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If Starbucks is getting out, why does Whole Foods think it’s the ripe time to get in?

From AdAge via idolator.com:

Whole Foods Moves Into Void Left By Starbucks
Posted by Charlie Moran on 05.02.08 @ 05:00 PM

The only music I’ve ever seen at a grocery store has been in those New Age CD displays, where you can push a picture of a waterfall and hear the sounds of rushing water or a photo of Machu Pichu and you hear Andean flute music. If you’re crazy enough to like this sort of thing, you can pick up the CD and fill your home with mood music like a Glade plug-in. But besides that, who’s shopping for music when they’re busy squeezing tomatoes or ordering sliced deli meats?

Whole Foods thinks it knows the answer. Yesterday the grocery chain announced a new initiative with Inspire Entertainment to bring the first of what it hopes will be many hand-picked CDs to its stores. Apparently, there are already 130 stand-alone displays for music in the company’s stores, and Whole Foods has been selling a small selection of discs at the check-out for some time now — although SFS has never noticed them before. Inspire claims the displays have tripled music sales, although who knows the kind of scale that’s on.

The first artist in the Whole Foods Artist Discovery Series will be Greg Laswell, currently signed to Vanguard Records, a historic indie label that was once the home to the Weavers and Paul Robeson. Laswell’s second LP is due from Vanguard this July, but before then he’ll drop the EP “How The Day Sounds,” which will be sold in Whole Foods locations this month.

This news arrived within a week of Starbucks’ announcement that it would be scaling back its Hear Music Label by handing off “day-to-day operations” to Concord Music Group, the indie label it’s been working with. But, as opposed to Starbucks, Whole Foods doesn’t appear to be entering the record business with its own label, and it’s not clear if Laswell’s new EP will be an exclusive in retail locations.

Man o man… here’s my take away, my favourite quote: “If you’re crazy enough to like this sort of thing, you can pick up the CD and fill your home with mood music like a Glade plug-in.”

@ Whole Foods: I look to you to be experts on organic, fair-trade, ethical and healthy food choices. Why are you wasting resources to enter this space? How is it a value-add to anyone? No one goes to the grocery store to buy music and I doubt they ever will. If anything, this program devalues your position as an expert on food and it devalues the musician. It devalues music.

@ Musicians: do what you do best - make music! If you’re good, your cream will rise to the top. It will. Stop looking for the easy way to fame - it doesn’t exist, it’s gone. Get it through your head. If you love what you do, make it sustainable. Make music, utilise the web, play live shows - you *can* make a living playing music if you’re committed to music and not attached by the ego to a desire for fame. Only you can avoid becoming a Glade plug-in.

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