114-652: Different Class (released in Japan as Common People ) is the fifth studio album by English rock band Pulp , released on 30 October 1995 by Island Records . The album was a critical and commercial success, entering the UK Albums Chart at number one and winning the 1996 Mercury Music Prize . It included four top-ten singles in the UK, " Common People ", " Sorted for E's & Wizz ", " Disco 2000 " and " Something Changed ". Different Class has been certified four times platinum by
228-420: A "live" sound. Recordings, including live, may contain editing, sound effects, voice adjustments, etc. With modern recording technology , artists can be recorded in separate rooms or at separate times while listening to the other parts using headphones ; with each part recorded as a separate track . Album covers and liner notes are used, and sometimes additional information is provided, such as analysis of
342-453: A 10% reduction over three years in the enlarged Waterstones total shop space, comprising mostly dual location shops created by the acquisition of Ottakar's. On 29 June 2007, the entertainment retailer Fopp went into administration, with the closure of 81 shops and 800 staff made redundant. On 31 July HMV bought the brand and six shops that it said had traded profitably, saving around 70 jobs. On 1 September 2008, HMV launched "Get Closer",
456-693: A bit exaggerated, especially in music specialists. Most of the decline is coming from nontraditional sellers like the grocery chains. We'll be here for quite some time." On 25 February 2019, the Financial Times reported that the Sunrise acquisition was valued at £883,000. Following subsequent negotiations with its landlords, by late-February, HMV reopened 13 of its shops (including one Fopp shop). The store in Belfast which had previously re-opened up in March 2014 after
570-458: A brown heavy paper sleeve with a large hole in the center so the record's label could be seen. The fragile records were stored on their sides. By the mid-1920s, photo album publishers sold collections of empty sleeves of heavier paper in bound volumes with stiff covers slightly larger than the 10" popular records. (Classical records measured 12".) On the paper cover in small type were the words "Record Album". Now records could be stored vertically with
684-412: A collection of pieces or songs on a single record was called an "album"; the word was extended to other recording media such as compact disc, MiniDisc , compact audio cassette, 8-track tape and digital albums as they were introduced. An album (Latin albus , white), in ancient Rome, was a board chalked or painted white, on which decrees, edicts, and other public notices were inscribed in black. It
798-403: A compilation of songs created by any average listener of music. The songs on a mixtape generally relate to one another in some way, whether it be a conceptual theme or an overall sound. After the introduction of Compact discs, the term "Mixtape" began to apply to any personal compilation of songs on any given format. The sales of Compact Cassettes eventually began to decline in the 1990s, after
912-512: A couple of months before whether he would be prepared to do some photos for us, and he couldn't actually do it because he said he was busy working on some Pulp stuff. But he phoned us about a week before and said Pulp were thinking about using some photos with real people in them, including a wedding photo, and if we would do some joke shots where he'd bring some life-size cutouts of the band down, he would do some proper wedding shots for us as well. And that's basically what happened. They rocked up on
1026-424: A current or former member of a musical group which is released under that artist's name only, even though some or all other band members may be involved. The solo album appeared as early as the late 1940s. A 1947 Billboard magazine article heralded " Margaret Whiting huddling with Capitol execs over her first solo album on which she will be backed by Frank De Vol ". There is no formal definition setting forth
1140-509: A customer buys a whole album rather than just one or two songs from the artist. The song is not necessarily free nor is it available as a stand-alone download, adding also to the incentive to buy the complete album. In contrast to hidden tracks , bonus tracks are included on track listings and usually do not have a gap of silence between other album tracks. Bonus tracks on CD or vinyl albums are common in Japan for releases by European and North American artists; since importing international copies of
1254-461: A few hours to several years. This process usually requires several takes with different parts recorded separately, and then brought or " mixed " together. Recordings that are done in one take without overdubbing are termed "live", even when done in a studio. Studios are built to absorb sound, eliminating reverberation , to assist in mixing different takes; other locations, such as concert venues and some "live rooms", have reverberation, which creates
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#17328686941811368-450: A joint venture with Curzon Cinemas as part of chief executive Simon Fox's plan to bring cinemas to HMV and Waterstone's shops across England. The first trial cinema opened above the existing HMV shop in Wimbledon , in a former storage room converted into three separate screens and a bar. It has its own entrance, allowing access outside shop hours, and one within the shop. The trial was deemed
1482-548: A new location at 150–154 Oxford Street in 1986, announcing it was the largest record shop in the world at the time, and the official opening was attended by Bob Geldof and Michael Hutchence . Growth continued for a third decade into the 1990s, with the company reaching over 320 shops including in 1990 its first shop in the U.S. located at 86th and Lexington in New York City, which was the largest music shop in North America at
1596-400: A number of rewards including vouchers, memorabilia and signed merchandise. "purehmv" has since closed and will be replaced by a new loyalty scheme, the launch date of which is yet to be announced. The group became susceptible to a takeover following a poor period of trading up to Christmas 2005. Private equity firm Permira made a £762 million conditional bid for the group (based on 190p
