![]() ![]() And Starbucks’ music offerings seemed to become less focused, particularly in recent years. ![]() ![]() Selling music in 2015 is a tough proposition big-box outlets like Best Buy, which once placed deeply discounted music front and centre, have pared back their CD offerings, while beloved Boston-area chain Newbury Comics have given over floor space to tie-in figurines and brightly patterned socks. The physical aspect of the CD, at least, guarantees some sort of record of their having been available. A huge rack of CDs takes up the hallway of my apartment, and I delight in telling visitors about those found after hunts that stretched into the 2010s – even now, when I visit stores that still traffic in the format like New Jersey’s Princeton Record Exchange, I pore over stacked jewel-box spines in search of a deeply discounted treasure.Īfter all, while digital outlets might seem to have everything, gaps in their catalogues absolutely exist – albums that fell through the commercial cracks, whether they were on on now-defunct indies or just not popular enough to be given an online afterlife. My meagre paychecks from my high-school job would be spent almost immediately at the music store two doors down, which had an ever-replenishing selection of used offerings. I came of record-buying age just as the CD was being introduced, and I have nostalgic pangs for the format, shiny and cold as it seemed even when it was in its infancy. And let’s not talk about the business’s mighty fall from the starry-eyed early 2000s, when the Recording Industry Association of America established the diamond award to commemorate 10m albums sold in honor of Britney Spears and Carlos Santana doing just that. Even that number had slipped substantially from 2013. That’s still a substantial number in context 2014’s total album sales, which includes digital and vinyl units in addition to CDs, numbered 257m. According to Nielsen, 140.8m CDs were sold in 2014, a new low that represented a 14% drop from 2013’s total over the course of the year only two albums, Taylor Swift’s 1989 and the soundtrack to Disney’s Frozen, broke the million-sold mark in America. After many years of hanging on, the CD – the format that, when Sony launched it in the early 1980s, represented the music business’s shiny new future – finally ceded market share to downloads. The spiritual partnership between the cafe chain and music won’t end entirely in a statement to Billboard, a spokesperson for the company said: “Music will remain a key component of our coffeehouse and retail experience,” and added a line about the company’s “curation” abilities.īut the presentation of CDs at the counter, right next to the other impulse items like packaged madeleines and mints, will be no longer.įrom an economic perspective, Starbucks’ decision makes sense. The Hear Music shops quietly shut, reverting back to their coffee-shop origins.Īnd Starbucks – which, in many communities, is the only non-big-box outlet selling physical music for many miles – announced it would pull CDs from its shelves at the end of this month. XM Café dropped the Starbucks branding after a marketing agreement expired in 2008. The most recent Hear Music-branded release remains McCartney’s 2013 full-length album New. ![]() But being a music store hit Starbucks, like so many other companies. ![]()
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