I don’t stay if the music is too loud. Noise pollution really bothers me.
There’s a 50s style diner near us that has a jukebox and some of the booths have these. I’m not a big fan of all of the music they load, but as long as the volume isn’t extreme, I can mostly ignore it. Once when it was ear-splitting, I asked for it to be turned down, and they were immediately obliging. If I can’t have a conversation across the table because of the music, I don’t want to be there. They also have multiple TVs, but they’re all muted - huzzah!
One particular evening, the place was full of pre-teen girls - I think it was a soccer team gathering - and they kept playing the Village People’s *YMCA *over and over and over, singing along with it, of course. That got old pretty quick, but it was an isolated incident.
Years ago when we were still living in Florida, we went to (I think) a Carrabba’s for dinner. It’s the closest I ever came to leaving a restaurant because of the noise. Not only was the music too loud, but we were treated to the clanging and banging of kitchen noises since it was open to the dining area. I don’t know if that’s true of all of their restaurants, but if so, I think it’s an idiotic business model. It’s not ambiance, it’s noise!
As for most other stores, I tend to go in, get what I want, and leave, so unless the background music is particularly heinous, I don’t even notice it. But I do agree about Christmas music starting to damned early. Frankly, I’m good with elevator music played at a low volume, but I know I’m in the minority on that.
I used to frequent a junk store called Second Hand Rose. The owner had a scratchy 78 of a song called Second Hand Rose on a tape loop. Constant. Non. Stop. Over. And. Over. Again. She must have thought it was cute.
I finally quit going in there because it was so annoying.
We have walked out of restaurants and bars when the music was so loud that we couldn’t talk. We’ve never worried about the actual music selection, but then I guess we don’t generally habituate places that play music we don’t like.
Years ago I used to have a lot of Best Buy stock and a lot of contacts at Best Buy corporate.
I walked into a suburban Best Buy the day the Michael Jackson pedophilia thing was breaking, and they were playing Thriller - the album - from beginning to end.
I got the manager and tried to explain my concerns. He told me innocent until proven guilty. I told him that wasn’t my issue, my issue was brand protection and he was in a suburban Best Buy and every soccer mom who made the connection was going to leave the store angry. He didn’t get it - besides the play list came from corporate. So I flipped open the cell phone (I said it was a while ago), called over to a friend in corporate, a friend walked over to a marketing VP, told the marketing VP, who visibly blanched, and walked away to find out who to talk to and get the playlist changed (and apparently pull at the MJ promotions - no MJ on the end caps).
Thriller is a great album. But Marketing 101 is sort of “don’t have your soccer mom customers drive into your parking lot hearing about Michael Jackson’s arrest for diddling little boys, to come into your store to find you promoting his album - which doesn’t need to be promoted, it was released twenty years ago.”
I still shopped there. I had a lot of stock. And made a lot of money when I sold it.
I’ve severe hearing problems and can not hear most background music unless it is very quiet in the store, and even then I can’t usually make out any of the words. Once in a while I can make out enough of a song to recognize it, and it usually makes me laugh (I swear I heard Ozzy Osbourne’s Suicide Solution played at a grocery store once).
However, some restaurants around here (mostly chains) feel compelled to BLAST music at you, to the point where it’s difficult to carry on a conversation. I tend to avoid these but it’s mostly because they’re bland uninspired chains whose food all seems the same (Applebee’s, Chilis, TIGFridays, etc).
I have begun avoiding some of the BP gas station chains near me though, because they have installed little video screens in the pumps, and play music/videos/advertisements at you while you get gas. I can’t stand that.
So, last week my girlfriend is going bra shopping (36DD) and wants me to come with … I’m in. Until I hear the godawful music they play in modern ladies’ clothing stores … Victoria’s Secret, even Frederick’s of Hollywood. Basically anything from Hip Hop to Disco, like shopping in a cheesy urban nightclub … and loud. I couldn’t take it. I wandered the mall while she tried on undergarments for a while, then we found a place specializing in Punk/ Bondage/ Cenobyte style clothes (Blackheart), they had cool music … they were playing the Door’s “Light My Fire” and some old Janis Joplin. The help were punk’d out and some of the customers had mohawks … there was even a baby in a stroller, mom had a mohawk and so did the baby. Fun place. They had some black leather bra-tops full of spikes. Neat.
