You Say It's Your Birthday Macca Turns 65

Paul McCartney turns 65 tomorrow (June 18th), and his creative output and youthful enthusiasm doesn't seem to have been dimmed by age. His new CD "Memory Almost Full", marks his 21st solo delivery in a 37-year solo career. In a partnership with Starbucks' new label, the CD (which has been out nearly two weeks now) is pushing sales of nearly 200k units thus far -- at least three times stronger than sales of his past CD in the same time window. Sir Paul has embraced a multi-faceted marketing campaign that includes digital sales of his catalog for the first time.

The Starbucks tie-in has certainly catapulted him front and center into a receptive retail audience; and we know about the power of Starbucks to create momentum, buzz, and impulse sales. To be specific, the new CD is being saturated across more than 10,000 Starbucks locations in 29 countries reaching an audience of nearly six million coffee drinkers. McCartney is the first artist on the new Starbucks label.

This marketing approach is coupled with a digital push through major online retailers (iTunes & many others), and heavy dedicated programming on Hear Music (featured on XM Satellite Radio). There's a video clip of one of the singles on Amazon.com. And finally, to celebrate the release -- and Paul's 65th birthday -- Starbucks is planning a massive party tomorrow, on the 18th itself. The company is sending out camera crews in cities around the globe collecting birthday wishes from customers & splicing together a montage for release on the 18th.

This whole set of circumstances has to represent a festive, buoyant experience for Sir Paul who has had a challenging past year. All of this activity is perfectly timed with celebrating a milestone birthday. Macca certainly deserves all of his success, heartfelt birthday wishes, & our thanks for his many contributions.