Don't have time to address the main points you make, but in terms of
sales... my understanding was that this record would be available in normal
record shops and I see no reason why it wouldn't and yet I have been in
three here in Edinburgh as well as a supermarket and the McCartney album is
nowhere to be found. This may be unique to here but I'd be interested to
know if others have seen it in a normal record retail environment.

Of course I could have bought it online (though I don't normally do this) or
gone across the road and bought it in Starbucks but going there to buy a
record seems wrong somehow.  For now I've downloaded from eMusic.

Mark

On 6/7/07, Bryan <munki100@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
> And another thing -- the album's out on a Starbuck's imprint, a
> partnership with
> Hear Music, which is the music division of Starbucks corporation, but the
> promo and licensing and all that is being done by Concord Records, who
> have
> a major label distribution type deal with Universal. So why is McCartney
> going
> on about major labels not being the place for him anymore? His album is
> being
> worked just like a major label would -- marketing, promo, publicity, ads
> and
> TV and all that. The only difference is the local of the retail store,
> that's it, as
> far as I can tell. But he's using this new label as a way to say the old
> paradigm
> doesn't work anymore (it probably doesn't, but still....). I wonder if
> Starbucks
> has a point-of-purchase way of reporting sales for Soundscan? It'll be
> interesting
> to see if this album connects and he sells more than he could if they went
> straight
> to music retail and the usual outlets. I bet he does 50,000 the first week
> and it
> fizzles.
>