! It's been replaced by... Sanity! With a weird upside-down 'i' in the logo! It's V Shop in all but name! Why not take an unrewarding visit to Sanity today? It seems all the independent record stores have dried up too, which seems to herald a new, irritatingly manufactured era of popular music. Well, maybe it's not all bad. MVC still offer money off for cardholders and have a fair selection, Andy's Records, too. But big chains like HMV and Virgin Megastores are all front, to be honest, to huge money-making empires, and a conclusion is drawn that places like Sanity only exist because there wasn't a big-enough plot of land to build a sprawling Megastore, so hey, here's our small-town alternative. And last Christmas Joe Public filled these places with their custom. Perhaps this should have been a discussion about mental health after all. STOP PRESS: Since writing this article, our local Sanity has closed down. People listen to PLANET MORON. |
| by Woodsey |