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Starbucks are mopping up a huge number of geriatric songwriters for their Hear Music label. Carly Simon is the latest in a line of formerly great artists to have signed up with the Starbucks record label in order to get their music force fed to the mocha swigging masses.

In addition to the much loved Paul McCartney, Joni Mitchell and James Taylor are known to have released music under the new label. I won’t lay the boot into these acts, but I find it interesting that Hear Music is signing up older artists by the wheelchair load.

No, seriously. I’m a big fan on Joni Mitchell’s work and some of her more recent retrospectives have been as good if not better than the earlier material.

And despite my loathing for Macca, I believe that these older artists still have much to give. I just wonder what’s in it for them. Can Hear Music distribute the music to a wide audience? Roughly 50% of their sales are done in Starbucks stores. Do they have a good marketing/distribution chain or are they relying on point of purchase sales combined with sales to long-term fans?

Does the exposure in one of the largest coffee chains in the world result in new, passionate fans or does it diminish your music into background ‘ambiance’ for dinner parties? I don’t know. Answers on a postcard please, because I’m cynical about what Starbucks’ Hear Music means for artists. Is this the label you sign to when you’ve given up?