Sweet Music

In 1970, one of my childhood friends got the coolest Christmas gift I ever saw-- a complete Bruins hockey uniform with skates, pads, stick, and best of all, Bobby Orr's number 4 jersey. My favorite player back then was Gerry Cheevers, who used to draw scars on his goalie mask to show where all those flying pucks landed over the years, but Orr was viewed as a deity in the Boston area. Automobiles used to sport bumper stickers that said "Jesus saves, but Orr scores on the rebound."

Such a gift might seem a little quaint these days, given the electronically laden wish lists I received this holiday season from my sons (in contrast, one of my nephews asked for a cactus). But I did receive a pretty cool gift myself from my wife (bless her heart)--a satellite radio.

I've had a strong interest in radio broadcasting since I secured my FCC Class III license as a teenager (an old requirement for anyone who wanted to work as a disc jockey at my college station, since you needed this license to legally sign the station logs during your shift). My eclectic musical tastes do not coincide neatly with the conservative radio programming that dominates the New York City market, so my satellite radio promises to help reduce some of the drudgery of my commute.

One of my favorite stations comes from one of the strongest and most charismatic brands of the last ten years. Starbucks has redefined drinking coffee into a specific lifestyle experience. It has altered the drinking habits of millions of people, including residents of the United Kingdom, where even tea sales are dropping in face of the chain's rapid expansion on the British Isles. Lately, Starbucks has aggressively linked music to the coffeehouse "experience," and in July of last year, it reached an agreement with XM radio to broadcast its own station, labeled after the company's musical arm, Hear Music.

Starbucks Chairman Howard Schwartz has always sought to establish Starbucks shops as the "third place" in a person's life, following work and home. Music helps establish the atmospherics that attract regular customers to visit and buy that $4 mocha soy latte with the colored sprinkles. And at a time when record sales in general have been declining, the Wall Street Journal notes that Starbucks has proven to be a robust outlet for selling music, even at full retail prices, especially for new, unknown artists:

When Starbucks carries an album, its stores often account for 20% to 30% of the record's weekly sales, and sometimes as much as 50%, Starbucks and music executives say. EMI Group's Mr. Quartararo says every time one of his company's releases has been sold at Starbucks, the coffee chain has been among the top four retailers selling it.

Every twenty years or so, something comes along to shake up the music industry and provide outlets for new artists and new trends. In the 1950s, it was Top 40 stations playing that demon rock and roll on AM. In the 1970s, it was album rock formats on FM. By the mid-1980s, MTV led the way for promoting cutting edge music, such as New Wave and eventually rap. And now, Starbucks may have brewed a winning formula with caffeine and power chords.

For someone who likes his music a little bit on the adventurous side, I can drink to that.