Starbucks's Second Wave

I saw this album on sale at Starbucks yesterday and damn if I wasn't tempted to buy it. At the end of the day, the inherent ickiness of buying an album at Starbucks wasn't even the tipping point -- I just haven't bought a physical CD in years and it seems too late in history to start doing it again. In particular, buying a physical compilation CD just doesn't really make sense -- I have a lot of these songs already and could assemble the playlist easily enough by just buying a few additional tracks.

Ackerman, lost in his archives, remarked that "the Germans must have a word for the heartbreak you experience when you see that some of your favorite music is on sale at Starbucks."

Comments

Starbucksleid? Sehnsucht nach des Vorstarbuckszustand?

Posted by David | July 5, 2008 1:22 PM

Presumably the first wave must have been the 1960s British invasion because - other than the Ramones, Tom Tom Club and half the Pretenders - these are all British bands.

Control, the Joy Division biopic just out on DVD, is worth watching.

Posted by ndm | July 5, 2008 1:26 PM

"the Germans must have a word for the heartbreak you experience when you see that some of your favorite music is on sale at Starbucks."

Arguably, this is an example of scheissenbedauern, the disappointment one feels when something (in this case, Starbucks' choice in music) is not a shitty as one would have hoped.

Posted by cminus | July 5, 2008 1:29 PM

Yeah, and how are the Ramones and the Smiths in the same "wave"? They came along about a decade apart from each other (same goes for Roxy Music, though I'm just guessing the track is from Avalon rather than For Your Pleasure).

Posted by kth | July 5, 2008 1:30 PM

Starbucksmuckeherzensleiden

Posted by Buckeye Hamburger | July 5, 2008 1:30 PM

I don't have anything particularly intelligent to add, so I'll just say: new wave is pretty fucking awesome.

Posted by Freddie | July 5, 2008 1:38 PM

Ackerman, lost in his archives, remarked that "the Germans must have a word for the heartbreak you experience when you see that some of your favorite music is on sale at Starbucks."

And who knew that those hairdressers from the Vidal Sassoon commercials play guitar in '80s New Wave bands? That's scheissenbedauern x 2!!

Posted by Swan | July 5, 2008 1:40 PM

Y'know, I just haven't called a ni**er a..what's the term? "African-American" in years and, well, "it seems too late in history to start doing it again." Gotta keep convenience as my uppermost priority.

I'm not sure what's more annoying here--Spencer's college-freshman attitude that good music is somehow demeaned by being sold at Starbucks, or Matt's breezy advocacy of copyright infringement (complete with torrent link). Will the album become hipper if you download it illegally?

Posted by James Gary | July 5, 2008 1:42 PM

Really, the Germans are probably part of the Starbucks army, aren't they?? Everything that becomes corny in America only becomes corny in Europe about 25 years later, unless you're in Germany, in which case you may as well make it 50 years.

Posted by Swan | July 5, 2008 1:44 PM

German dudes will probably be coming over here and trying to by American chicks Starbucks in 2058, long after the entire nation has gone organic vegan, and offering a lady anything stronger than a glass or raw, organic snodgrass juice is lame to the point of being verboten (forbidden).

Posted by Swan | July 5, 2008 1:49 PM

I think it is called Second Wave because it is a sequel. I've seen a similar one before.

And yeah those are good bands... but they're also bands that put out really good ALBUMS. Compilations are neat if you want singles from groups that pretty much focused on singles. But this really is pointless. I don't even think Starbucks expects to sell many. It's just part of the brand.

Posted by jack | July 5, 2008 2:04 PM

the heartbreak you experience when you see that some of your favorite music is on sale at Starbucks

There's worse to come. In a few years you'll hear some of the same tunes reworked as supermarket muzak. Then you KNOW you're old.

Posted by jimBOB | July 5, 2008 2:25 PM

Yeah, it's a pretty vanilla "new wave white people like" comp. When Starbucks Third Wave comes out with songs from Throbbing Gristle, Nurse With Wound, and Happy Flowers, a significant cultural shift will have occurred.

