Today's Music News

Jobs go at Fopp

Music chain in trouble

03 July 07 - Around 700 jobs will be axed at the music retailer Fopp.

Today's news comes after the chain, closed its 105 shops last week as it struggled against the rising competition from the supermarkets and online operators. However, joint receivers and administrators Ernst & Young are still trying to find buyers for individual stores. They insist the chain is profitable.

Today, E&Y said approximately 700 jobs at Fopp and MZ 2007 - the 67 Music Zone chain stores Fopp bought after Music Zone fell into administration in January - would be lost.

Ben Carew from Music Week said they had taken calls from workers who were worried about the future:

“People have phoned the offices and they are livid because they haven’t been paid, and if they want to find work in the music industry it will be very hard as there aren’t that many jobs open to them.”

The group employs around 800 staff across the UK. E&Y said store managers were being retained as the prospects of reopening were fully assessed. In Edinburgh, where the group has two outlets, 15 jobs will be lost. Aaround 80 will go across Scotland.

Adrian Larkin

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Comments so far

Ian Nipper, Huddersfield
I'm really sad to see Fopp go. I didn't have a branch near me and always called in if I was visiting a town with a Fopp store - I never left empty-handed. Apart from the fantastic selection of music/video/books they had, I really liked the layout, not too slick, and the helpful staff. I too think it was a stupid decision to take over Music Zone, which I also liked but not as much as Fopp. Although I'm a great fan of computers, I have been very slow to embrace music downloads. I have an MP3 player but the music on it is mostly from CDs (and now vinyl, thanks to my USB turntable) I already own. I agree with James of Wirral, a future without physical formats is going to be sterile.

Fintan horan-stear, brighton
£7 for a studio ghibli film is an unbeatable price. Fopp will be missed

Phil Sheffield
Sad that Fopp has gone. They did not sell cheap CDs and DVDs. They sold CDs and DVDs cheaply. There is a difference. I can't see the supermarkets being a threat as the supermarkets only sell chart rubbish. Fopp had a far wider range of products than most other shops. As for downloading, That's simply annoying. You can't pick and choose about which chapters of a book you buy nor indeed you can't slice up paintings taking o8ut the bits you don't want. Why should music albums be any different? They are intended as a whole, otherwise bands would only release singles.

b.c
hiphop

Justin, Leamington Spa
Agree with Andrea from Warwick, I live in Leamington. I don't tend to buy alot of music, but their cheap DVD's were a favourite. Shame

F. McAuley Cumbernauld
I have £30 of tokens bought for me as a leaving present from work. They were bought from the Fopp shop in the new Antonine centre, Cumbernauld. I have tried e-mailing Fopp and got no answer. I telephoned the management centre in the Antonine Centre, who were extremely unhelpfull and teke no responsibility for customers using a shop in their new centre. Iwas told that they do not have any contact numbers for Fopp and suggested I look on this website. Can you suggest anything? £30 is a lot of money to lose!!

d- london
i blame the pesky kids who only want to download music so they can listen to it on their mobile and annoy everyone else- a big shame fopp is the best proper music shop out there

Steve Leeds
who are Fopp?

Andrea, warwick
HUGE shame - FOPP is the only shop I buy CD's and DVD's from now. Always a bargain to be had and friendly staff. I've been a fan of the place in Leamington Spa since it opened. Don't go!!

Barry, London
Fopp who?

James, Wirral
I think this is a real shame. A great record shop which was profitable and provided a quality range of music and DVDs at reasonable prices. I always looked forward to visiting Fopp and was hoping they'd open a branch near me (Chester or Liverpool). NOTHING can substitute the sheer pleasure in hunting down and buying a physical music format complete with artwork, whether on CD, vinyl, whatever. I dread a future in which music is purchased down a phone line, compressed, sterile and disposable with no tangible form.I would urge everyone to keep buying music in a physical format. A future of MP3 players is not terribly romantic, and I believe it will eventually kill music. The increasing ease with which people are cherry-picking individual tracks and filing them away hard-drives means music will be devalued, less interesting and increasingly dependent on short bursts of revenue grabbing, mass appeal saccharine. People will not have the patience to allow previously disliked songs to grow to become favourites, ambience and mood to develop over the course of an album or complex tunes to reveal themselves over time.DON'T LET IT HAPPEN! KEEP BUYING HARD FORMATS!

TONY ST HELENS
ABSOLUTE SHAME....

Affected Party, Glasgow
How on earth does the company think it can lose 700 out of 800 jobs and still stay open in any capacity? The people running that place who decided to take on the MZ's when Fopp was ticking along nicely should be shot! Granted there is a major threat from the monolithical shopping centres with regards to more commercial music but that was never Fopp's strength or selling point; do you seriously thnk Tesco stock The Cure or Low? No, the biggest threat was money grabbing morons who tried to make Fopp compete on a level they weren't ever supposed to attempt!