LONDON, UK (CelebrityAccess) – HMV has announced it will return to its former flagship store on Oxford Street after a four-year absence. The expected open date is the end of this year. The music and entertainment company left the site in 2019.
Oxford Street was HMV’s first store, opened in 1921 by composer Sir Edward Elgar, a British composer. It has played host to a number of British bands, including Blue in 1995 and the Spice Girls Christmas lights switch-on the following year.
In 2000, Sir George Martin, the Beatles producer, unveiled a blue plaque at the store to makr its place in the band’s rise to stardom. That sign, however, has been replaced by a CAndy World sign after American candy stores took over the location during the pandemic. The music store sign was removed and HMV’s latest will be installed once the store returns.
Cllr Geoff Barraclough, from Westminster city council, said: “It’s fantastic to see this iconic brand back on Oxford Street, where it stood as a driver of music and pop culture in the capital for so long. It’s also particularly pleasing it is replacing one of the many US candy stores which sprang up during the pandemic.
HMV closed 27 utlets in February 2019 when the retailer was rescued from financial collapse by a Canadian music entrepreneur, Doug Putman. Putman said in a statement that the Oxford Street reopening would be the “launchpad for an exciting new era for HMV,” which includes new store openings in Europe.
