“Bull in the Heather” (Catherine Keener saw the video once)

“Sugar Kane” (Beck was soooo high when he saw them rock this at Lollapalooza)

“100%” (Video has skateboarding in it and Mike D was like, “yo!!!”)

“Kool Thing” (Radiohead really thinks they shattered boundaries when this got played on MTV)

“Disappearer” (Portia DeRossi thinks Lee Ranaldo kind of looks like her girlfriend)

“Superstar” (If you like this, Diablo Cody also thinks you should check out the Juno soundtrack)

“Stones” (Allison Anders thinks people should get over the old stuff and pay more attention to their new ideas)

“Tuff Gnarl” (Mike Watt covered this once–it’s the jam and Dave Eggers thinks “blah blah blah phbbbt”)

“Teenage Riot” (Eddie Vedder likes to imagine some day kids will stand up, revolt, and go see the Fastbacks)

“Shadow of a Doubt” (Michelle Williams thinks this song is creepy and sexy, like seeing your ex dressed up like the Joker)

“Rain on Tin” (This song is so cosmically magical to Flea, it reminds him of 9/11 and makes him take off his shirt and cry)

“Tom Violence” (When he closes his eyes, the track makes Gus Van Zant see a beautiful blond boy looking bored)

“Mary-Christ” (David Cross likes this song because it sounds like Alvin & The Chipmunks)

“World Looks Red” (One of Chloe Sevigny’s skeevy, demented director boyfriends used to play this every morning)

“Expressway to Yr Skull” (Flaming Lips are thinking about removing the distortion and making this sound like sloppy Styx)

“Slow Revolution” (a new Sonic Youth song about how they slowly transformed into the kind of band who would get famous pals to write kissy-faced intros to an ironically titled hits comp available only at coffee shops)

Sonic Youth Sets Track List For Starbucks Compilation [Billboard]

Others suggest that Starbucks has expanded and altered its mix of music too quickly under Mr. [Ken] Lombard [head of Starbucks' entertainment division]. Before he took charge, the stores offered 5 to 20 CDs over the course of a year, according to the company. Now, Starbucks displays as many as 20 CDs at a time, adding six to eight new ones each month or so.

“They’ve lost that ‘event’ thing,” a senior executive at one of the industry’s biggest labels said, requesting anonymity because the label continues to market music there. “It would be like Oprah’s Book Club having 15 books a week.”

Starbucks says it still has the power to move record sales, including for its own label, which released Paul McCartney’s “Memory Almost Full” last year. Though it shifts titles regularly, its sales of a CD over, say, six weeks typically accounts for 5 to 10 percent of the album’s overall sales, according to music executives who do business with the company.

Mr. Lombard said that since taking a broader approach in the shops, “we have done nothing but continue to add value to the credibility that we’ve been able to build around the Starbucks voice.”

Anyone who expects Starbucks (or any other corporation) to stock and sell fewer discs for the love of the music is a fool, but there was certainly a discernible shift when Lombard took over from Don MacKinnon, who originated the Hear Music line, and ran a mail order music catalog prior to the big gig. MacKinnon brought in the Ray Charles project which vaulted Starbucks into the music biz full time, but was shuffled aside when the potential profits became too difficult to ignore. A sad story, if somewhat predictable. That being said, anyone who has spent a minute or two managing a music store would be impressed by the deals Lombard has pulled from the record labels.

But last year, Starbucks began pushing for another discount on its purchase of new releases, lowering its price to $8 from $8.25, even while seeking the right to return up to 20 percent of its orders, according to people briefed on the company’s negotiations. Those terms can equate to $2 or $3 a CD less than the price paid by other retailers, these people said.
And for emerging talent, it has raised the price of entry. When Starbucks merely stocks an album by an emerging artist on an outside label, it routinely seeks up to 50 percent of the total profit, including sales at retailers.
“What they were asking was not commensurate with what they were giving,” said Gary Borman, the longtime talent manager behind acts like Faith Hill and Keith Urban, who has discussed deals with the chain. “We just walked away,” Mr. Borman said.

To think, the stores I worked at asked for a few cleans and concert tickets to promote acts. It honestly never occurred to me to try to grab a percentage of the total profit. I should have dreamed bigger.

Does This Latte Have a Funny Mainstream Taste to You? [NY Times]

Kenny G Goes Latin For Starbucks Debut [Billboard]

When your Wi-Fi powered iPod Touch or iPhone, or any laptop, is within range of a Starbucks, a button will pop up on the music store interface. Tap it, and you get songs recently played in that Starbucks, plus whatever music Starbucks is promoting at the time. Access to Starbucks’ Wi-Fi network will be free while you are shopping.

Rollout will start in NYC and Seattle, hitting 600 stores. By November, the SF area will have 350 stores. Apple and Starbucks plan to have all shops in major cities ready to go by end of 2008, and every Starbucks that has Wi-Fi by end of 2009.

Now, I’m not so into Starbucks’ musical offerings for the most part, but this idea is just jaw-droppingly killer–if it’s implemented properly (a big if, I know), it has the potential to integrate the hearing-music and buying-music experiences in the real world as well as the iTunes Store does on the desktop. (Not to mention that it’ll save the poor baristas at least a couple of “what’s this song playing right now?” questions.) Of course, if the prices of the songs were lower, perhaps there’d be an even higher purchase rate–and yes, I know I’m talking about this in the context of a store that charges $2.50 for a cup of coffee. But I really like where this idea can go (do you know how many times I’ve written down lyrics while out and about, in hopes of Googling them later?), and the potential it has for making ever-ubiquitous “background music” at least a little less anonymous. An optimistic outlook? Perhaps. But given that the two companies involved have actually been able to sell music lately, an area where so many other outfits have failed spectacularly, I’m willing to see where this goes.

Apple Partners With Starbucks For Free Wi-Fi Access to iTunes Music Store [Gizmodo]