Commentary

iOctane Jolt

You know things are bad in the music industry when one of the few rays of hope is coming from Starbucks. Yes, with the recent introduction of free wireless access to Apple’s iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store coupled with the aggressive push behind Starbucks’ Hear Music division, the “third place” — not home, not work — is beginning to look more and more like an FYE than a coffee shop.

This definitely isn’t a one-off dalliance for the java purveyor. Starbucks is cranking out the kind of numbers that make the music biz sit up and take notice: 229,000 copies of Paul McCartney’s latest album — a whopping 45 percent of total sales — were sold at Starbucks, and the chain even managed to move 24,000 copies of the far less famous artist Feist’s most recent effort. And this was all before Steve Jobs appeared in his ubiquitous black mock turtleneck to announce that Apple would be partnering with Starbucks to offer free wireless access to the iTunes Store via your iPhone, iPod Touch or wireless enabled Mac or PC laptop at select Starbucks locations. With the Now Playing feature, over-caffeinated customers can download the song on rotation in the store with just a couple of clicks. 

Since the roll out that began in mid-October in New York and Seattle (then San Francisco in November, and is progressing to L.A. in February and Chicago in March), the early word on the success of the venture is … no word. No sales figures are in, though the early adopters were quick to run out — iPhones in hand, naturally — to test the service and then post about it exhaustingly on their blogs. 

Those in the music business are taking an any-port-in-a-storm attitude to the new service. As one source said, “It doesn’t matter where they buy it, just as long as they buy it.” Music marketers can only hope that America’s love of the third place continues so they don’t end up in the fourth place: the toilet.

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