1710-421: A retrospective review, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic declared that Different Class "blows away all their previous albums, including the fine His 'n' Hers . Pulp don't stray from their signature formula at all – it's still grandly theatrical, synth-spiked pop with new wave and disco flourishes, but they have mastered it here. Not only are the melodies and hooks significantly catchier and more immediate,
1824-496: A return to Broadway Shopping Centre, Bexleyheath – again in former Burton/Perkins premises – nine years after the closure of their previous shop in the town, and a relocation in Wigan from a smaller prior site to larger premises vacated by Topshop / Topman . In July 2021, HMV celebrated its 100th birthday. In celebration, the firm released 37 limited edition vinyl albums. A 100 track CD compilation entitled Now That's What I Call HMV
1938-663: A share) on 7 February 2006, which was rejected by HMV as an insufficient valuation of the company. Permira made a second offer which increased the value, although HMV declined it on 13 March 2006, subsequently issuing a statement that the offer undervalued the medium and long term prospects for the company, resulting in Permira withdrawing from bidding. In 2006, the HMV Group purchased the Ottakar's book chain and merged it into Waterstones. The merger tied into HMV's strategy for growth, as many of
2052-490: A signed copy of the photo that Jarvis had signed last year, just saying 'Thank you very much Dom and Sharon for letting us crash your wedding', which I thought was a really nice touch actually". Different Class received widespread acclaim from music critics in the UK. In the NME John Mulvey summarised the record as "funny, phenomenally nasty, genuinely subversive, and, of course, hugely, flamingly POP!... Different Class
2166-434: A single artist, genre or period, a single artist covering the songs of various artists or a single artist, genre or period, or any variation of an album of cover songs which is marketed as a "tribute". HMV HMV is a British music and entertainment retailer, founded in 1921. The brand is owned by JD Sports and operated by Sunrise Records , except in Japan, where it is owned and operated by Lawson . The retailer
2280-522: A single case, or a triple album containing three LPs or compact discs. Recording artists who have an extensive back catalogue may re-release several CDs in one single box with a unified design, often containing one or more albums (in this scenario, these releases can sometimes be referred to as a "two (or three)-fer"), or a compilation of previously unreleased recordings. These are known as box sets . Some musical artists have also released more than three compact discs or LP records of new recordings at once, in
2394-770: A social networking site allowing users to import their own music library, rivalling other providers including online music shops Napster and the iTunes Store . The site was closed in September 2009. On 24 December 2008, HMV's rival Zavvi , successor to entertainment retailer Virgin Megastores, entered administration. On 14 January 2009 a placing announcement by HMV revealed that it intended to acquire 14 of Zavvi's shops. On 18 February 2009 five additional Zavvi shops were purchased by HMV Group, to be rebranded as HMV outlets. An additional former Zavvi shop in Exeter's Princesshay development
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#17328686941812508-433: A solo album for several reasons. A solo performer working with other members will typically have full creative control of the band, be able to hire and fire accompanists, and get the majority of the proceeds. The performer may be able to produce songs that differ widely from the sound of the band with which the performer has been associated, or that the group as a whole chose not to include in its own albums. Graham Nash of
2622-414: A studio. However, the common understanding of a "live album" is one that was recorded at a concert with a public audience, even when the recording is overdubbed or multi-tracked. Concert or stage performances are recorded using remote recording techniques. Albums may be recorded at a single concert , or combine recordings made at multiple concerts. They may include applause, laughter and other noise from
2736-532: A success, and it had been planned to open additional cinemas in HMV's Cheltenham shop, and Waterstone's in Piccadilly , London. On 5 January 2011, HMV announced that profits would be at the lower end of analysts' forecasts due to falling sales, resulting in the share price falling by 20% and an announcement of the group's intention to close 40 HMV shops, as well as 20 Waterstone's bookshops, mainly in towns and cities where
2850-406: A theme such as the "greatest hits" from one artist, B-sides and rarities by one artist, or selections from a record label , a musical genre , a certain time period, or a regional music scene. Promotional sampler albums are compilations. A tribute or cover album is a compilation of cover versions of songs or instrumental compositions. Its concept may involve various artists covering the songs of
2964-509: A trend of shifting sales in the music industry , some observers feel that the early 21st century experienced the death of the album . An album may contain any number of tracks. In the United States, The Recording Academy 's rules for Grammy Awards state that an album must comprise a minimum total playing time of 15 minutes with at least five distinct tracks or a minimum total playing time of 30 minutes with no minimum track requirement. In
3078-430: A way of promoting the album. Albums have been issued that are compilations of older tracks not originally released together, such as singles not originally found on albums, b-sides of singles, or unfinished " demo " recordings. Double albums during the seventies were sometimes sequenced for record changers . In the case of a two-record set, for example, sides 1 and 4 would be stamped on one record, and sides 2 and 3 on
3192-701: A £1 million pound refurbishment, was threatened with closure in February 2019. However, a deal was reached with Frasers Group which allowed the shop to continue trading. In October 2019, the new owners opened the HMV Vault on Dale End, Birmingham , billed as Europe's biggest entertainment shop and stocking tens of thousands of CDs and vinyl records and other products. From 22 March to 15 June, and then from 5 November to 2 December 2020 and from 4 January 2021 to 12 April 2021 (in England), all HMV shops were closed because of
