I Own That CD! - Mile Marker 383

Remember back in the day when stores/brands would put together compilation CDs? Banana Republic, Gap and Pottery Barn all dipped their toes in the music market. However, it was Starbucks that made the big push back in the late 90s.

In 1999, the chain purchased the music-curation startup Hear Music, and in the ensuing years established a record label with big aspirations. “We believe strongly that we can transform the retail record industry,” Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz said in 2004, and evidently others agreed. Paul McCartney ditched EMI to become Starbucks's first signee, saying that the coffee giant seemed more excited about the musical innovation than his record company did.

Other mainstream legends like Ray Charles and Joni Mitchell would soon come aboard, but so would younger, avant garde acts. “Starbucks is the new record store, right?” Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore told a somewhat-horrified Pitchfork in 2007, and his colleague and then-wife Kim Gordon later said the band worked with the chain because it was “less evil” than their record-company parent Universal. I bought into it - as did millions of others - and bought up a bunch of their compilation CDs.

Today’s featured CD is from their collection - Mile Marker 383: Starbucks Songs From the Open Road. The CD is a collection of some of the best of alt-country. From Lucinda Williams to Old 97’s and Robert Earl Keen. It was so well put together including the information inside the CD cover. There were informative blurbs about each artist - opening up a whole new world of music and talent to those grabbing a latte. And the synopsis written about the style of music came straight from Peter Blackstock the co-editor of No Depression (the alternative country bimonthly publication). It added a bit of street cred to the compilation.

The CD introduced me to artists I had never heard of before, despite having worked as a DJ in college and with a great radio station in the area (WHFS). I had never heard a Josh Rouse song or Kelly Willis (a local favorite - hailing from Annandale, Virginia). It did spend lots of time in my car and I followed the copy from inside the case:

“Windows down, music up. And as you pass another mile marker you feel it. Absolute freedom. That’s when you start to sing.”

So if you can find it, buy it, listen to it and if you want to borrow my CD, let me know.