Hello, yeah it’s been a while; not much, how 'bout you,
So, here I am semi-retired, collecting some government pension money (and more due to my ex’s untimely death) and in a few years pension money from what we call a Crown Corporation here.
But after a life in high-tech, with some nuclear experience, I am now slicing deli meat, making sandwiches and generally enjoying part-time, stress-free work.
Soooo, Sorry for the preamble, but here we go. I’m forced to listen to the same maybe 30 songs every shift; It’s torture. I hate all these songs.
Please help me name this banality. It’s water torture in my ears,
No lyrics. Picture a female Russian singer squatted, with arms crossed and legs kicking out singing: “Ya Ya, Ya-ya-ya-ya-ya, Ya ya,”
It sounds like, in an upbeat tempo, “Cutie pie, cutie pie…blah blah blah blah… poker face.” ad infinitum.
I have bad news: It’s going to get worse, much worse. On July 12th a company called Mubert published a press release announcing that they had just created (generated is the word they used) over 100 million new music tracks (formerly known as songs) through artificial intelligence. For comparison, he complete Spotify catalog only contains 100 million tracks.
I do not think anybody will willingly listen to those tracks, but I am sure they will be endlessly played on public spaces, supermarkets, offices, public transportation… You will have to wear head-phones with noise cancelling 24/7 to avoid them.
I got that information here.
Whenever I go to Acme, they are playing good old top-40 rock from the Seventies.
It seems that I hear Dobie Gray’s “Drift Away” or Looking Glass “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)” on every other visit.
I haven’t been there for a long enough stretch to know if they use a loop. Even nice old rock songs would get tiresome on a short loop (though I spent one six month period in my youth with a single 90-minute cassette tape in my car that I would continually flip: The Dark Side of the Moon / Wish You Were Here).
Is this what they used to call “muzak” or “elevator music”? I’ve never heard music on an elevator, so I’m not sure if that is what you are referring to.
Think it’s bad now? Christmas is just around the corner and you’ll get to hear the same drizzle piped in that you’ve over and over and over and over since you’ve been born.
It’s worth noting that those responsible for such an assault work from a space where they don’t have to listen to it. They’ve only taken the advice of some moron who’s explained to them how it’s good for business. A typical case of one know nothing leading another know nothing.
Nor have they (in the case of huge grocery chains) had to beg customers to donate to a charity or fill out a survey. Like cashiers don’t have enough on their hands.
Solution: Quit.
I worked at a place in the early 1980s that had Muzak playing constantly. After a few weeks, I knew all the tracks by heart and hated them. The worst was a version of The Long Run by The Eagles. Just imagine that melody played by a syrupy string section. There was one track, though, that wasn’t bad. Tasty licks without the usual schmaltz. I liked to imagine it was something that the session musicians had chosen.
Timely thread. The last two times I’ve been at the grocery store I noticed the oldies playing on the PA.
But they weren’t the real oldies. They were almost-copies. Like those nasty cheap versions of perfumes that smell like toxic waste. The Ninety-nine Luftballons was especially aggregious.
Yeah, my local grocery does the off-brand versions of songs, too. I first noticed it when listening casually to some Police song in the background and first realizing, something felt off about the drums – didn’t sound like Stewart Copeland – and then focusing closer, yeah, the singer was definitely not Sting, either. They do everything from 70s to current hits. The last one I heard was a version of Ariana Grande/Lady Gaga’s “Rain on Me” that most clearly was not either of them.
The original versions of “Poker Face” and “Bad Romance” are hardly Muzak, though. Very solid pop songs that capture the late 2000s pretty well. Both hit #1 all around the world when they came out (though “Bad Romance” only hit #2 in the US; both made #1 in Canada). Even my Generation Alpha kids enjoy it.
The Nuge might be a hardcore conservative, but muzak is not one of the ideas he supports. Apparently, he made a $10 million offer to buy the Muzak company in 1986. He was not after the catalog or upset that Cat Scratch Fever never received an all-piano treatment. Rather, he was looking to take over simply so he could shut the whole thing down. His offer was rejected.
Long backstory made short: When I was in college in the early 1990s, I found out that Muzak performers are/were usually moonlighting symphony orchestra musicians, and they could make very good money doing this.
The best Muzak version I ever heard was Jethro Tull’s “Living in the Past”, with the melody played on a trombone. Loved it!
Ca. 2000 when I worked at the grocery store, which was a 24-hour store, I once opened up the pharmacy at 7:55AM to the tune of King Crimson’s “In The Court of the Crimson King.” I’ve never taken hallucinogens, but it almost made me want to. They didn’t change from the overnight channel, and we later heard the 17-minute version of “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.”
Another time, shortly after opening, they were playing Rush’s classic “Tom Sawyer” and an elderly woman was puzzled about the music. I told her, “Oh, that’s the overnight channel; they just haven’t switched it yet” and then added that the song was popular when I graduated from high school, and I had seen that band in concert 4 times.
Christmas is terrible for repetitive muzak, but it’s a break from these 30 songs. I guess most people just tune it out; I can’t. I like music too much and it drills into my brain hearing such bullshit music. Actually, I labeled it “garbage music” to my good friend.
Occasionally I have a burger or McMuffin at McDonalds before work. They play a lyricless soft jazz soundtrack. I’d totally be up for that at work.
Look, I wouldn’t even be ale to listen to my top favourite 30 songs of all time on a loop every day. After a year of hearing “Highway Star” 20 times a week, I’m certain it would wear me down.