3306-469: Is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music ) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track or cassette ), or digital . Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78 rpm records (78s) collected in a bound book resembling a photo album ; this format evolved after 1948 into single vinyl long-playing (LP) records played at 33 + 1 ⁄ 3 rpm . The album
3420-452: Is a deft, atmospheric, occasionally stealthy and frequently booming, confident record." Melody Maker awarded the album its star rating of "bloody essential", and its critic Simon Reynolds observed that "the album's title alone announces that Cocker's broadened his scope, has another axe to grind: social antagonism", and stated that Pulp was "not so much the jewel in Britpop's crown, more like
3534-580: Is any vocal content. A track that has the same name as the album is called the title track. A bonus track (also known as a bonus cut or bonus) is a piece of music which has been included as an extra. This may be done as a marketing promotion, or for other reasons. It is not uncommon to include singles, B-sides , live recordings , and demo recordings as bonus tracks on re-issues of old albums, where those tracks were not originally included. Online music stores allow buyers to create their own albums by selecting songs themselves; bonus tracks may be included if
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3648-552: Is not necessarily just in MP3 file format, in which higher quality formats such as FLAC and WAV can be used on storage media that MP3 albums reside on, such as CD-R-ROMs , hard drives , flash memory (e.g. thumbdrives , MP3 players , SD cards ), etc. The contents of the album are usually recorded in a studio or live in concert, though may be recorded in other locations, such as at home (as with JJ Cale's Okie , Beck's Odelay , David Gray's White Ladder , and others), in
3762-402: Is recorded on both the "A" and "B" side of the tape, with cassette being "turned" to play the other side of the album. Compact Cassettes were also a popular way for musicians to record " Demos " or "Demo Tapes" of their music to distribute to various record labels, in the hopes of acquiring a recording contract . Compact cassettes also saw the creation of mixtapes , which are tapes containing
3876-488: Is rife with sexual combat and bitter recrimination." He concluded, "Even in a truly classless society, sex separates the men from the boys, the women from the girls, the romantics from the mere runters. Different Class is the sound of Jarvis Cocker keeping score – with delicious accuracy." Robert Christgau wrote in The Village Voice that "1996 won't produce a more indispensable song than "Common People", and described
3990-449: Is still obviously a product of its time, a snapshot of mid-'90s life in the UK. Along with Blur's Parklife , it remains the high point of the Britpop era; music, lyrics, production, artwork, it's as perfect as it gets." Reviewing the 2006 deluxe edition, Garry Mulholland of Q stated that the album "defined the mood of the day", while Drowned in Sound described Different Class as "easily
4104-580: The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time , the album was ranked at number 162 in their revised 2020 list. The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die . By September 1996, worldwide sales were estimated at 1.5 million copies by the record label, including 40,000 copies in the US. The album has been certified quadruple platinum in the UK, and as of September 2020 has accrued physical, digital, and streaming equivalent sales of 1.33 million, one-tenth of which were in its first week of sales. By
4218-584: The British Phonographic Industry (BPI), and had sold 1.33 million copies in the United Kingdom as of 2020. Widely acclaimed as among the greatest albums of the Britpop era, in 2013, NME ranked the album at number six in its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time while Rolling Stone ranked it number 162 in their 2020 revised version of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time . The album
4332-533: The COVID-19 pandemic . Into the 2020s, HMV began opening new and relocated shops, including in locations which previously had HMV branches that had earlier shut, such as Solihull . In some cases these new outlets were opened in shops vacated by the demise of other retail chains, particularly Arcadia Group , with an HMV shop opened in Dunfermline premises previously occupied by Burton Menswear and Dorothy Perkins ,
4446-550: The Hammersmith Apollo . On 23 December 2009, it bought the whole of the MAMA Group in a live music takeover deal worth £46 million. In September 2009, HMV bought 50% of 7digital for £7.7 million, as part of a strategy to increase its digital content offering. 7digital provided HMV's music download service, and the company planned to introduce an e-books service for Waterstone's. In October 2009, HMV established
4560-517: The iPod , US album sales dropped 54.6% from 2001 to 2009. The CD is a digital data storage device which permits digital recording technology to be used to record and play-back the recorded music. Most recently, the MP3 audio format has matured, revolutionizing the concept of digital storage. Early MP3 albums were essentially CD-rips created by early CD- ripping software, and sometimes real-time rips from cassettes and vinyl. The so-called "MP3 album"
4674-475: The 11 months since it had entered administration. In January 2015, HMV overtook Amazon to become the largest retailer of physical music in the UK. HMV relaunched its online shop in June 2015, providing CDs, DVDs, Blu-ray Discs, and LP records for online order and home delivery with exclusive stock also available. In June 2015, HMV relaunched an online shop to accompany its existing music download service. However,
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4788-635: The 1890s at the dawn of the disc gramophone. The Nipper, gramophone, and masters voice motif was used as early as 1899 in a photo advert appearing in "The Boy's own Paper" a London male youth oriented weekly paper which was published throughout the British Empire . By 1902 it had become the beginnings of the Gramophone Company . In February 1907 it commenced the building of a new dedicated record factory at Hayes, Middlesex. Disc records were sold in music shops and independent retailers at this time. In 1921