Of all places, the Border’s bookstore near me. I know they no longer exist, and wondered if other locations suffered from the same problem, playing some small part in their eventual corporate demise.
Hip and edgy youngsters who worked in the music area just blared new age, discordant, screamy punk stuff over their sound system. Gave me a headache, it did. No more browsing for me.
Stopped? No. Reduced? Yes. Although it also has to do with how loud they play it. If it just fades into the background, it’s usually not that big a deal. Colton’s is an example of a place that does it poorly. All it does is encourage everyone else to talk louder, to be heard over the music. And then it’s just entirely too much.
Type of music is irrelevant, volume is very relevant. I’ll leave if it’s too loud.
Ain’t no thing - whatever their target market is, it’s not me.
By that logic, you shouldn’t be posting in this thread. What is it with people not realizing that, if complaining about something is bad, then complaining about people complaining about something is even worse?
I’m also pretty sure you don’t want to get into a “who has worse problems” contest on the SDMB of all places.
Does a record label count as a business? If it does, George Winston’s music made me decide to boycott Windham Hill Records for the longest time.
Then they went and spoiled my resolution to not touch the label by signing and releasing music from Tuck and Patti.
I wouldn’t stop going to a restaurant for this reason - but there are a couple of pretty good places locally (one with Italian food*, the other a seafood place) that heavily feature Frank Sinatra songs and related stuff. The clientele isn’t ancient either. Someone apparently thinks this genre signals “classy joint”, which it does not, at least to me.
*the layout of the Italian place is eerily similar to the restaurant where Michael Corleone has his ill-fated dinner with Sollozzo and McCluskey. I always try to sit at the back, facing the door. 
Come to think of it - a friend and I were in a Lebanese place one afternoon and we were sitting there while we finished our food/drinks, and this terrible song came on in the background. I don’t know what the song was, but it seemed to consist entirely of the same line repeated over and over again, and I couldn’t even catch any of the lyrics in that one line except the word “fucking.” I don’t object to all swearing in songs, but god, that was annoying. My friend and I didn’t leave, though, because we weren’t finished, although I did comment to my friend that “this song is really long and I don’t like it.”
That was just a single song that was annoying, though. Also, it was a place we only went to once, and I don’t really plan to go back, whether or not they play annoying music.
I’ll write a complaint for any Xmas music before December and avoid the establishment until January.
For a while in the late '90s you couldn’t walk into a Borders or B&N without hearing Norah Jones. I don’t know what it is, but something about that woman’s singing just grates on me.
If it wasn’t Norah Jones it’d be “I’m like a bird, gonna fly awa-aay” all day on the PA.
A few years later you’d always hear “Clocks” by Coldplay, but that one I liked. Nice melody.
I’d go to the BGR Burger Joint more often if they’d turn down the damn music.
Oops, I meant “just a few years LATER”.
When my favorite Waffle House decided to set its jukebox to club-level loudness, I dialed back my patronage until they decided to remedy that. Also, it’s not exactly music, but whenever I go to Payless I am driven to distraction by the tone that plays every time a customer crosses the threshold of the store. Sometimes I even resolve to switch over to a store that doesn’t do that. But every time I need to get some new shoes, I wind up heading back to Payless.
I’d only do so if I was patronizing them for social reasons, such as a restaurant or bar, and them only if it actively interfered with what I was doing. Such as being too loud or too obnoxious. When I go shopping, I am there to shop, not critique their music selection. I’ve worked in bars/clubs for 15 years, I can ignore music I don’t like.
I’d very dearly like to stop going to Payless because of the music they play. Unfortunately, since I work there and otherwise like my job, I’ll just have to suffer.
Back when I was just out of high school, I quit a job because of the music. I was already annoyed with the place because my training consisted mostly of how to racially profile my customers to spot potential shoplifters. But, I just ignored those rules (not corporate rules, just a racist bitch of a boss). It was when they switched their music to their summer loop and at least once every hour either Ray of Light by Madonna or some summery happy song by Cheryl Crow would play (or both). I detest both songs and couldn’t take it so I quit.
The most recent Muzak disc that we are playing at Payless has the irritating Cheryl Crow song but I only hear it once every other shift or so.
Just looked it up, it’s soak up the sun. I HATE that song!!!