BACKGROUND NOISE

Ever wondered where all that Muzak comes from? The New Yorker reveals all:

The syrupy orchestral "elevator music" that most people associate with the company scarcely exists anymore. Muzak sells about a hundred prepackaged programs and several hundred customized ones, and only one—"Environmental"—truly fits the stereotype. It consists of "contemporary instrumental versions of popular songs," and it is no longer terribly popular anywhere, except in Japan. ("The Japanese think they love it, but they actually don’t," a former Muzak executive told me. "They’ll get over it soon.")

The rest of the stuff is drawn from an enormous inventory called The Well, which ranges from shag to contemporary Italian. I don't have any problems believing that "neo-soul" is there too (I hate the stuff) but can there really be 83 Miles Davis tracks too?

A business’s background music is like an aural pheromone. It attracts some customers and repels others, and it gives pedestrians walking past the front door an immediate clue about whether they belong inside... Audio architects have to keep all this in mind as they build their programs. They also have to be aware of certain broad truths about background music: bass solos are difficult to hear, extended electric-guitar solos annoy male sports-bar customers, drum solos annoy almost everyone, and Bob Dylan’s harmonica can make it hard for office workers to concentrate.

[Via Arts & Letters Daily]

UPDATE: Of course, there are times when your taste in music can get you into serious trouble:

An Asian salesman was hauled off a plane as a suspected terrorist because he was listening to The Clash song "London Calling". Harraj Mann, 24, was quizzed for three hours by Special Branch after his taxi driver overheard the lyrics, which include the lines "war is declared and battle come down".

Comments

[RWB]

"... and Bob Dylan's harmonica can make it hard for office workers to concentrate."

I suspect they mean his harmonica playing. One of Dylan's actual harmonicas, in, say, Stevie Wonder's hands, would probably not bother anyone too much.

It's interesting why some music is good as background and some is not. Is really great, affecting music bad as background, because it, well, affects people? I guess it's more complicated than that.

To the extent I can write well at all, I find that I can't write very well with music playing. I can doodle along, but as soon as I'm hitting on anything worthwhile the music has to go off. It makes my spine itchy, somehow.

Take this all for what it's worth.