4902-514: The 1970s. Appraising the concept in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981), Robert Christgau said most "are profit-taking recaps marred by sound and format inappropriate to phonographic reproduction (you can't put sights, smells, or fellowship on audio tape). But for Joe Cocker and Bette Midler and Bob-Dylan -in-the-arena, the form makes a compelling kind of sense." Among
5016-443: The 25-minute mark. The album Dopesmoker by Sleep contains only a single track, but the composition is over 63 minutes long. There are no formal rules against artists such as Pinhead Gunpowder referring to their own releases under thirty minutes as "albums". If an album becomes too long to fit onto a single vinyl record or CD, it may be released as a double album where two vinyl LPs or compact discs are packaged together in
5130-468: The 37th greatest album of all time; a repeat poll in 2006 put it at number 85. In 2000 the same magazine placed it at number 46 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever. In 2005 it was voted number 70 in Channel 4 's The 100 Greatest Albums . In 2006 British Hit Singles & Albums and NME organised a poll in which 40,000 people worldwide voted for the 100 best albums ever and Different Class
5244-509: The British social class system, which was a theme of some of the songs on the album. A message on the back of the record also references this idea: "We don't want no trouble, we just want the right to be different. That's all." The sleeve design was created by Blue Source. Initial copies of the CD and vinyl album came with six double-sided inserts of alternative cover art, depicting cardboard cutouts of
5358-478: The Gramophone Company opened the first dedicated HMV shop at 363 Oxford Street , London, in a former men's clothing shop; the composer Edward Elgar participated in the opening ceremonies. In March 1931 the Gramophone Company merged with Columbia Graphophone Company to form Electric and Musical Industries Ltd ( EMI ). From the 1930s onwards, HMV manufactured radio and television sets and radiograms under
5472-502: The HMV and Marconiphone brand names in its factory in Hayes , Middlesex . The original HMV shop was severely damaged by a fire in 1937, but was rebuilt and reopened two years later on 8 May 1939. Sir Thomas Beecham opened the new shop. In 1966, HMV began expanding its retail operations in London. Throughout the 1970s, the company continued to expand, doubling in size, and in six years became
5586-665: The HMV brand, and the Canadian retailer Sunrise Records acquired HMV's stores, to operate under license. In May 2023, Sunrise Records announced the retailer would return to Ireland, followed by an announcement in November 2023 that the retailer would also enter the Belgian market. In February 2024, Sunrise Records announced HMV would re-enter the Canadian market as an in-store concession within Toys "R" Us locations. The antecedents of HMV began in
5700-491: The Hollies described his experience in developing a solo album as follows: "The thing that I go through that results in a solo album is an interesting process of collecting songs that can't be done, for whatever reason, by a lot of people". A solo album may also represent the departure of the performer from the group. A compilation album is a collection of material from various recording projects or various artists, assembled with
5814-553: The Ottakar's branches were in smaller towns. The Competition Commission provisionally cleared HMV Group, through Waterstones, for takeover of the Ottakar's group on 30 March 2006, stating that the takeover would "not result in a substantial lessening of competition". Waterstones then announced that it had successfully negotiated a takeover of Ottakar's on 31 May 2006. All 130 Ottakar's shops were rebranded as Waterstones prior to Christmas 2006. In March 2007, new group CEO Simon Fox announced
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#17328686941815928-459: The United Kingdom, the criteria for the UK Albums Chart is that a recording counts as an "album" if it either has more than four tracks or lasts more than 25 minutes. Sometimes shorter albums are referred to as mini-albums or EPs . Albums such as Tubular Bells , Amarok , and Hergest Ridge by Mike Oldfield , and Yes's Close to the Edge , include fewer than four tracks, but still surpass
6042-512: The album as neither Blur nor Oasis, but " Culture Club with lyrics... Smart and glam, swish and het, its jangle subsumed beneath swelling crescendos or nagging keybs and its rhythms steeped in rave". In Spin Barry Walters described the album as "songs about naughty infidelities, sexless marriages, grown-up teenage crushes, twisted revenge fantasies, obsessive voyeurism and useless raves; songs that demand your full attention and deserve it". In
6156-413: The album can be cheaper than buying a domestically released version, Japanese releases often feature bonus tracks to incentivize domestic purchase. Commercial sheet music is published in conjunction with the release of a new album (studio, compilation, soundtrack, etc.). A matching folio songbook is a compilation of the music notation of all the songs included in that particular album. It typically has
6270-478: The album cover had come about: "When we got married we were putting the wedding together ourselves, we pulled a lot of favours from people we knew ... My little brother Ben went to art college in Edinburgh and he made friends with a guy who subsequently became a photographer and had done a lot of work with the Britpop bands – I think he worked with Blur , and Elastica , and of course Pulp. So we asked him about
6384-516: The album's artwork on its cover and, in addition to sheet music, it includes photos of the artist. Most pop and rock releases come in standard Piano/Vocal/Guitar notation format (and occasionally Easy Piano / E-Z Play Today). Rock-oriented releases may also come in Guitar Recorded Versions edition, which are note-for-note transcriptions written directly from artist recordings. Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one-half of
6498-458: The album. If a pop or rock album contained tracks released separately as commercial singles , they were conventionally placed in particular positions on the album. During the sixties, particularly in the UK, singles were generally released separately from albums. Today, many commercial albums of music tracks feature one or more singles, which are released separately to radio, TV or the Internet as
