Starbucks launches Hear Music record label

Starbucks Corp., the business that started out as a push-cart in Pike Place Market in Seattle 20 years ago, has made another significant leap in its corporate expansion. Starbucks Corp.

announced on Monday that it has formed its own Los Angeles-based record label, Hear Music, in order to develop records to be sold in their coffee shops around the world, as well as in traditional music retail stores.

Starbucks has already been using the Hear Music label to create the compilation CDs that it sells in its coffee shops, and it already has its own XM Satellite Radio channel. Now, Starbucks has announced it will partner with Concord Music Group to launch the Hear Music record label, based on an existing deal between the two companies to release and distribute albums under the Hear Music brand.

Concord and Starbucks have previously partnered to release Ray Charles' "Genius Loves Company" album which won a total of eight Grammy awards.

The new Hear Music record label will be headed by Ken Lombard, the current President of Starbucks Entertainment, and Glen Barros, president of Concord Music Group, will work closely with him. Lombard will sit as chief manager of the Hear Music label after his successful stint atop Starbucks Entertainment, which has seen the small unit grow into a profitable enterprise responsible for selling books and music across the Starbucks chain.

Sales of compilation CDs have grown along with the coffee chain, and exclusive content has come from both Alanis Morissette and Bob Dylan, growing the Hear Music brand. According to reports from the New York Post and the Associated Press, former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney may be close to signing with the Starbucks label.

Hear Music started out as a chain of music stores that would allow customers to create custom CDs and would allow customers to listen to any album in the store before purchasing it.

From its inception in 1990, Hear Music grew until its purchase by Starbucks in 1999, and has since expanded vastly in the music business. But while Hear Music has had success since being acquired by Starbucks, not everyone is convinced. One unnamed executive from a rival record company was quoted by Reuters as saying, "They got the retail and marketing distribution to leverage, bBut are they going to sell a million records?

No, but they probably don't need to."

However, in a statement made by Ken Lombard, he feels quite the opposite. "As we move forward with this new venture, Hear Music will seek out unique and compelling artists from a broad range of genres to help them reach the widest audience possible.