Goodbye megabucks, hello Starbucks, says McCartney

STARBUCKS sells coffee in three sizes: small, medium and large. For some ridiculous corporate reason, the Starbucks suits long ago banned the use of the word "small" - it was not a retail word they wanted to be associated with. It had negative connotations.

It's the same with "medium". Starbucks people don't like anything they do or produce being described as "medium". It reeks of ordinariness and mediocrity. "Medium" had to go.

And you can't use the word "large" any more. There are implications here of "too much" or "unnecessary excess".

Instead for small, we have "Tall" - which is genius. Despite the fact that it patently is the smallest size on offer, it's called "tall" because it makes you feel you're getting more than you bargained for.

Medium is "Grande" (which they never pronounce properly). In the real world, grande is the Italian for "big/large". Why an Italian term for an American coffee company? Because it sounds sort of exotic and pretentious.

Large is "Venti", which again is an Italian word. Nobody in Italy has ever used the word venti in relation to coffee sizes but that doesn't matter. It sounds better than the word it replaces. It actually refers to the 20 fluid ounces you get in the large size.

God knows what Starbucks will start calling singles, albums and downloads now that it has launched its own record label.

The company is very keen on creating an "experience" and has even talked about its branches as a "third place". Managers are probably blue-skying themselves to death to come up with different terms for their new musical products.

If, as predicted, the Starbucks label becomes a huge success, it could - at a stretch - be credited to Heather Mills.

Paul McCartney has been with EMI for 43 years but has an issue with the label over what he sees as its lacklustre promotional work on his last album, Chaos and Creation in the Backyard. In a bid to keep one of its biggest earners sweet, EMI offered McCartney a £25 million advance for his next four albums on the label.

The problem here is that if McCartney had accepted the very generous advance (which would have been payable immediately), there is a very real possibility that his estranged wife, the lovely Heather, would have been able to get her hands on a percentage of the figure - depending how the divorce settlement falls later this year.

Due to the current not-so-great state of the relationship between McCartney and Mills, it is believed that McCartney has decided to walk away from his label of 43 years, thereby - intentionally or not - preventing Mills from getting a penny out of any advance he may have received.

The Starbucks record label, Hear Music, has unveiled McCartney as its first signing. There won't be a huge advance, just an inflated royalty rate on predicted future sales.

Starbucks does have a bit of form in the music world. The chain has had several exclusive-to-Starbucks albums in the past: an acoustic version of Alanis Morissette's wojus Jagged Little Pill and Bob Dylan's Live at the Gaslight 1962. Approximately one third of the three-million-selling Ray Charles duets album, Genius Loves Company, were through Starbucks branches.

With the new label, however, it doesn't mean that all Hear Music albums will be available in Starbucks only - they will also be stocked (a few weeks later) in traditional music outlets.

McCartney is a pretty impressive trophy signing for the company, and he is indicative of the type of act that Starbucks/Hear Music will be concentrating on.

One can only hope they don't start saying "would you like an album with that ... "