Hear Music is the brand name of Starbucks' retail music concept and record label. Hear Music began as a catalog company in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1990 before being purchased by Starbucks in 1999.

The Hear Music brand currently has four components: the music that each location plays and accompanying XM radio channel (XM 45 Starbucks XM Cafe); in-store CD sales, including Starbucks exclusives; specially-branded retail stores (which opened shortly after the catalog was formed) and a label distributing their own recordings.

As of December 2006, there are 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 Hear Music Store was located in Berkeley, California, it is now closed. Ten Starbucks locations also have Hear Music "media bars," a service which uses tablet-based PCs to allow customers to create their own mix CDs. The media bars are currently located in Seattle and in Austin, Texas.

Currently, Starbucks is one of the top 40 music-oriented retailers and has flourished selling music. Its biggest success was Ray Charles' Grammy-winning Genius Loves Company, with total 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 an exclusive six-week deal, Morissette announced that she would retail an acoustic version of Jagged Little Pill in Starbucks stores only. The acoustic version was released on June 13, 2005 in order to celebrate the album's tenth anniversary.

On 2007-07-31, The Hear Music XM channel was discontinued, and Starbucks brand was added to channel 45 to become Starbucks XM Café.