Paul McCartney Signs to Starbucks' Music Label, First to Have His Music Served with Lattes

If last week Starbucks Coffee Company announced they would form their own record label, this week they confirmed their first musician to release an album under the chain's new Hear Music record label, it's none other than Paul McCartney.

McCartney revealed the move during a satellite-broadcast appearance from London, at the company's annual meeting in Seattle.

"I've been working on it for a little while," McCartney said. "The songs are a little bit retrospective, some are of now, and some hark back to the past. All of them are songs I'm very proud of."

McCartney's first album with this label, yet unnamed, is scheduled to be released later this year and will be available in most stores.

"For me the great thing is the commitment and the passion and the love of music, which as an artist is good to see," he said. "It's a new world now and people are thinking of new ways to reach the people and for me that's always been my aim."

Starbucks and Concord Music Group who announced their partnership on Monday last week, have high hopes for the label in their joint venture.

"Having the honor of releasing an album by Paul McCartney as our first project under the Hear Music label is in a word, remarkable," Ken Lombard, president of Starbucks Entertainment, said.

"This demonstrates how Hear Music can present even the most successful recording artists of all time with unique opportunities to reach existing fans, as well as a new audience of listeners."

Lombard will serve as chief manager of the new Los Angeles based venture, while Glen Barros, Concord Music president, will be handling day-to-day activities.

"This is clearly a venture that provides us with a unique and powerful way to get music heard," Barros said.

As previously reported, Starbucks will primarily handle talent for the collaborative initiative, while Concord will head up marketing, promotion and distribution of the label's product outside the coffee shops.

The Hear Music name has been used since 1999 for compilations and co-releases at Starbucks; it will now apply exclusively to this partnership.

"As we built the success, we got more and more artists' attention, and artists began calling us and wanting to sign with us," Lombard said during an interview a while ago.

"We have been very fortunate since we made our initial commitment to the music industry," he added.

Jonathan Taplin, a University of Southern California professor who specializes in digital media entertainment, said last week that if Hear Music releases eight albums a year, it would be considered a small independent label, but noted they have an incredible distribution advantage with 9,401 U.S. stores where CDs are prominently displayed and often are near cash registers.

"They sell to an upscale customer. Someone who is paying $4 for a latte doesn't shy away from paying another, $10, $11 or $12 for a CD," Taplin said.

During the same annual meeting in Seattle, Starbucks Corp. Chairman Howard Schultz said the company, which has 13,168 stores in 39 countries, would open 10,000 more stores in the next four years. Other company executives said that 2,400 more stores were on tap for this year and that Starbucks would be in Russia and India by the end of this year.

"We continue to build the company through a set of values and principles," Schultz said. "I have never been more passionate than now about the future of our company."