Hear Music was a record label that was founded in 2007 in a partnership between
Concord Music Group and
Starbucks
Starbucks Corporation is an American multinational chain of coffeehouses and roastery reserves headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It is the world's largest coffeehouse chain.
As of November 2021, the company had 33,833 stores in 80 c ...
. Hear Music began as a catalog company in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1990 before being purchased by
Starbucks
Starbucks Corporation is an American multinational chain of coffeehouses and roastery reserves headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It is the world's largest coffeehouse chain.
As of November 2021, the company had 33,833 stores in 80 c ...
in 1999.
Concept
The Hear Music brand has four components: the music that each location plays; in-store CD sales, including Starbucks exclusives; branded retail stores, which opened shortly after the catalog was formed, and a label distributing their recordings.
As of December 2006, there were four
Starbucks
Starbucks Corporation is an American multinational chain of coffeehouses and roastery reserves headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It is the world's largest coffeehouse chain.
As of November 2021, the company had 33,833 stores in 80 c ...
Hear Music Coffeehouses: Santa Monica, California, on the
Third Street Promenade
The Third Street Promenade is a pedestrian mall esplanade, shopping, dining and entertainment complex in the downtown area of Santa Monica, California which originally opened as the Santa Monica Mall on November 8, 1965. It is considered a premier ...
; San Antonio, Texas, on the
River Walk; Miami, Florida, on the
Lincoln Road shopping promenade; and Bellevue, Washington, in
Bellevue Square
Bellevue Square is a shopping center in Bellevue, Washington. The mall has over 200 retail stores with anchors Macy's and Nordstrom. Bellevue Square also offers concierge services, valet parking, and a children's play area. It and the connectin ...
. The original, now-defunct Hear Music Store was located in
Berkeley, California
Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...
. Ten Starbucks locations also had Hear Music "media bars," a service which uses tablet PCs to allow customers to create their own mix CDs. The media bars were located in Seattle and in Austin, Texas. The music section in Canadian bookstore chain
Chapters
Chapter or Chapters may refer to:
Books
* Chapter (books), a main division of a piece of writing or document
* Chapter book, a story book intended for intermediate readers, generally age 7–10
* Chapters (bookstore), Canadian big box bookstore ...
was at one time licensed version of the Hear Music concept; however, the company no longer uses the brand name.
Its biggest seller was
Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson Sr. (September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004) was an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. He is regarded as one of the most iconic and influential singers in history, and was often referred to by contemporaries as "The Ge ...
' Grammy-winning ''
Genius Loves Company
''Genius Loves Company'' is the final studio album by rhythm and blues and soul musician Ray Charles, posthumously released August 31, 2004, on Concord Records. Billboard.com: Discography - Ray Charles - Genius Loves Company Nielsen Business Medi ...
'', with sales of 2.86 million records; 25% of those were sold at Starbucks locations.
In 2005, Starbucks announced a partnership with singer/songwriter
Alanis Morissette. In a six-week deal, Morissette sold an acoustic version of ''
Jagged Little Pill
''Jagged Little Pill'' is the third studio album by Canadian singer Alanis Morissette, released on June 13, 1995, through Maverick. It was her first album to be released worldwide. It marked a stylistic departure from the dance-pop sound of he ...
'' in Starbucks stores only. The acoustic version was released on June 13, 2005 to mark the album's tenth anniversary. This limited availability led to a dispute between
Maverick Records
Maverick was an American entertainment company founded in 1992 by Madonna, Frederick DeMann, and Veronica "Ronnie" Dashev, and formerly owned and operated by Warner Music Group. It included a record label (Maverick Records), a film production ...
and
HMV Canada, who retaliated by removing Morissette's other albums from store shelves for the duration of Starbucks' exclusive sale.
In April 2008, Starbucks announced that it was refining its entertainment strategy and turning over the day-to-day management of Hear Music to
Concord
Concord may refer to:
Meaning "agreement"
* Pact or treaty, frequently between nations (indicating a condition of harmony)
* Harmony, in music
* Agreement (linguistics), a change in the form of a word depending on grammatical features of other ...
.
[Starbucks Newsroom: Starbucks Redefines Its Entertainment Strategy ]
At the same time that Starbucks closed 600 coffeehouses in July 2008, it was announced that the Hear Music label would be shutting down.
One of the four Hear Music stores, in Santa Monica, California, has indicated that its music operation will be permanently closed approximately September 20, 2008. Another Hear Music store in Bellevue, Washington has been converted to a regular Starbucks. The Lincoln Road Miami Beach location has since been downgraded as well, since November 2008.
Creation as a record label
On March 12, 2007 Starbucks and
Concord Music Group launched the Hear Music record label.
The company's first artist signing was
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. One ...
, leaving his long-time label
EMI
EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British Transnational corporation, transnational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in March 1 ...
on March 21, 2007.
In July 2007, the label signed
Joni Mitchell
Roberta Joan "Joni" Mitchell ( Anderson; born November 7, 1943) is a Canadian-American musician, producer, and painter. Among the most influential singer-songwriters to emerge from the 1960s folk music circuit, Mitchell became known for her sta ...
and announced that her first album of new material in nearly ten years, ''
Shine'', would be released on September 25, 2007.
