If you haven’t already heard, Starbuck’s Hear Music program has grown up into a full fledged music label.  It’s rumored that Paul McCartney will be the first artist to officially sign with the new label, but I believe he still likes his “English Tea.”

Hear Music helped sell about a third of the hit duets album that Ray Charles released in 2004, and there’s a certain ambience of cool in all the albums I see on display inside the Starbucks stores.   I’m sorry, but it’s kind of hard to take this seriously.

Sure it’s natural to sit in a coffee shop and listen to music, and some artists actually started that way, back in the fifties and sixties.  But today, it’s all about marketing, and that’s what Starbucks does best.  I depend on them every morning to help me beat the rush hour.  Just don’t ask me to listen to their background music on the way to work, because I’m trying to wake up and get charged for the day ahead. 

So what would happen if Starbucks and Hear Music jumped on the classic rock revival bandwagon?   A mashup of 60’s and 70’s artists remakes done in today’s style?  I wonder if any classic rockers would have been sucked into the hype and marketing machine?  And what would result?  A Whole Lotta Latte?  Espresso Highway?  Dude, I don’t know.  Ask your barista.

Posted by Mike