I haven’t often been to bars but the times i have, I was struck by how loud it was. The music is very much in the foreground rather than the background. This results in people speaking louder which increases the loudness. The music and increased voices can make it quite difficult to verbally communicate, which you would think would be broadly desired in bars. After a while, fatigue can set in.
I understand that in some circumstances, talking is not on the mind of bar goers and that loud music can make it so that people feel the need/pretext to lean in close to each other, which is conducive to getting to know each other in some ways.
But still, I can’t be the only person who likes the alcohol, sociability and music of bars but prefers when music is a background noise rather than the main sound heard. Yet the vast majority of bars I’ve seen where quite loud. Why?
Bars are loud because people alchohol reduces your ability to hear (among other things). So people tend to talk louder and the music tends to be played louder, especially as they get crowded (which causes people to talk even louder).
Bear in mind not all bars tend to play loud music.
Zany Zeolite Zipper’s link sounds like BS. Bars want you to sit there and socialize because people who sit there socializing for hours tend to keep ordering drink after drink.
Pubs often have music or the TV playing at a low level, and then there’s the background chatter of other people. It’s the same sort of noise level as you’d get in, say, a coffee shop–you can have a conversation with no difficulty.
Of course, there are also the bars with deafeningly loud music in the UK. I’ve never understood why. Does anyone actually want the music that loud? No-one is dancing, everyone is just sitting down and screaming at the top of their lungs in an effort to be heard.