In March 2008, it was announced that
Carly Simon
Carly Elisabeth Simon (born June 25, 1943) is an American singer-songwriter, memoirist, and children's author. She rose to fame in the 1970s with a string of hit records; her 13 Top 40 U.S. hits include "Anticipation" (No. 13), " The Right Thin ...
had signed with the label and would be releasing a new album entitled ''
This Kind of Love
''This Kind of Love'' is the 22nd studio album by American singer-songwriter Carly Simon, released by Hear Music, on April 29, 2008.
Simon's first album of original material since ''The Bedroom Tapes'' in 2000, it is also her most recent albu ...
'' in late April 2008, her first collection of original songs since 2000's ''
The Bedroom Tapes
''The Bedroom Tapes'' is the 18th studio album by American singer-songwriter Carly Simon, released by Arista Records, on May 16, 2000.
The album received widespread critical acclaim upon release, and Simon promoted it through many television app ...
''.
Rolling Stone : Carly Simon Signs With Starbucks' Hear Music
/ref> She blamed poor sales on Hear Music's failure to promote the album. She sued the company and lost.
Roster
* Anjulie
Anjulie Persaud (born May 21, 1983), known as Anjulie, is a Canadian singer and songwriter who has released one self-titled album, and has collaborated with Diplo, Zedd, Boombox Cartel, Kelly Clarkson, Nicki Minaj, TheFatRat, and Benny Benassi ...
* Antigone Rising
Antigone Rising is an all-female rock band based in New York City. The band's current line up is Cathy Henderson (lead guitar), Kristen Henderson (bass guitar and drums), and Nini Camps (lead vocals and rhythm guitar).
History
The band origin ...
* The Cars
The Cars were an American rock band formed in Boston in 1976. Emerging from the new wave scene in the late 1970s, they consisted of Ric Ocasek ( rhythm guitar), Benjamin Orr (bass guitar), Elliot Easton (lead guitar), Greg Hawkes (keyboards), ...
* The Chieftains
The Chieftains are a traditional Irish folk band formed in Dublin in 1962, by Paddy Moloney, Seán Potts and Michael Tubridy. Their sound, which is almost entirely instrumental and largely built around uilleann pipes, has become synonymous wi ...
* Elvis Costello
Declan Patrick MacManus Order of the British Empire, OBE (born 25 August 1954), known professionally as Elvis Costello, is an English singer-songwriter and record producer. He has won multiple awards in his career, including a Grammy Award in ...
* James Hunter
* Carole King
Carole King Klein (born Carol Joan Klein; February 9, 1942) is an American singer, songwriter, and musician who has been active since 1958, initially as one of the staff songwriters at 1650 Broadway and later as a solo artist. Regarded as one ...
* John Mellencamp
John J. Mellencamp (born October 7, 1951), previously known as Johnny Cougar, John Cougar, and John Cougar Mellencamp, is an American singer-songwriter. He is known for his catchy brand of heartland rock, which emphasizes traditional instrument ...
* Hilary McRae
Hilary McRae (born July 23, 1986) is an American pop singer-songwriter. She was the first 'developing artist' to release an album on the Starbucks Cafe and Concord Music Group's label, Hear Music.
Career
Hilary McRae, born in Boynton Beach, ...
* Joni Mitchell
Roberta Joan "Joni" Mitchell ( Anderson; born November 7, 1943) is a Canadian-American musician, producer, and painter. Among the most influential singer-songwriters to emerge from the 1960s folk music circuit, Mitchell became known for her sta ...
* Playing for Change
Playing For Change is a multimedia music project, featuring musicians and singers from across the globe, co-founded in 2002 by American Grammy award-winning music producer/engineer and award-winning film director Mark Johnson and film producer/ph ...
* Sia
Sia Kate Isobelle Furler ( ; born 18 December 1975) is an Australian singer and songwriter. Born and raised in Adelaide, she started her career as a singer in the acid jazz band Crisp in the mid-1990s. In 1997, when Crisp disbanded, she rel ...
* Paul Simon
Paul Frederic Simon (born October 13, 1941) is an American musician, singer, songwriter and actor whose career has spanned six decades. He is one of the most acclaimed songwriters in popular music, both as a solo artist and as half of folk roc ...
* Carly Simon
Carly Elisabeth Simon (born June 25, 1943) is an American singer-songwriter, memoirist, and children's author. She rose to fame in the 1970s with a string of hit records; her 13 Top 40 U.S. hits include "Anticipation" (No. 13), " The Right Thin ...
* Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth was an American rock band based in New York City, formed in 1981. Founding members Thurston Moore (guitar, vocals), Kim Gordon (bass, vocals, guitar) and Lee Ranaldo (guitar, vocals) remained together for the entire history of the b ...
* James Taylor
James Vernon Taylor (born March 12, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A six-time Grammy Award winner, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, havi ...
References
External links
Hear Music, The Sound of Starbucks
{{Authority control
American independent record labels
Pop record labels
Record labels established in 2007
Rock record labels
Starbucks
Defunct record labels of the United States
Concord Music Group