Surprising, erm, no one, Starbucks yesterday announced that the first signing to its previously reported new record label venture will be Paul McCartney.
The announcement followed confirmation by the coffee firm last week that it was expanding its music operations and launching a joint venture record label with Concorde Music Group. McCartney was widely rumoured to be the label's first signing at the time that announcement was made.
That signing was confirmed at Starbucks' annual shareholders meeting yesterday, where McCartney himself spoke via satellite and confirmed that his debut album with the new label should be released in early June, and that it was a very "personal" album that he had been working on for a while.
The new long player will be released via traditional music stores as well as Starbucks 13,000 coffee stores worldwide. McCartney added that he was looking forward to reaching his audience in a new way - ie via instore promotion at Starbucks stores - and he's right to - personally I think it's a genius partnership.
Commenting on using the Starbucks stores as a promotional platform for music, Concord president Glen Barros told reporters yesterday: "This is a pretty powerful new platform, when you can reach 44 million customers per week through Starbucks stores".
McCartney says he will maintain a relationship with his existing label, EMI's Parlophone, in relation to his classical work - another album of which is reportedly in the pipeline.