The Hear Music brand had four components: the music that each location played; in-store CD sales, including Starbucks exclusives; branded retail stores, which opened shortly after the catalog was formed, and a label which distributed their recordings. As of December 2006, there were four
Starbucks Hear Music Coffeehouses: Santa Monica, California, on the
Third Street Promenade; San Antonio, Texas, on the
River Walk; Miami, Florida, on the
Lincoln Road shopping promenade; and Bellevue, Washington, in
Bellevue Square. The original, now-defunct Hear Music Store was located in at 1809 Fourth St in
Berkeley, California. Ten Starbucks locations also had Hear Music "media bars," a service which uses tablet PCs to allow customers to create their own mix CDs. The media bars were located in Seattle and in Austin, Texas. The music section in Canadian bookstore chain
Chapters was at one time a licensed version of the Hear Music concept; however, the company no longer uses the brand name. Their biggest seller was
Ray Charles' Grammy-winning
Genius Loves Company, with sales of 2.86 million records; 25% of those were sold at Starbucks locations. In 2005, Starbucks announced a partnership with singer/songwriter
Alanis Morissette. In a six-week deal, Morissette sold an acoustic version of
Jagged Little Pill in Starbucks stores only. The acoustic version was released on June 13, 2005, to mark the album's tenth anniversary. This limited availability led to a dispute between
Maverick Records and
HMV Canada, who retaliated by removing Morissette's other albums from store shelves for the duration of Starbucks' exclusive sale. In April 2008, Starbucks announced that it was refining its entertainment strategy and turning over the day-to-day management of Hear Music to
Concord. At the same time that Starbucks closed 600 coffeehouses in July 2008, it was announced that the Hear Music label would be shutting down. One of the four Hear Music stores, in Santa Monica, California, indicated that its music operation would be permanently closed approximately September 20, 2008. Another Hear Music store in Bellevue, Washington was converted to a regular Starbucks. The Lincoln Road Miami Beach location was downgraded as well, since November 2008. ==Creation as a record label==