I did take earplugs to concerts a couple of times.
I walked out of a supermarket once because they were playing Christmas carols in the middle of November. I just couldn’t take it.
I was once at a Barnes & Noble and had to go outside because they were playing Celine Dion’s greatest hits on their music system.
I honestly can’t think of a time music has driven me out of a business. I like background music at places. I don’t mind loud music. I’ve never been anywhere, that I could think of, where the music was so lout that I couldn’t talk to the person next to me outside of a concert.
That said, when our cafe closed in college, we had a tape that we used as “chase music” to get the customers to leave. It was this rather manic Les Paul album that had such a nervous energy about it, people would just clear out. I thought it kind of nice, in a circus-like way.
Many thrift stores are affiliated with churches or charities, but I’d never encountered that level of aural harassment. It was damn risky of them to sell knives with that music blaring.
I think the place was called Red Racks; the building has since reopened under another name.
I avoid all retail establishments as much as possible from November to January, because they all play Christmas music, all of which I hate. I like browsing in person and want to support brick and mortar stores, but even before the pandemic I was doing my Christmas shopping online to avoid hearing one more horrific re-interpretation of “Santa Baby.”
There’s a mom and pop Chinese restaurant I never go to despite the fact I always want to go because they have a giant speaker right in front of their restaurant and blare radio Top 40 music from it at such a loud volume during all operating hours and you can hear it clear across the Wal-Mart parking lot it occupies. I can’t imagine how loud it is at the entrance.
I used to tell the high school aged clerks “Yknow, you don’t have to play Music From The Customers’ Generation. I’d be glad to say something to the manager if you’d rather listen to something more current.”
But suddenly, maybe five years ago, those kids started saying “Are you kidding? We love this stuff!” (One even asked “What was it like when Kung Fu Fighting would come on your car radio? Did you totally rock out?!?”)
So I gave up…
I think there are at two different issues involved - volume and content, and at least the first is sometimes used to discourage people from lingering. And I’ve left a place for both reasons.
Starbucks seems to be the worst for the first one, perhaps in an effort to try to get people to stop doing 4 hours of business / classwork while sponging up wifi, or people sitting in their limited seating for hours to chat, a couple of locals in my area have their music at almost unbearable levels.
To the point I noticed people who were staying wore noise cancelling headphones and at least one -staff- who wore in ear plugs!!! Now, I can’t claim it was all locations, but there are two I won’t go to anymore (on the rare occasion I even want to go, normally to meet and chat with out of town friends visiting when my house is a mess).
The second is content, and yeah, I haven’t (yet) seen any place that seems to aggressively use that to drive people away. I’ll normally take C&W music at a reasonable volume long enough to visit a restaurant/business as long as it’s brief, but if I’m stuck working (!) or otherwise dealing with X-mas music for multiple months, I get grumpy.
A related but different issue is I’ve walked out of offices that only had Fox News Radio or the like on at un-ignorable volume (distinct from the first group where it’s not painful, but you can’t NOT hear it) - they don’t need my business.
It’s the devil’s music!
There was one particular song that reminded me of my ex (we called it “our song”). For years, I had to leave when it came on the speakers in any store.
I’m over it now.
Heck, I don’t like walking past the entrance to a Hot Topic. Way too loud. Can’t imagine attempting to even enter one, not that they carry anything I’m in the market for.
Has annoying music sent me away? Absolutely and very many times over the years. I really cannot stand rap/hip hop (and I grew up listening to and liking Motown) so I bail the second a place decides that’s waht they want to hit their customers with. I also bail when “songs” such as “Fly, Robin, Fly” start up. Good Country music is fine with me; but the trite C&W stuff will also send me back to the parking lot.
I introduced my best friend to his wife of now 20ish yrs because the fucking electric slide came on at the bar we were at, so we had to leave immediately. Ended up going to another bar where she worked.
All the time. In fact, if a cafe or restaurant is playing loud music, I avoid patronising it in the first place. I am a classical and opera fan, and almost nobody plays either of those music types. The exception, surprisingly, is our local newsagent, which plays ABC Classic (on which I have complimented them). I get that these are minority musical preferences, and thus I don’t expect to hear them played in cafes or restaurants. But whatever else is played (pop, rock, top 40 or whatever) is often played so goddamn LOUD. I think the problem is that hsopitality staff, who tend to be in their twenties, play what kind of music they like, at the volume they like. So if I find a cafe or restaurant that doesn’t play music of any kind, that is a place I will come back to. They are mostly noisy environments anyway, with lots of hard surfaces. Less is more.