6612-474: The amount of participation a band member can solicit from other members of their band, and still have the album referred to as a solo album. One reviewer wrote that Ringo Starr 's third venture, Ringo , "[t]echnically... wasn't a solo album because all four Beatles appeared on it". Three of the four members of the Beatles released solo albums while the group was officially still together. A performer may record
6726-510: The audience, comments by the performers between pieces, improvisation, and so on. They may use multitrack recording direct from the stage sound system (rather than microphones placed among the audience), and can employ additional manipulation and effects during post-production to enhance the quality of the recording. Notable early live albums include the double album of Benny Goodman , The Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert , released in 1950. Live double albums later became popular during
6840-418: The band photographed in various situations. A sticker invited the listener to "Choose your own front cover". In all standard copies thereafter these 12 individual covers made up the CD booklet, with the wedding photograph used as the actual cover. In an interview with BBC Radio 6 Music presenter Chris Hawkins on 8 April 2014, Dom O'Connor, the groom featured in the wedding photograph cover art, recalled how
6954-557: The best album of its year of release and arguably the best album from the Britpop era" and went on to call it "a certifiable masterpiece that not only lived up to the sky-high expectations heaped upon it with appalling ease, but surpassed them." The album was the winner of the 1996 Mercury Music Prize . In 1997, it was ranked at number 34 out of 100 in a "Music of the Millennium" poll conducted by HMV , Channel 4 , The Guardian and Classic FM . In 1998 Q readers voted Different Class
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#17328686941817068-406: The best selling live albums are Eric Clapton 's Unplugged (1992), selling over 26 million copies, Garth Brooks ' Double Live (1998), over 21 million copies, and Peter Frampton 's Frampton Comes Alive! (1976), over 11 million copies. In Rolling Stone ' s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time , 18 albums were live albums. A solo album , in popular music , is an album recorded by
7182-446: The cassette tape throughout the 1970s and early 1980s; the popularity of the cassette reached its peak during the late 1980s before sharply declining during the 1990s. The cassette had largely disappeared by the first decade of the 2000s. Most albums are recorded in a studio , although they may also be recorded in a concert venue , at home, in the field, or a mix of places. The time frame for completely recording an album varies between
7296-406: The chain's emphasis on vinyl phonograph sales as part of the turnaround plan: Sunrise's leverage of the vinyl revival had helped bolster the Canadian locations' performance after the shops' transitions from HMV, having sold at least 500,000 vinyl LPs in 2017 alone. Putman argued that, despite the growth of digital music sales and streaming, "talk about the demise of the physical business is sometimes
7410-529: The chief executive Trevor Moore, had been made at the group's offices in London, Marlow and Solihull. Deloitte confirmed on 20 February 2013 that an additional 37 shops would close. On 26 February 2013, six shops were sold to supermarket chain Morrisons . On 28 February 2013, eight shops in Hong Kong and Singapore were sold to AID Partners Capital Limited and the operation then became independent from HMV Group that
7524-467: The company operated at multiple locations. The first of the shop closures began at the end of January 2011. The sale of Waterstone's to A&NN Capital Fund Management for £53 million was completed on 29 June 2011, and was approved by the vast majority of shareholders at an emergency general meeting . HMV sold the Hammersmith Apollo to AEG Live and Eventim in May 2012 for £32 million. It sold
7638-409: The company out of administration and saving 141 of its shops and around 2,500 jobs. The total included 25 shops that had previously been selected for closure by Deloitte during the administration process. All nine Fopp shops which HMV owned were also included in the purchase. The takeover deal was estimated at around £50 million. Following the purchase by Hilco UK, it was reported that the company
7752-433: The company owed the value, but were accepted again from 22 January 2013. Restructuring firm Hilco UK bought HMV's debt from its creditors The Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group , as a step towards potentially taking control of the company. It was revealed that the total debt Hilco had bought amounted to around £110 million, and that HMV owed around £20 million in tax to HM Revenue and Customs at
7866-412: The country's leading specialist music retailer. It faced strong competition, however, from Virgin Megastores , established in 1976, and from Our Price , established in 1972, which had numerous high street retail shops around the UK. Subsequently, HMV overtook Our Price in popularity and threatened its existence, having established a chain of newer and larger shops. The company opened its flagship shop at
7980-471: The end of its second week, the album had been certified platinum in the UK with 300,000 copies sold. All lyrics are written by Jarvis Cocker ; all music is composed by Pulp (Cocker, Nick Banks , Steve Mackey , Russell Senior , Candida Doyle and Mark Webber ), except " Common People " and "Underwear" by Cocker, Banks, Mackey, Senior and Doyle Pulp Additional personnel Sales figures based on certification alone. Studio album An album
8094-612: The field – as with early blues recordings, in prison, or with a mobile recording unit such as the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio . Most albums are studio albums —that is, they are recorded in a recording studio with equipment meant to give those overseeing the recording as much control as possible over the sound of the album. They minimize external noises and reverberations and have highly sensitive microphones and sound mixing equipment. Band members may record their parts in separate rooms or at separate times, listening to
