MORE ON STARBUCKS’ HEAR MUSIC

From the New York Times: "Starbucks is growing increasingly aggressive about marketing music alongside its macchiatos and madeleines.

"’Genius Loves Company,’ an album of Ray Charles duets that Starbucks’ Hear Music division released in late summer as a joint venture with the independent label Concord Records, remained in the Billboard Top 10 for more than a month and recently went platinum. More than a quarter of the CD’s sales were made in Starbucks coffee shops.

"Hear, a retailer and label that Starbucks bought five years ago, introduced a satellite radio channel in October that focuses on the kind of adult-oriented pop that Starbucks features. And last month Starbucks announced a plan to install a computer system in some of its United States locations that would let customers make a customized CD that could be assembled, packaged and purchased while they wait for drinks.

"Like all that chain’s music ventures, the ‘Genius Loves Company’ album and the decision to sell customized CD’s grew out of the belief that Starbucks regulars — mostly 25-to-49-year-olds with the kind of disposable income that allows them to spend up to several dollars for coffee or tea a few times a week — are poorly served by radio stations and record stores attuned to teenage tastes…

"Major labels are sufficiently intrigued with Starbucks’ custom CD venture to allow it to sell some of the music from their catalogs on a song-by-song basis, much as iTunes does. ‘I would think it’s going to give us an opportunity with adult buyers,’ said Phil Quartararo, president of EMI Music Marketing. At least partly because many adults have not embraced downloading en masse, they represent a group that record companies have become more interested in, as well as one that some industry executives believe is not enamored with many CD stores."

COMING SOON: Hypebot’s afternoon at Hear Music…
Read this entire story in the New York Times here.