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10/16/2009 3:34 AM

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It's a strange promotion strategy. Carly Simon apparently wants us to buy her new album out of pity.

Earlier this week, it was reported that the 64-year-old creator of "You're So Vain," "You Belong to Me" and a handful of other hits is suing Starbucks Corp., contending that the company's label, Hear Music, didn't adequately promote her last album, 2008's "This Kind of Love," and it's prevented her from retiring.

As a result, poor, sad, put-upon Carly has had to record another album, "Never Been Gone," which will be in stores Oct. 27.

In a litany of woe printed in The New York Times Monday, Simon said she is having money problems thanks to stock investments that have tanked and other misbegotten ventures, is still making payments on her home in uber-upscale Martha's Vineyard and, sigh, was unsuccessful in selling her Greenwich Village pad in the depressed real estate market.

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She had apparently hoped that "This Kind of Love" would be her swan song and deliver a big payday, but, alas, Simon has had to keep plugging away, like a workaday stiff whose 401(k) has been drained like a leaky swimming pool. She's asking for somewhere between $5 million and $10 million from Starbucks, claiming they engaged in "unlawful, unfair and fraudulent business practices," among other allegations.

Simon says Starbucks didn't fork up the full advance payment she was initially promised and that the album essentially fell through the cracks because the coffee-store chain pulled back its involvement in the music business on the eve of the album's release and left it to its partner, Concord Music Group, to handle its promotion.

Starbucks countered that the disc received "a tepid response" from the public, and "other retailers faced the same fate with this CD."

Though Simon might have some room to complain about some aspects of the way the Starbucks deal turned out, when all is said and done, I don't think she has much of a case.

"This Kind of Love" peaked at No. 15 on the Billboard album chart, and while that's not stellar, it's far from terrible. Other veteran artists have pushed albums into the same region in recent years, and it's about where Simon's other recent discs have ended up. Considering how little radio airplay any of the graybeards get for their new efforts, that should probably be expected.

Besides, CD sales are down across the board, and Simon was never an artist with the stature of a Bob Dylan or a Paul McCartney, who have diehard fans who are ready to buy whatever new product they release. Whether a more stable corporate environment or more concentrated promotion on Starbucks' part would have helped Simon is an intangible that's tough to measure.

Frankly, it's hard to work up a whole lot of sorrow for Simon. Having to keep plugging away on the concert stage and recording studio isn't quite the same as, say, having to stay on the assembly line into your 70s. And owing money on your manse in Martha's Vineyard? Wow, I'm sure people facing foreclosure will reach for the tissue at the thought.

"I want to be somebody who faces things and who doesn't get stepped on," Simon told The Times. "Because I've been stepped on too much in my life and I don't want my self-esteem to suffer. I feel that I've just about had enough."

Let's face it, Carly Simon - you're so vain.

Brad Hundt can be reached at bhundt @observer-reporter.com.

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