Fopp
The Frontage, Queen Street, Nottingham, NG1 2AR (map)
0115 9417602
http://www.fopp.co.uk/
Monday-Saturday: 9:30am – 6:00pm
Sunday: 11:00am – 5:00pm
The best way to imagine Fopp is to consider a more alternative HMV with lower prices, deals on items you actually want and exciting music playing over the speakers. Many a happy hour and many an overdrawn pound can be spent here stocking up on pretty much anything. With it rotating special offers placing a large amount of their stock in the £5, £7 and £10 price brackets you can’t go wrong. The selection itself runs the gamut from classic albums, to modern indie to relatively obscure releases both these fields and jazz, hip-hop, electronica, punk, hardcore and country. Super cheap books of a literary and musical bent and often difficult to find foreign, non-Hollywood films are also available, as are any TV Series DVDs you might require.
Fortunately or unfortunately, (whichever you prefer) Fopp went into administration at the beginning of July (2007), closing 81 stores and making about 700 people redundant. Poor little blighters! However, HMV struck a deal to buy the Fopp brand and revive six of its stores. You surely know where this is leading, don’t you? That’s right, Nottingham is one of the six stores. Hurray I hear you cry in earnest. HMV state that “these stores will operate independently of the main HMV chain in order to preserve their distinct customer offer,” but my natural cycnicism leads me to think otherwise…
Perhaps Fopp now realise how all the independent music retailers felt when they got crippled by the dominance of Fopp, HMV and Virgin Records; with the latter two continuing to have a detrimental effect on the music industry. That aside, Fopp will always be a great place for a relatively inexpensive and tasteful birthday present. Long may it continue…in Glasgow, Edinburgh, London’s Covent Garden, Manchester, Nottingham and Cambridge.