Posted by thefunx | July 5, 2008 2:29 PM

From the CD:

7. Hand in Glove - The Smiths

Brilliant, one of the great debut singles ever by one of the greatest bands ever. "The sun shines out of our behinds" indeed.

8. Never Stop (discotheque) - Echo & The Bunnymen

It's about Thatcher but the first verse certainly fits the Bush Crime Syndicate too:

Good god he said
Is that the only thing you care about
Splittin' up the money and share it out
The cake's being eaten straight through the mouth
Poison, poised to come back in season
All the one's who lack reason

Posted by Henry Holland | July 5, 2008 2:31 PM

I don't feel too bad about this compilation being sold at Starbucks, though I was worried for a moment as I looked down the list of Starbucks-approved bands. While this sort of stuff comes up on my pandora stations quite a bit, it's the kind of stuff I generally try to keep in check and I end up "thumbs downing" a lot of it.

Posted by vg | July 5, 2008 3:16 PM

Having sat in my share of Starbuckses I feel the need to point out that I've heard some scary good 80's new wave/ alternative mixes there over the last few years. Like people who really get it put those things together.

No, they aren't obscure bands & songs, but they're good ones.

Most everything else they play varies from ignorable to grating, of course.

Posted by brandon | July 5, 2008 3:20 PM

Smugprickdeflatenzing

Posted by James | July 5, 2008 3:28 PM

thefunx, you do realize that haughtily dismissing a list of bands as vanilla/mainstream and touting your own knowledge by name checking more obscure ones is the ultimate form of "stuff white people like" status jockeying, right? Were you being ironic in doing so, or are you just a douchebag?

Posted by Hank Scorpio | July 5, 2008 3:49 PM

In NYC, they've made damn well sure to put a Starbucks on every formerly punk rock street, right adjacent to the formerly most punk rock corner, within 10 years ago. It's as if they did it to upset the NYC subculture and make people feel like The Man is going to destroy them.

Hopefully some of these are some of the locations that have proved unprofitable + are closing down (I haven't been up that way in a while, and don't know how many are still there). But knowing how Manhattan is nowadays, probably this isn't the case. Anywhere they made an intelligent decision to pick out a location for a Starbucks, it's probably good to go until gas costs $10 a gallon.

Posted by Swan | July 5, 2008 3:57 PM

Herzbrechen wegen dem Starbucksvertriebskanal seems good, though it's not one word and doesn't feature umlauts. David's suggestion is also very good, "longing for the pre-Starbucks state" indeed.

Anyway, for things getting corny later, head to Brandenburg. It's where Bismarck said he wanted to be if the world ended, because it took everything an extra 20 years to happen there.

Posted by Doug | July 5, 2008 3:59 PM

8. Never Stop (discotheque) - Echo & The Bunnymen

If you think you like E.A.T.B., do yourself a favor and pickup their box set "Crystal Days". It has all of their great stuff, extended versions of a lot of the Ocean Rain material (one of my three favorite albums of all time), and a great fourth disk that has a bunch of live stuff. Included on the fourth disc are a bunch of covers that they played live. The did a tour through Scandinavia where they served as their own opening act, starting with a set of covers (It's All Over Now, Baby Blue, Run Run Run, Friction...) before performing their regular set.

Their recent stuff is good too, with Flowers probably being their best since reforming. Mac just doesn't have that great howl anymore, though. To many cigarettes. Awesome live band, though.

And for some reason, Hand in Glove has always been among my least favorite Smiths songs.

Posted by Seitz | July 5, 2008 3:59 PM

They probably just closed down 600 Starbucks locations around the country because otherwise they couldn't start the next big propaganda effort (asking Starbucks to put a location right mext to every public defender's office in the country) in the name of national security.

Posted by Swan | July 5, 2008 4:01 PM

eventually you get old enough not to get worked up one way or the other as to whether your "cool" factor has been lessened if you like a band on a starbucks compilation and you come to realize that tempus fugit, tastes change, and even (watch me play the white guy status game now) "no new york" (of which i am one of the very few people to own a copy) becomes popular on catwalks....

