The point of Starbuck's is to pretend you are comfortable, that you are smart enough, and you are pretty enough, and gosh darn it, people like you. You don't want to be so smart you don't like Beck, or too pretty to like Joni Mitchell, or too likeable to like Alanis, however. But what you can buy on a cd isn't the same as you will be listening to in the genetically engineered edginess of the store itself...so expect five Maroon 5 tunes for every Beastie Boys, if any.

I don't mind. I bought a Ray Charles cd at Starbucks. It has been on the front seat of my Saturn Ion for over a year. Oh yeah, Saturn Ion, Starbucks, the whole bag of chips.

I would like to hear Einstürzende Neubauten at least once a week however Or even some Merzbow Just to take my mood out for a walk every now and then

Not incidentally, in the Hall of Reflexive Infinite Regress Media sweepstakes, a podcast about starbucks cds on Slate gets four of five stars. Now, if you could compress the podcast to a ringtone for downloading, you would take the gold.

Well, I did listen to it.