Vente latte, with room for Sir Paul
SEATTLE – Caffeine junkies who go to Starbucks for their daily fix will get a nonstop dose of Paul McCartney’s “Memory Almost Full” today as the coffee company’s new record label releases its first CD.
Starbucks Corp. estimates 6 million people will be among the first to hear the album as they line up for their lattes in more than 10,000 stores in 29 countries, where it will be playing on continuous loop throughout the day.
It’s a tactic most retailers would not likely attempt “probably for no other reason than not wanting to drive their workers insane,” quipped Mike McGuire, an analyst for Gartner Inc.
Still, McGuire said Starbucks has proved to be adept at selling music and thinks it’s smart for the company to tap into its vast customer base.
“Let’s face it. The energy has kind of gone out of the CD store launch,” McGuire said, “so you’ve got to go where (consumers) are, which is typically buying coffee at a Starbucks.”
Ken Lombard, president of Starbucks’ entertainment division, said he’s not worried about customers or baristas succumbing to McCartney overload. “To the contrary, we think everybody’s going to be really excited,” he said.
Starbucks co-founded its Hear Music label with Concord Music Group in March. McCartney was in the final stages of recording and mastering his latest set of songs when he signed a one-album deal with Hear Music, becoming the label’s first artist.
Lombard said he hasn’t set any sales targets for “Memory Almost Full” but that he’d be “ecstatic” if it ends up rivaling “Genius Loves Company,” an album of Ray Charles duets that Starbucks and Concord co-released in 2004. It won eight Grammy awards the following year and has sold more than 5.5 million copies worldwide.
McCartney remains Hear Music’s only artist, but Lombard said the label remains on track with previously announced plans to sign two more artists this year and eight next year. Executives remain hopeful that McCartney will sign on for future albums.
A spokesman for McCartney declined to comment.
In addition to playing and selling the album in its stores, Starbucks got XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. to play McCartney music exclusively on one of its channels Tuesday, putting “Memory Almost Full” in heavy rotation.
Hear Music has also hired crews in London, New York, Berlin, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Seattle, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Miami to film footage of McCartney fans wishing him happy birthday for a video tribute that will be broadcast on Internet social-networking sites, including Google Inc.’s YouTube, Yahoo Inc.’s Yahoo360 and Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Live Spaces, on the artist’s 65th birthday June 18.
The album will be sold at most Starbucks stores worldwide, in all major music retailers, and on Apple Inc.’s iTunes online music store, making it the first of McCartney’s 21 solo albums to be released digitally.