There are some joys to be had from the credit crunch/recession/slump/whatever after all. The Indy carries news that the original Muzak company is filing for bankruptcy protection. Does that mean we can have some peace and quiet again? I suspect not, of course, but we can dream.
I've lost count of the number of musicians who tell me in interviews that piped music in lifts, lobbies and everywhere else they go is the bane of their lives. And I've always thought it's a form of universally administered anaesthetic: something to deaden our senses just enough to stop us getting too clever, noticing and potentially rebellious.
I disagree profoundly with the Indy's leading article, though, which suggests that Muzak was the food of shopping and that music could now encourage us back to the shops. I promise you that there is nothing, but *nothing*, that will drive me out of a shop as fast as music I don't like.
There aren't many shops that play music I do like, of course. Jigsaw seems to have a propensity for the ugliest kind of pop, which is just as well: I adore their clothes, so the noise saves me a fortune! The one piped music experience I remember with affection was one day in Monsoon when they played Abba and all the customers were singing along with 'Dancing Queen'. Most cheering. But I still didn't buy anything.
Interesting to note, though, that genuine full-blown classical music pumped through underground, railway and bus stations clears away the yobs and hoodies like there's no tomorrow and makes the rest of us feel better about life.
3 comments:
How I agree that "background" music (often so loud that it become "foreground") is a bane of modern life, particularly in restaurants, pubs and shops. Now that the struggle to stop people smoking indoors has been won, perhaps we should start an anti-muzak campaign.
In music stores now assistants just put on stuff for their own enjoyment - not that it matters since they don't stock much classical any more.I don't even want to hear music I do like: some years ago "Rite of Spring" was blasting away in the Bond Street EMI store so that I filed past the LPs, all desire to buy destroyed. Suddenly it stopped and I bought a disc of Xennakis (hilarious flatulent sounds).
The speakers at the notorious Port Authority Bus Terminal, in Manhattan just west of Times Square, have been piping out Baroque music for well over a decade, and apparently is has helped to improve the "quality of life" within the terminal.
Here is a quote from the author of an article in a 2003 issue of The New York Times: "[The Port Authority's] best ploy, also used at other public spaces around the nation, for keeping out loiterers is the classical music it plays 24 hours a day. Just as barbed wire keeps convicts inside prisons, the constant sounds of Bartok and colleagues keep the panhandlers, the drug dealers and the sleepers outside the bus terminal."
But using concert music as a weapon isn't the whole story. Here is a link to a short interview with a person involved in the decision to play classical Muzak in the bus terminal:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9904E7DD153FF935A35753C1A960958260&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/Subjects/M/Music&scp=8&sq=%22classical%20music%22%20+%22Port%20Authority%20Bus%20Terminal%22&st=cse
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