First McCartney, Now New Artists: Starbucks Expands Its Music-Biz Reach

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Just over a month after its record label's first-ever release, Starbucks has announced a partnership with iTunes and NBC Universal that will expand the coffee giant's attempts to entertain us with more than just pricey lattes. Starting today, the Seattle company will be selling digital EPs from emerging artists via the Starbucks Entertainment section of the Apple music store. The first three acts to get the 'Bucks treatment are country act Rissi Palmer, U.K. soul singer Alice Russell and U.K. pop band the WinterKids. Actual CDs will reportedly be available in Starbucks stores, which will also be carrying Saturday Night Live: The Best of '06/'07 starting August 28, a DVD featuring show highlights, dress-rehearsal footage, commentary by the cast and bonus outtakes from an arguably funnier show, 30 Rock.

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Song Stories

“V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F.”

Fishbone | 1985

Quite a few musicians have utilized initials for song titles -- Michael Jackson's "P.Y.T.," Abba's "S.O.S.," Donald Fagen's "I.G.Y.," etc. But the more curiously initialed tune has to be "V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F.," short for "Voyage to the Land of the Freeze-Dried Godzilla Farts." Fishbone's original guitarist, Kendall Jones, explained to Rolling Stone, "When Norwood [Fisher] wrote it, he introduced it to the band saying, 'Man, I've been hearing about all these Nazi right-wing groups on the news saying the Holocaust was staged. So what if America said it never dropped two atom bombs on Japan, that it was actually Godzilla popping a couple off?' Only Norwood would come up with something that out." The same year "V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F." was released, the film Godzilla 1985 appeared in North America.

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