8208-494: The form of a prototype. Compact Cassettes became especially popular during the 1980s after the advent of the Sony Walkman , which allowed the person to control what they listened to. The Walkman was convenient because of its size, the device could fit in most pockets and often came equipped with a clip for belts or pants. The compact cassette used double-sided magnetic tape to distribute music for commercial sale. The music
8322-480: The form of boxed sets, although in that case the work is still usually considered to be an album. Material (music or sounds) is stored on an album in sections termed tracks. A music track (often simply referred to as a track) is an individual song or instrumental recording. The term is particularly associated with popular music where separate tracks are known as album tracks; the term is also used for other formats such as EPs and singles . When vinyl records were
8436-582: The later '30s, record companies began releasing albums of previously released recordings of popular music in albums organized by performer, singers or bands, or by type of music, boogie-woogie , for example. When Columbia introduced the Long Playing record format in 1948, it was natural the term album would continue. Columbia expected that the record size distinction in 78s would continue, with classical music on 12" records and popular music on 10" records, and singles on 78s. Columbia's first popular 10" LP in fact
8550-504: The leases for over 70 HMV locations in Canada after HMV Canada entered receivership, which expanded the Ontario -based retailer into a national chain. Sunrise plans to maintain the HMV chain and five Fopp shops, but immediately closed 27 locations, including the flagship Oxford Street branch and other locations with high rent costs. Company founder Doug Putman stated that he planned to increase
8664-413: The listener with some of the smartest, slinkiest, sauciest, spectacular pop songs of a decade that was, looking back, not that brilliant once the bucket hats and ironic anoraks are whipped away." PopMatters ' retrospective review in 2004 opined that "nearly nine years after its release, Different Class has aged very well, possessing that timeless quality that is present in all classic albums, but
8778-488: The longer 12-inch 78s, playing around 4–5 minutes per side. For example, in 1924, George Gershwin recorded a drastically shortened version of his new seventeen-minute composition Rhapsody in Blue with Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra. The recording was issued on both sides of a single record, Victor 55225 and ran for 8m 59s. By 1910, though some European record companies had issued albums of complete operas and other works,
8892-483: The mid-1930s, record companies had adopted the album format for classical music selections that were longer than the roughly eight minutes that fit on both sides of a classical 12" 78 rpm record. Initially the covers were plain, with the name of the selection and performer in small type. In 1938, Columbia Records hired the first graphic designer in the business to design covers, others soon followed and colorful album covers cover became an important selling feature. By
9006-479: The mid-1960s to the late 1970s when the Compact Cassette format took over. The format is regarded as an obsolete technology, and was relatively unknown outside the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. Stereo 8 was created in 1964 by a consortium led by Bill Lear of Lear Jet Corporation , along with Ampex , Ford Motor Company , General Motors , Motorola , and RCA Victor Records . It
9120-419: The mouth so unselfconsciously... Pulp have managed to elevate their grandiose, popoid vision-thing to new and greater heights, without crashing into the realms of extreme fantasy." In Mojo Bob Stanley stated, "You'd have to be a fool or a low-fi obsessive not to concede that it's easily the closest that Pulp have come to realising their potential... Different Class is curiously sparse yet lush enough in all
9234-451: The music explores more territory ... Jarvis Cocker's lyrics take two themes, sex and social class, and explore a number of different avenues in bitingly clever ways. As well as perfectly capturing the behavior of his characters, Cocker grasps the nuances of language, creating a dense portrait of suburban and working-class life." Writing about the album in 2011, BBC Music stated that "over 15 years since its release [it] continues to reward
9348-402: The original site at 363 Oxford Street on 23 October 2013. HMV's existing flagship shop at 150–154 Oxford Street, formerly the largest music shop in the world, closed on 14 January 2014. By 2014, HMV had gained the second highest share of the UK entertainment market, behind Amazon . The company's filing to Companies House in September 2014 revealed it had made a profit of £17 million in
9462-484: The originally safe shops of York, Soilhull, Portsmouth and Belfast would shut. On 28 December 2018, HMV confirmed it had again been placed into administration . Hilco UK cited the "tsunami" of retail competition as the reason for the move. On 5 February 2019, Canadian record shop chain Sunrise Records announced its acquisition of HMV Retail Ltd. from Hilco UK for an undisclosed amount. Sunrise had previously acquired
9576-443: The other parts of the track with headphones to keep the timing right. In the 2000s, with the advent of digital recording , it became possible for musicians to record their part of a song in another studio in another part of the world, and send their contribution over digital channels to be included in the final product. Recordings that are done in one take without overdubbing or multi-tracking are termed "live", even when done in
9690-414: The other. The user would stack the two records onto the spindle of an automatic record changer, with side 1 on the bottom and side 2 (on the other record) on top. Side 1 would automatically drop onto the turntable and be played. When finished, the tone arm's position would trigger a mechanism which moved the arm out of the way, dropped the record with side 2, and played it. When both records had been played,
9804-464: The practice of issuing albums was not widely taken up by American record companies until the 1920s. By about 1910, bound collections of empty sleeves with a paperboard or leather cover, similar to a photograph album, were sold as record albums that customers could use to store their records (the term "record album" was printed on some covers). These albums came in both 10-inch and 12-inch sizes. The covers of these bound books were wider and taller than
