For McCartney and Fitzgerald, who were obviously in their prime many decades past, Hear Music has provided surprising and successful hit albums. It all stems from the excitement and buzz created by Starbucks marketing and in Starbucks stores. When the McCartney album was released in June, it was played on repeat in over 10,000 stores worldwide, while store employees quizzed patrons at the counter. A similar event happened last month when a new compilation of unreleased tracks by legendary jazz musician Ella Fitzgerald was released by Hear Music and gave the artist her highest charting album in 43 years, albeit posthumously.
But if Starbucks and Hear Music are having successes by creating buzz around legendary musicians' new albums, they are certainly NOT improving the CD market. In a market where pricing is central to selling the product, Hear Music CDs sold at Starbucks stores are not any cheaper than at typical retail outlets or in online digital stores. In comparison, the week McCartney's Memory Almost Full was released, it sold for $11.99 on Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) iTunes, and for around $13.99 in Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) stores while Starbucks offered it from $15.95. Not an entirely taxing increase over the first two, but certainly not anything more advantageous.
To properly sell the product, you should be competitive with the other retailers who happen to be selling the same product. This is pretty general info and nothing new, but the problem of the CD market and Starbucks is that while the price is not competitive in the coffee-chain's stores, the music still sells in the market. It's not a young market, so music from aging (or deceased) musicians only sells because it is material that sounds similar to material that was first popular three or four decades ago. I don't knock this practice, as McCartney is one of my favorite artists, behind the band that made him popular in the first place: The Beatles.
I can also admit that this practice is not new. When the CD market was initiated twenty years ago, there was a rash of re-issuing projects from the record industry. These were primarily comprised of material from the previous decades, in addition to newer albums being released on CD months after their initial release on vinyl. Think about how many rumors circulate now about when The Beatles catalog will be re-issued on CD. The first Beatles CDs were issued over 20 years ago and offered only a new format for aging (or ageless) material.
In 2007 The Beatles are not present in the market that we know and deal with everyday. The new McCartney or Fitzgerald album might sell well this year, but in time who is to say that Memory Almost Full will not be in the same bin as Flowers in the Dirt or another McCartney album that was heralded at the time, only to find it did not have as strong legs to stand on. Am I happy this is how the market works? Not at all, but I do realize that there will not be anymore Sgt. Pepper's, where we discuss the merits of an album forty years after it debuted.
All told though, I do like what Hear Music has accomplished. Creating mass enthusiasm for an album whose predecessor failed to establish the same feelings is impressive and I know that I did enjoy my trip to Starbucks that morning more than usual. I am careful to note that how many times can the same process be applied to a new release by a legendary artist? How far will it go as well, especially as digital growth continues? What comes next: in-store excitement to buy a card to download exclusive tracks? (That's not a bad idea though.)
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-20-2007 @ 10:40PM
Jody Garner said...
Bear in mind that a whole lot of people can't easily download music from the net because broadband isn't available in their areas. This is true of thousands of small towns and especially true in rural areas. Services like iTunes work great where high-speed is in place, but the frustration of painfully slow 56k makes downloading almost unfeasible. People without the capability to conveniently download from the net still need record stores and CD's.