In case you hadn't heard, Starbucks launched its own record label about 10 days ago; it will be an extension of their Hear Music brand. The first artist they've announced signing is Paul McCartney (for a one album deal distributed both through Starbucks and through regular retail channels). This move towards creating their own label wasn't particularly a surprise to me; seems it was almost inevitable given how successful Starbucks has been with its compilations and 'lifestyle' affiliation sales of CDs; in the past few years they've moved literally millions of CDs aimed at a savvy, reasonably affluent audience that they readily influence.
Given the dominance of its baby boomer-based clientele, it will be interesting to see if the initial thrust is on signing legacy artists who would kill for the reach (and who the audience would naturally resonate with, like McCartney) -- and/or how much influence Starbucks will exercise in pushing the discovery of rising artists -- if that's indeed part of their strategy. And of course another initial question I have is whether this may also lead to a Starbucks-branded online digital download store (vs. their deal with iTunes) -- and/or in-store download 'kiosk' stations so you can burn tunes while waiting to pick-up your coffee.
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I’d like to see Starbucks sponsor low-key tours for upcoming artists, in which the artists would set up and play in Starbucks stores. Combined with kiosks selling the artists’ music, it seems like that would be inexpensive yet effective promotion. The challenge would be crowd control, I imagine.