9918-406: The primary medium for audio recordings a track could be identified visually from the grooves and many album covers or sleeves included numbers for the tracks on each side. On a compact disc the track number is indexed so that a player can jump straight to the start of any track. On digital music stores such as iTunes the term song is often used interchangeably with track regardless of whether there
10032-404: The record industry as a standard format for the "album". Apart from relatively minor refinements and the important later addition of stereophonic sound capability, it has remained the standard format for vinyl albums. The term "album" was extended to other recording media such as 8-track tape , cassette tape , compact disc , MiniDisc , and digital albums, as they were introduced. As part of
10146-617: The record not touching the shelf, and the term was applied to the collection. In the early nineteenth century, "album" was occasionally used in the titles of some classical music sets, such as Robert Schumann 's Album for the Young Opus 68, a set of 43 short pieces. With the advent of 78 rpm records in the early 1900s, the typical 10-inch disc could only hold about three minutes of sound per side, so almost all popular recordings were limited to around three minutes in length. Classical-music and spoken-word items generally were released on
10260-451: The recording, and lyrics or librettos . Historically, the term "album" was applied to a collection of various items housed in a book format. In musical usage, the word was used for collections of short pieces of printed music from the early nineteenth century. Later, collections of related 78s were bundled in book-like albums (one side of a 78 rpm record could hold only about 3.5 minutes of sound). When LP records were introduced,
10374-497: The records inside, allowing the record album to be placed on a shelf upright, like a book, suspending the fragile records above the shelf and protecting them. In the 1930s, record companies began issuing collections of 78s by one performer or of one type of music in specially assembled albums, typically with artwork on the front cover and liner notes on the back or inside cover. Most albums included three or four records, with two sides each, making six or eight compositions per album. By
10488-452: The release and distribution Compact Discs . The 2010s saw a revival of Compact Cassettes by independent record labels and DIY musicians who preferred the format because of its difficulty to share over the internet . The compact disc format replaced both the vinyl record and the cassette as the standard for the commercial mass-market distribution of physical music albums. After the introduction of music downloading and MP3 players such as
10602-549: The remainder of MAMA Group to Lloyds Development Capital in December 2012 for £7.3 million, which also included the company's 50% stake in Mean Fiddler Group. On 15 January 2013, HMV Group appointed Deloitte as company administrators and suspended shares , putting its 4,350 UK employees at the risk of redundancy. Gift vouchers were initially declared void since holders are classified as unsecured creditors to whom
10716-542: The right places, warm and soulful where unnecessary electro-clutter used to be", and concluded, "Arguments about Blur versus Oasis are irrelevant. Pulp are in a different class." Select ranked the album at number one in its end-of-year list of the 50 best albums of 1995. Different Class was released in the US on 27 February 1996, and received equally enthusiastic reviews from American critics. David Fricke of Rolling Stone called it "a brilliant, eccentric, irresistible pop album about fucking and fucking up... The record
10830-470: The single solitary band who validate the whole sorry enterprise". In Q Robert Yates felt that "the range of Different Class is impressive: tracks such as ["Live Bed Show" and "F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E."] render more redundant than ever the view of Pulp as kitsch", while in Vox Keith Cameron awarded the album eight out of ten and wrote that "no other Pulp album of recent years froths around
10944-438: The time of its entry into administration. On 31 January 2013, it was reported that 190 redundancies had been made at the head office and distribution centres. On 7 February 2013, Deloitte confirmed that 66 shops had been identified for closure. No fixed date was given for the closures but they were expected to take place in the following two months. The next day, Deloitte confirmed that an additional 60 redundancies, including
11058-508: The time. HMV celebrated its 75-year anniversary in 1996. In February 1998, EMI entered into a joint venture with Advent International to form HMV Media Group led by Alan Giles , which acquired HMV's shops and Dillons , leaving EMI with a holding of around 45%. The new joint venture then bought the Waterstones chain of bookshops to merge with Dillons. By 2002, EMI's holding in HMV Media
11172-461: The user would pick up the stack, turn it over, and put them back on the spindle—sides 3 and 4 would then play in sequence. Record changers were used for many years of the LP era, but eventually fell out of use. 8-track tape (formally Stereo 8: commonly known as the eight-track cartridge, eight-track tape, or simply eight-track) is a magnetic tape sound recording technology popular in the United States from
11286-399: The wedding day with the life-size cutouts of the band and took the photos, and I suppose the rest is history." Apart from the bride and groom, the photograph features the parents of both the bride and the groom, O'Connor's two brothers, his two best friends and his wife's best friend. O'Connor also told Hawkins that he and his family had no further contact with the photographer after the day of
11400-470: The wedding, and had no idea that the photographs would be used for the album cover until his mother saw a poster advertising the album in an HMV record store. He later saw a billboard poster of the album cover while he was out shopping. Pulp's record company at the time did not pay the family for the use of their picture, but when Pulp reformed in 2011 Rough Trade paid for the family members to see Pulp play live. O'Connor said, "Rough Trade very kindly sent us
