we eat what we like

An article in today's NY Times asks whether "Starbucks has squandered its musical tastemaking cachet by offering more mainstream selections in its coffee shops." My immediate question upon reading that front page synopsis: who expects anything but the mainstream from Starbucks? The answer turns out not so much to be consumers, but people at the big music labels. And the word "mainstream" in this case has nothing to do with the style of music, but only with the names creating the music. To put it briefly: record labels are upset that Starbucks is now apparently focusing less on breaking new artists, and more on selling music from established artists, including those on its own Hear Music label. The typical sentiment from biz insiders looks something like this: "'I don’t have the sense that there is any longer a culture and purpose to their musical endeavors,' said Mr. Sonenberg, who has had a dispute with the company over its handling of a new band, Low Stars. 'It’s lost its sense of purpose.'"

The question that remains, and is for the most part left unaddressed in the article, is whether this has any real, negative effect on the consumer. Will the consumer even know, or care, what they're missing if they never hear the run of the mill acoustic folk pop of Low Stars? Starbucks is a mainstream vendor, period: mainstream coffee, mainstream atmosphere, mainstream music. Whatever "culture" or "purpose" industry types are worried the chain has lost has nothing to do with artistic value, but simply with the value the labels hope to create by having Starbucks play a role in breaking their next big act.