Coolfer noticed something about the top selling albums at Amazon.com the other day. Many titles have a relation to the big or small screeen. Looks like older music buyers tend to attain familiarity with music through television and movies. Here are the titles from a recent Amazon.com top 25 that have a connection to television or the big screen.

1. Brokeback Mountain: Soundtrack
3. Il Divo: Ancora. The band is signed to Simon Cowell's Syco, and it appeared on "Oprah" before the release of its self-titled debut last year. TV appearancs, not radio, has been the instrument for its success.
6. Johnny Cash: At Folsom Prison. Johnny Cash titles are enjoying a good run because of the movie I Walk The Line.
8. Walk the Line: Soundtrack
11. Memoirs of a Geisha: Soundtrack
14. Kelly Clarkson: Breakaway. Made famous by the television show "American Idol"
16. Carry Underwood: Some Hearts. Another "American Idol" connection
17. Johnny Cash: The Essential Johnny Cash. The movie connection.
18. Celtic Women: Celtic Women. The group's popularity comes in a big part from exposure at PBS.
20. Michael Buble: It's Time (Reprise) PBS has showed his "Caught In The Act."
23. Wicked: Broadway Cast Recording (Decca) Since this is a Broadway musical and not a movie it almost doesn't belong on the list. Since people watch it while seated I'll include it.
24. Jamie Foxx: Unpredicable. He's been on both the big screen and the small screen.

When Starbucks got into music retail a big reason was because its older customers don't always have good resources to discover new music (something about jobs, families, busy lives, etc). This list doesn't confirm that people will buy whatever you put in front of them, but it does show that some older consumers become familiar with new music through other forms of entertainment -- television and radio. The huge audiences for these mediums obviously have an impact that more fragmented print and Internet sources radio can't match.