Three Imaginary Girls

Seattle's Indie-Pop Press – Music Reviews, Film Reviews, and Big Fun

starbucks

This is a pretty interesting story: Starbucks is getting out of the retail music business. According to CNet:

According to Silicon Alley Insider, Starbucks is planning to do away with its in-store CDs and other music-retail offerings by September.

Starbucks representatives were not immediately available for comment.

Seattle-based Starbucks once fancied itself as an entertainment center where people sipped coffee and grooved to the latest tunes. The company's dreams of branching into music has had a troubled past.

Remember the Hear Music media bars, the in-store CD burning service Starbucks began offering in 2004? That didn't go anywhere either.

Starbucks isn't giving up on music completely. The chain will continue to offer the free Wi-Fi access to Apple's online music store, Silicon Alley reported.

In March, The New York Times reported that each Starbucks store was selling only two CDs a day on average. Starbucks said its music unit was selling more than 4 million CDs a year.

Selling 4 million CDs a year and averaging 2 per store every day doesn't seem mutually exclusive, if you ask me.

(Hat tip to Idolator.)