11514-543: Was 43%, with Advent International owning 40% and management the remainder. The company floated on the London Stock Exchange later in the year as HMV Group plc, leaving EMI with only a token holding. HMV operated a loyalty scheme branded as "purehmv", first launched in August 2003, but subsequently closed and relaunched in 2008. The scheme awarded cardholders points for purchases, which could be collected and redeemed on
11628-592: Was Frank Sinatra's first album, the four-record eight-song The Voice of Frank Sinatra , originally issued in 1946. RCA's introduction of the smaller 45 rpm format later in 1948 disrupted Columbia's expectations. By the mid-1950s, 45s dominated the singles market and 12" LPs dominated the album market and both 78s and 10" LPs were discontinued. In the 1950s albums of popular music were also issued on 45s, sold in small heavy paper-covered "gate-fold" albums with multiple discs in sleeves or in sleeves in small boxes. This format disappeared around 1960. Sinatra's "The Voice"
11742-491: Was a further development of the similar Stereo-Pak four-track cartridge created by Earl "Madman" Muntz . A later quadraphonic version of the format was announced by RCA in April 1970 and first known as Quad-8, then later changed to just Q8. The Compact Cassette was a popular medium for distributing pre-recorded music from the early 1970s to the early 2000s. The first "Compact Cassette" was introduced by Philips in August 1963 in
11856-507: Was also added. The acquisitions were investigated and cleared by the Office of Fair Trading in April 2009. In the 2008 MCV Industry Excellence Awards, HMV was given the title Entertainment Retailer of the Year. In January 2009, HMV bought a 50% stake in MAMA Group, forming a joint venture with the group called the Mean Fiddler Group. The deal introduced the HMV brand to live music venues, including
11970-490: Was also released. The album was only available to buy at HMV shops, and online on HMV's website, plus eBay . In 2021, the company began to rebrand, using the motto "The HMV Shop" for shopfronts and social media, the previous logo is still used in most shops (including the flagship HMV Vault shop), and the website. In April 2023 it was confirmed that HMV had signed up to reopen a new-format shop in their original home at 363 Oxford Street after four years away, during which time
12084-653: Was bought by Hilco UK. This transaction also enabled AID Partners Capital Limited to own the rights to use the HMV brand in Hong Kong, Macau, China, Taiwan and Singapore. By 23 March 2013, Deloitte was seeking to complete a deal to sell 120 shops as a going concern. The decision to close several shops that had previously been identified for closure were reversed following talks with landlords. By 21 March 2016, China 3D Digital Entertainment Limited acquired HMV Hong Kong operations from AID Partners Capital Limited, later renamed to HMV Digital China Group Limited. On 5 April 2013, Hilco UK announced that it had acquired HMV, taking
12198-414: Was from this that in medieval and modern times, album came to denote a book of blank pages in which verses, autographs, sketches, photographs and the like are collected. This in turn led to the modern meaning of an album as a collection of audio recordings issued as a single item. The first audio albums were actually published by the publishers of photograph albums. Single 78 rpm records were sold in
12312-399: Was issued in 1952 on two extended play 45s, with two songs on each side, in both packagings. The 10-inch and 12-inch LP record (long play), or 33 + 1 ⁄ 3 rpm microgroove vinyl record, is a gramophone record format introduced by Columbia Records in 1948. A single LP record often had the same or similar number of tunes as a typical album of 78s, and it was adopted by
12426-644: Was opened by the Gramophone Company on London's Oxford Street , named after the Francis Barraud painting, His Master's Voice . In 1998, it was divested from EMI (successor to the Gramophone Company), to form what would become HMV Group plc. In August 2007, HMV bought rival retailer, Fopp . In April 2013, HMV Group plc was bought by Hilco UK for an estimated £50 million after falling into administration, with some international divisions divested off. In February 2019, British retailer JD Sports acquired
12540-701: Was placed at number 54 on the list. The album was ranked at number 35 on Spin ' s "The 300 Best Albums of the Past 30 Years (1985–2014)" list. Released in 1995 at the height of the Britpop era, it is often considered an album which best defines the era and has featured at the number one position on several best Britpop albums polls, including The Village Voice , BuzzFeed , Pitchfork , Spin . Exactly twenty years on from its release, Complex magazine declared Different Class as "the most important Britpop album." Having not featured in Rolling Stone ' s 2003 list of
12654-463: Was released in the UK at the height of Britpop . It followed from the success of their breakthrough album His 'n' Hers the previous year. Two of the singles on the album – " Common People " (which reached number two on the UK Singles Chart ) and " Disco 2000 " (which reached number seven) – were especially notable, and helped propel Pulp to nationwide fame. A "deluxe edition" of Different Class
12768-527: Was released on 11 September 2006. It contains a second disc of B-sides , demos and rarities. The inspiration for the title came to frontman Jarvis Cocker in Smashing, a club night that ran during the early 1990s in Eve's Club on Regent Street in London. Cocker had a friend who used the phrase "different class" to describe something that was "in a class of its own". Cocker liked the double meaning, with its allusions to
12882-491: Was seeking to reduce the number of shop staff across the business, as part of an effort to save £7.8 million on the wages budget. Shops would lose security staff, cashiers and supervisors, with managers required to provide cover. HMV launched a music download service in October 2013 (www.hmvdigital.com), provided by 7digital, which includes iOS and Android apps. The company moved its flagship Oxford Street shop back to
12996-411: Was the dominant form of recorded music expression and consumption from the mid-1960s to the early 21st century, a period known as the album era . Vinyl LPs are still issued, though album sales in the 21st-century have mostly focused on CD and MP3 formats. The 8-track tape was the first tape format widely used alongside vinyl from 1965 until being phased out by 1983, being gradually supplanted by
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