At Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2007 09:11:26 Mark Smith wrote:

>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.

I've been told this as well and have gone to three HMVs....they have 
nothing. And the truly useless staff have no clue as to when they'll have 
it. One gal tried looking it up on their system and spelled McCartney's name 
wrong three times.

>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.

Now this is the part that I find fascinating. Bob Lefsetz, that hyperbole 
bloated music pundit who spends all his time preaching to old industry 
geezers about OTHER old industry geezers (do you think anyone in the real 
world cares what Clive Davis thinks or does?), has been having a cow over 
McCartney's Starbuck's connection.

Why does it matter WHO released the CD or why? The fact is that somebody 
DID. We're in a world where it took 4 years for Tears For Fears to get a 
label to actually put their last CD in retail stores and where every new 
"event" album gets sold with exclusive packaging, bonus tracks and other 
incentives just so you'll go to *their* store and not someone else's.

I recall in the '80s buying Rhino-styled hits collections from Shell gas 
stations. I have TIME/LIFE CDs I bought off of television. I have LPs I got 
by sending in pop bottle liners along with $2.99 for postage from 7UP. None 
of these companies are in the music business.

I don't see the problem with Starbucks selling CDs. They're no more 
interested in the music they're pimping than the CD retailers at this point 
because many of the CD retailers are now selling T-shirts and ballcaps and 
Family Guy dolls so it won't be long until their stock-in-trade, like 
Wal-mart, is ubiquitous just to stay alive. CDs or shoes or coffee, it's all 
just inventory.

And at the end of the day all you want is a CD, right? Go buy it from 
Starbucks. And don't buy their coffee.

Jaimie Vernon,
Bullseye

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