In Praise of Muzak (tm)
Blog: Music For Old(er) Folks
October 14, 2009
Regardless of what I may tell you about my working life (radio, recording engineer, layabout, etc.) I spent most of my career in retail. Shoes to be presice. Yup, spent my life on my knees in front of women begging for money. Spent a lot of time working in malls, with their backround music systems boreing everyone to death. You know what I'm talking about. 101 Strings playing Montovani's greatest hits.....
It's not that I don't like Hugo Winterhalter and the Orchestra, but one can understand how Jake and Elwood began to feel in the elevator on the way to the Cook County Asessor's office.
Well, to make a long story longer, I still am in retail, except different. My wife and I are grocery merchandisers, making weekly appearences in most major supermarket and drug stores between Moses Lake and Grand Coulee. And they've all got music systems. So imagine my suprise when in a Safeway store a couple of weeks ago, THIS came over the speakers....
Talk about shock and awe. And it's been continuing. Amid the tepid covers of popular songs, the Safeway music system has been dropping in such gems as this....
this.....
and when the opening line of this came on, I almost dropped my teath.....
The meat manager of the Ephrata Safeway (a pretty good guitar player in his own right) and I pretty much DID drop our teeth when the system played Led Zepplin's "Rock and Roll".
I was talking to a store manager who commented that she could understand it in a way. When Neil Young's "Old Man" comes on, it hits the demographic they're trying to cater to right in the breadbasket. I mean after all, the song IS 40 years old. But it's still a bit of a shock when Pink Floyd's "Breath" (!) comes across, followed by the soothing tones of Tom Selleck pushing orange juice.
But this brings up two questions. One manor, and one minor. First the minor one. Have you heard a music system that has called attention to itself by it's music selection? Denny's, for instance for the intellegent selection of oldies it plays.
But the major one is this. Say you're 1) Joey Ramone and 2) still alive. You've spent your life breaking the rules but one day you're walking down the isle of your local grocery store and you hear this:
What's your reaction?
Advertisements
Comments
Want to comment on this story? All Wenatchee World members are invited to comment on stories, by using the form below. Please know that we at wenatcheeworld.com hope our site is useful, entertaining and civil. So we'll delete comments that are obscene, abusive or way off topic. We appreciate it when readers use the "suggest removal" button to flag inappropriate comments. For more about interacting with the site, see our Use Policy.
holmes 2 years, 3 months ago
In Praise of Muzak (tm)
I've noticed that on many of my grocery outings, I end up walking through the aisles singing along to the music they're playing ... because they're actually playing stuff that real people listen to now. It's great. I'm sure everyone in the East Wenatchee Safeway thinks I've got a screw loose.
douglas 2 years, 3 months ago
In Praise of Muzak (tm)
Don't feel bad. Dora caught herself singing the line "pick up dog doo, hope that it's hard..." from Joe Walsh's "Ordinary Average Guy" the other day in the EW Safeway......
psychoteacher 2 years, 3 months ago
In Praise of Muzak (tm)
In is early experiments with Ambient Music, Brain Eno said "It is meant to be as listenable as it is forgetable."
When I was working at Pizza Hut we had Muzak piped it. There were some really impressive arrangements. The version of The Stone's "Melody" actually captured the essence of Billy Preston's piano work. Rite Aid has their own piped in channel that has an intresting blend of music. It's currently rotating in some new songs and I was quite shocked to hear "What's the Frequency Kenneth". I seem to think that much of the music was obtained through publishing rights. I've noticed a lot of original/covers in rotation. Todd's "Love is the Answer", Ernie K-Doe's "Mother in Law", "Silver Threads an Golden Needles, but not Wanda Jackson's version. This is The Springfields and Linda Ronstandt. I have found the music to be a great way to pass an otherwise annoying day working back in retail.
psychoteacher 2 years, 3 months ago
In Praise of Muzak (tm)
Since Eno is generally credited with "inventing" Ambient Music, can he be held responsible for John Tesh in the same way an interviewer once tried to get David Bowie to take responsibility for Gary Numan?
Sign in to comment