A Double-Shot Nonfat Cap and a CD, to Go
Coffee, tea or Korn?
Decisions don’t get more agonizing, but thanks to Starbucks there’s no need to choose just one. Right next to the beans, mint tins and java gizmos, local branches of the ubiquitous espresso retailer are now selling “Just Passin’ Thru No. 3,” a compilation of songs from the vaults of a Washington-area FM rock station.
The record is part of a fascinating and little-noticed phenomenon. Starbucks started offering music compilations in 1995, and the Seattle-based chain has quietly become a force of its own in the record industry. More than that, it has inspired a litter of copycats, in the process generating interest in otherwise obscure or overlooked artists and spawning a new retail category: the brand-building compact disc.
The albums are hard to miss. Pottery Barn offers more than half a dozen CDs at its stores. Banana Republic, Polo Ralph Lauren stores, Brooks Brothers and Williams-Sonoma outlets sell them too, as does Victoria’s Secret, which Starbucks executives say might deserve credit for dreaming up this concept. In a typical mall nowadays, shoppers can snap up a score of CDs without ever setting foot in a music store.
The collections are usually a grab-bag assortment built around a theme, mood or season. Sales figures are hard to pin down, because SoundScan, the industry’s official counter, focuses on traditional music retailers and most companies are mum on the issue.
But Starbucks asserts that some of its compilations, if tracked, would have popped up on blues or jazz charts, an entirely plausible claim. After all, the company owns 2,500 outlets worldwide--more than 10 times the number of Tower Records stores--visited by roughly 10 million well-heeled consumers each year.
Labels Are Now Pitching to the Retailer
The albums are so popular that major labels now pitch songs to the company, hoping to break a new or forgotten artist. Tellingly, folk rocker Shawn Colvin, who appeared on the “Songs of the Siren” compilation in 1996, thanked Starbucks when she collected a Grammy for a solo album two years later.
“Often CDs are just marketing tools,” said David Brewster, a Starbucks executive. “We tend to think of ours as more powerful than that. They are true music discovery opportunities, handcrafted just like our coffees and our drinks, with dedication and passion.”
Some skepticism about all this is inevitable. Starbucks has mercilessly homogenized a lot of urban and suburban space in recent years, infuriating those who prefer a little variety in their streetscapes. And the company somehow made $2.25 seem like a reasonable sum for a cup of coffee.
A Tasty Brew of Offbeat Songs
But its taste in music is exceptional. Starbucks created its own music department--the only one in all of retaildom, the company claims--with 12 employees whose full-time job is handpicking tunes for upcoming CDs and selecting background music for stores. Aficionados and former music retailers, these guys take their jobs seriously, and over the years they’ve dusted off some ancient jewels and mined new diamonds.
Ignore the bad coffee puns and there’s a feast of good music on albums like “Blending the Blues” and jazz compilations like “Hot Java Jazz.” The company’s back catalog is available at https://www.starbucks.com.
The albums work, in part, because they surprise. On “Blending,” for instance, we get Koko Taylor’s version of “Wang Dang Doodle” rather than the far better known version by Howlin’ Wolf. The Wolf shows up later with “The Red Rooster,” which ranks with his finest, fieriest singing but has inexplicably faded a bit over time.
