Retailers cool toward Morisette album

“Jagged Little Pill Acoustic,” Alanis Morissette’s revisionist look at her breakthrough 1995 album, hit retail stores Tuesday. But it is shaping up as one of the most uneventful releases of an “event” record in history.

That’s because Morissette’s label, Maverick Records, struck a deal to put it exclusively in Starbucks locations for six weeks before its release to other retailers – a move that has left more than the taste of bitter coffee grounds in the mouths of many music sellers.

“We’re going to carry it, but we won’t be marketing it or promoting it,” says Bob Feterl, Tower Records’ Southwest regional director.

“You won’t see it in store windows, it won’t be in our ad and we won’t be putting it on sale.”

Since Starbucks began selling “Jagged Little Pill Acoustic” in June, it has sold fewer than 200,000 copies, according to Billboard charts director Geoff Mayfield.

“I thought it might have sold more than that,” he said. “She did some high-profile appearances, she did ‘20/20’. … I thought it might do better.”

Still, Mayfield added, “It’s safe to say that the entrance of Starbucks into the music market has expanded the pie.

“It’s brought music to a lot of people who may not be as comfortable or in the habit of going to conventional music stores. Almost 25 percent of the Ray Charles (‘Genius Loves Company’) album got sold at Starbucks.”

Last year, Starbucks and its Hear Music imprint co-released “Genius Loves Company” with Concord Records. It became the late Charles’ first platinum record (meaning more than 1 million copies sold).

Antigone Rising, an all-female rock band on the Lava Records label, recorded an acoustic version of its debut album, “From The Ground Up,” that is sold exclusively in Starbucks’ 4,400 American locations.

Hear Music also has developed listening bars in select Starbucks locations where people can sample, buy and burn music onto a CD in-store.

Music retailers have been uneasy about preferential treatment to one merchant since the Rolling Stones and Elton John granted short-term exclusives to the Best Buy chain for multi-DVD live packages last year.

The competition isn’t quite the same in terms of the Morrissette/Starbucks arrangement, Tower Records’ Feterl concedes.

“At Best Buy, they’re gonna market it like crazy,” he says. “Starbucks doesn’t do that. They just put the albums out there.

“But the bottom line is, we’d like to see a level playing field.”