Posted by howard | July 5, 2008 4:18 PM

I suppose buying a CD probably doesn't make sense if you listen to all your music on an mp3 player, but it can save a lot of time vs burning tracks onto CDs. I'm holding off on an mp3 player until I buy a new car with a stereo having an auxiliary-in port.

http://lowtechtimes.com/2008/01/08/the-unnecessary-ipod-or-why-i-do-not-own-an-ipod/

Posted by S.P. Gass | July 5, 2008 4:20 PM

"Ackerman, lost in his archives, remarked that "the Germans must have a word for the heartbreak you experience when you see that some of your favorite music is on sale at Starbucks.""

Are you actually trying to promote the liberal = elitist meme? Sorry your ability to feel superior to the masses has been slightly diminished.

Posted by Elliot Reed | July 5, 2008 4:54 PM

SP Gass, you do know that you can buy car stereos without a new car? I put an mp3-cd-playin' aux-in-totin' player in my car years ago already. Definitely cheaper than a new car too.

Posted by kvenlander | July 5, 2008 5:04 PM

This makes me sad.

Posted by Jake | July 5, 2008 5:44 PM

Fine if you don't want to buy CDs. For me, I don't want my music on my computer given how I don't like to constantly worry about losing my music if the drive crashes or whatever. I like to physically have my music when I buy it. And some of my favorite tracks have been tracks I never heard of (nor cared for) when I first bought the album. Heck, I still play my vinyl now and then so what do I know?

Posted by Pan | July 5, 2008 5:52 PM

>> There's worse to come. In a few years
>> you'll hear some of the same tunes
>> reworked as supermarket muzak.
>> Then you KNOW you're old.

wait until the controversial destruction of society type songs get turned into commercials ... i still shake my head every time a Who song is used as a commercial....

Posted by 2liberal | July 5, 2008 6:01 PM

I laugh everytime I see my 9 year old playing the DK's "Holiday in Cambodia" on his Guitar Hero.

Posted by Pan | July 5, 2008 6:06 PM

Forget Starbucks. How about the heartbreak when you hear some of your favorite music played in the bank? Couple weeks back, as I stood in line at the local branch I was treated to the sounds of Elvis Costello's "Pump It Up." It was very disconcerting. "Alison" I could understand. But "Pump It Up?" In a bank???

The mind reels...

Posted by Roddy McCorley | July 5, 2008 6:30 PM

There should also be a word in German meaning "that it is strange for you to think that it would be odd for your favorite music to be on a Starbucks compilation when the original target audience for the music is 45 to 55 years old and you probably weren't alive when half of the music on the album was originally released anyway, and I mean seriously, you're just a couple months older than MTV, right?"

Posted by Fin Fang Foom | July 5, 2008 7:11 PM

I can't believe you're linking to Demonoid you fucking complete criminal. Which reminds me my ratio is low this week.

Posted by burning flock | July 5, 2008 8:13 PM

just in case this catches on: scheissenbedauern is not actually a German word and I'm afraid neither is Herzbrechen

Posted by novakant | July 5, 2008 8:58 PM

just in case this catches on: scheissenbedauern is not actually a German word and I'm afraid neither is Herzbrechen

Posted by novakant | July 5, 2008 8:58 PM

"the Germans must have a word for the heartbreak you experience when you see that some of your favorite music is on sale at Starbucks."

Yeah, cuz cool hipster kats like us can't bear to be known to listen to some of the same stuff that the hoi polloi might also listen to.

Posted by Maynard G. Krebs | July 5, 2008 9:21 PM

"In a few years you'll hear some of the same tunes reworked as supermarket muzak. Then you KNOW you're old."

Well, I knew I was old anyway, but I hear the Corrs music at Cala Foods supermarket fairly frequently - mostly stuff they put out only four years ago.

So it's time for an obligatory Corrs post!

Sharon and Caroline Corr - No Frontiers - MTV Unplugged
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAPZ7oSOn7s

The Corrs - Lunasa + Joy Of Life - Live Montreux Jazz Festival 2004
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Llv_0qooMYI

The Corrs - So Young - before 50,000 people at France's Solidays Festival 1999
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAFDVSxerjA

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | July 5, 2008 10:31 PM

Maynard G. Krebs wrote:

Yeah, cuz cool hipster kats like us can't bear to be known to listen to some of the same stuff that the hoi polloi might also listen to.

