Sheryl Crow and Rolling Stones Hear Music at Starbucks
Starbucks Coffee is everywhere people want to be. It is no accident that there are Starbuck’s, it seems, everywhere. As related on America’s chronicler of current culture, Fox television’s The Simpson’s, Starbucks appears to have too many outlets, located near each other within the busiest cities in the United States. There is a reason for this seeming proliferation: Customer service. To serve the onrush of customers during the busiest time of the day and evening requires a lot of outlets.
Glen Barros, president of Concord Records an independent Jazz label, had an idea for Genius Loves Company a compilation recording pairing the late, great Ray Charles with Nora Jones. He produced the CD with the help of Starbucks Entertainment and when the biographical film of Ray Charles life was released sold over 750,000 copies at Starbucks stores! The CD went on to sell a total of 3 million copies, an enormous number for Rhythm & Blues, which makes up a small segment of the American music market. For people who had never heard Ray Charles and his unique music before, it was a revelation.
Possibilities, a CD by Jazz pianist Herbie Hancock was released synchronously at Starbucks stores in the United States and internationaly, Australia, Britian, Germany and Japan and Bob Dylan’s Live at the Gaslite 1962 show the range of musical catagories covered by Starbuck’s Hear Music packaging operation at their central perk in Seattle, Washington.
Is there a Starbucks Sound? With CDs by Alanis Morissette Jagged Little Pill, Cold Play’s X&Y , Dave Matthews Band Stand Up and Antigone Rising’s (Warner Music Group-Lava Records) New York rock band, Hear Music covers all the contemporary musical bases, it appears that they pick artists that will have special appeal for their customers.
Hear Music’s Artists Choice interviews Sheryl Crow about the music that influenced her while she was refining her performances and developing her personal sound and the songs that continue to inspire her.
Broadcast Radio is driving the audience that cares most about new artists to Satellite Radio. When is the last time you heard the “Disc Jockey” say …and here is a new artist with a song she wrote for us…? Where is the Music? is the question I ask Broadcast Radio.
Can a coffee company influence the musical tastes of a new generation of listeners?
Starbucks XM 75 Radio Channel lets patrons Hear Music that each store plays. The Hear Music Coffeehouses on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, California, the Riverwalk in San Antonio, Texas and in Miami Florida’s South Beach let Starbucks grandes burn their own CD’s with the selections they choose from a library of 200,000 songs.
Bob Dylan’s Live at the Gaslite 1962 was a suprise for me, that lyrics to A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall and Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right are just as meaningful today as when they were first sung in the iron ore mountains of New York City’s East Village says alot about the enduring qualities of great writing. Would a Bob Dylan get airplay on today’s Broadcast Radio?
