As news broke that HMV would close all of their stores in Ireland and an additional 37 stores in the U.K., a major name in music stepped forward to try and save the record store chain.
Elton John, Photo: Ros O'Gorman
Elton John will play a series of in-store shows in an attempt to draw people into the retail locations and make them remember that there is a way to purchase music other than downloads. He also suggested that other artists follow suit to save the retailer.
David Joseph, CEO of Universal UK, said “We’ve got lot of artist support for HMV. Last week one of our biggest global superstars said why don’t we get a lot of the biggest artists to start doing gigs in HMV, just to turn up and say these are music stores, come and get your music here.”
Elton’s record collection was legendary in the 70’s and he has always been a huge supporter of the physical formats. His spokesman, Gary Farrow, said “Elton has always been a big supporter of record shops. He will be doing something with HMV although as yet we cannot confirm what or when that would be.”