It’s not just a matter of musical taste. I have adult ADD, and if a business, e.g. a supermarket, is playing music that is loud and frenzied, I find it extremely distracting and I just want to get out of there as quickly as possible. (In the case of a supermarket, I generally end up forgetting things on my list because I find the environment so unpleasant.) Large shopping centres I find extremely noisy, and have taken to going there (when I can’t avoid it) with noise cancelling earbuds just to reduce the ambient noise levels.
I just thought of another, apparently real-life example of classical music being used to influence clientele. In some of Lawrence Block’s novels featuring Matt Scudder, the detective hangs out at Jimmy Armstrong’s saloon in Manhattan (a real place at the time). Armstrong’s is mentioned as having switched out its jukebox to all classical numbers, apparently to discourage younger patrons who didn’t drink or eat enough to boost the bottom line.
Yes, there is a restaurant/bar in northeastern Indiana whose name I have long forgotten because I went there a grand total of one time. A group of us from work went there after school. We walked in and were greeted by a truly lovely restaurant. The bar and furniture were made of beautiful oak. There were white tablecloths and cloth napkins. The lighting was perfect. All in all, the ambience was lovely.
Unfortunately, we were also greeted by ungodly loud and cacophonous heavy metal rock, and it just continued on and on throughout the meal. I asked the server, “Do you really think that music goes with the lovely ambience of of your restaurant?” He looked very defensive and almost hostile when he said, “Yes.” Turns out the owners were “metal heads” who felt they wanted that theme in their restaurant. They should have owned some kind of sports bar, not the beautiful place I saw.
Oh, JFC.
If that song gets stuck in my head for even a single minute today, you and I are going to have a problem !
Glad to hear I’m not the only person who will drop a restaurant or store because of the musical atmosphere. As a former radio guy, I tend to notice background music more than a lot of folks do and have sometimes wondered if I’m just hyper-sensitive.
The responses to my original post have made interesting reading. It seems the volume is more annoying than the music itself, though only slightly so. (If you hate Country, Rap, Heavy Metal or whatever, the volume can never be low enough.) I can pretty much handle music I don’t like if I don’t feel I’m being assaulted by it. And after wearing headphones for several decades, I’m half-deaf anyway, and if I think it’s too loud, I can only imagine what someone with better hearing thinks.
I often laugh when I hear what radio people call “train wrecks,” songs that make no sense played back-to-back. Yesterday in a grocery store, I heard 1995’s “Counting Blue Cars (Tell Me Your Thoughts on God)” by Dishwalla followed by 1970’s “Cracklin’ Rosie” by Neil Diamond. I enjoyed them both, but that was one bizarre music sweep!
In a place with high ceilings and a lot of ambient noise, background music tends to stay in the background where it belongs. But if my wife hears Kelly Clarkson played at any volume, she gets out the ear plugs. She can’t stand that singing style.
Xmas music drives me BONKERS even a normal levels. I haven’t had to flee the grocery store, but I shop angrily and get out without half my stuff because I can’t think. And yeah, many other places it’s the volume rather than the musical choices. Restaurants, pubs, gyms… I feel ya.
Another place music bugs me is yoga studios. I’m OK with soothing music no words, low volume. But one teacher insists on playing pop tunes that I dislike, with prominent English-language lyrics, and it snaps me right out of the mood. Hard to hear the verbal instructions over the competing lyrics coming from the song. I’ve had to tell her “I cannot hear your instructions” which is better than saying “Turn this garbage off!!”
Also has to do with whether I vibe with the music. If that teacher played blues or The Doors I’d probably love it. So not consistent.
There are yoga classes that advertise that they play death metal during class because some people find THAT soothing and reassuring, it’s their “tribe”. I’d be OK with that going in, at least I’d know what to expect.
Music in gyms that’s rhythmic can be good to work out to. Even rap which I normally don’t care for esp. with cussing. Some gyms just put on Spotify or whatever and don’t curate their play lists. As a female sometimes I don’t like hearing misogynistic lyrics but since I haven’t been to a gym in 2 years it’s moot RN.