Ah, he was just talking about how Starbucks sucks. Starbucks isn't the hoi polloi, it's fucking corny crap (and I'm not talking about every person who has walked into a Starbucks, of course-- I mean the tastes it appeals to and the type Starbucks was created by or at least originally marketed for).

If Matt was looking down on the common man, he could have said something about the CD appearing in a chain supermarket or chain record store. Give him the benefit of the doubt.

Posted by Swan | July 5, 2008 11:20 PM

Anyway, even if we agree or decide that Starbucks isn't strictly corny crap (that is has some socially beneficial role to play, like a place for oldsters to take a break) it still is pretty decidedly mainstream, so Matt could just be having the natural, common experience of being weirded out by seeing once "cool," counter-culture / underground music he likes showing up in a mainstream setting. In other words, he doesn't even have to be dissing on Starbucks to have written this post.

Posted by Swan | July 5, 2008 11:24 PM

kvenlander, thanks, I do know that a car stereo can be replaced without buying a new car... but the cost/trouble just doesn't seem worth it to me now so long as I can just take my favorite CDs with me on long trips.

Posted by S.P. Gass | July 6, 2008 2:47 AM

Let's not be even a little suprised that corporate america is fluent in avant-garde or edgy music etc.

http://www.amazon.com/Commodify-Your-Dissent-Salvos-Baffler/dp/0393316734/ref=pd_bbs_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1215342584&sr=8-5

Posted by David | July 6, 2008 7:12 AM

Oh Christ, people. Is everyone commenting here the exact same age (or had the older sister/brother/cousin thing)? Cripes. I wouldn't want to hear any of that music now, except the Smiths maybe, and a couple of others if I was feeling ironic. Or in a Starbucks I suppose.
Anyway, where's Gary Numan, or Soft Cell? Or whoever else decent I can't think of at the moment.
I'm not sure what the music I was listening to in that age of aesthetic blight was called, though apparently some people are calling it (I suppose they're officially in charge of making shit like this up) 'dark wave' and 'no wave'. Or the even more useless 'avante-garde'. Feh.
And bah humbug! You kids and your New Wave music.

Posted by merexious johnson | July 6, 2008 8:06 AM

Oh Christ, people. Is everyone commenting here the exact same age (or had the older sister/brother/cousin thing)? Cripes. I wouldn't want to hear any of that music now, except the Smiths maybe, and a couple of others if I was feeling ironic. Or in a Starbucks I suppose.
Anyway, where's Gary Numan, or Soft Cell? Or whoever else decent I can't think of at the moment.
I'm not sure what the music I was listening to in that age of aesthetic blight was called, though apparently some people are calling it (I suppose they're officially in charge of making shit like this up) 'dark wave' and 'no wave'. Or the even more useless 'avante-garde'. Feh.
And bah humbug! You kids and your New Wave music.

Posted by merexious johnson | July 6, 2008 8:07 AM

Of course, stuff like Echo and the Bunnymen, the Smiths, the Cure, Squeeze, and XTC (among others) were only "counter-cultural" or "edgy" over here in the United States (where they were competing with the cornfed likes of Loverboy, Journey, and Bruce Springsteen). Over in the UK and in much of Europe, they were MAINSTREAM and Top 10.

Actually, now that I think about it pointing that out makes me sound "elitist" or some such folderol. Never mind.

Posted by Eisbaer | July 6, 2008 8:56 PM

Matt, I sure hope you read these late postings....

About this phenomenon: Get used to it, as some of your posters suggest. I heard Elvis Costello's "Veronica" in a wildly anomic Citibank ATM place at the George Washington Bridge Terminal last month; and last fall, in Newark airport, preparing to go through security (3-1-1!!! Has that band capitalized on that at all?), I heard The Clash's "London Calling" and then, as a smile turned to laughter, "I Fought the Law."

Forget about that anxiety of authenticy: It died--I hesitate to say deservedly--with Kurt Cobain's big toe on the trigger. Pointlessness "to the mags" as my daughter says....

Posted by elle loco | July 7, 2008 10:42 PM