@AnnaB Trader Joe’s is the only venue in which I have ever heard Gloria Jones’ original Tainted Love and Rickie Lee Jones’ cover of The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys. Somebody there had a real thing about musical women with the last name Jones.
In restaurants, I hate it when it is so loud you can barely hear the person sitting across from you. Those people controlling the music need to burn in the 6th circle of hell.
@DRBLAW WTF is up with Applebee’s and Chili’s? It’s like there’s something in the corporate policy stating “thou shalt inhibit interpersonal conversation at all cost!” The music volume is bad enough at Applebee’s, but at Chili’s there’s the loud music combined with hard tile floors and wooden ceilings. When I leave Chili’s I feel like I’ve just spent an hour confined in an echo chamber.
Generally I am fine with music in stores if they play 80’s-90’s stuff (aka Ace of Base, Abba and such). But 00’s and on pop music has became unbearable, so when they play that I actively hate that. Even worse is when they play mainstream rap or christmas music, both of which should DIE DIE DIE.
And of course employees in 99% of restaurants should have their ears checked, because they put music way too loud.
But even worse I hate people, that listen to music in their cars (in 99% cases it’s rap or r’n’b) louder than hell. Those should be legal to kill on sight.
@serpent I work in a Walmart for one year of school. I can’t stand Christmas music as a result. I used to love it, but it was constant from October through December (no, it did not stop at Christmas). “Walking in a Winter Wonderland” is the soundtrack to Hell. Seriously, we had a whole day of just that song, in a million different versions.
@anemones No, really, people with loud car stereos, with loud pulsating bass that makes your head explode and such, are worse than ISIS. I also hate bikers for all the same reasons, so it’s not like I am saying that just because I hate rap (because I don’t, Death Grips rules).
My company recently got Mood Music. They play quite the variety and most of the songs are pretty good. We were without music for a couple years and the silence was really eerie.
I would much rather have music and patronize a place that has music; preferably decent music.
@TheCO2 my old job (a call center) started piping in “white noise” to keep us from getting distracted. It was a 30 second loop of the same static, and something about it literally nauseated many of my coworkers. Almost everyone at least got a headache. But the main boss was convinced that it was a good idea, so it lasted almost a year. I, thankfully, got a new job after a couple months, so I didn’t face the whole ordeal.
@TheCO2 well, it did keep you from noticing other noises, but it also made it tougher to hear the customers. So we still kept having to ask people to repeat what they said.
If I notice it, it usually means they failed. For example, Taylor Swift’s Shake it Off is a poor selection for a funeral parlor. In all fairness, they didn’t select the song; they just had a radio playing in the back. On the other hand, they tuned it to the type of station that plays Taylor Swift, so it’s still epicly poor taste. And yes, we did walk out and take our business elsewhere.
Kohl’s usually has a dreadful selection of songs that they play over and over again. I’ve seriously considered leaving the store a few times because of it.
I once loved a restaurant in NYC (The Brasserie? Not sure) that played a sort of “instrumental coffeeshop-type jazz” a bit lower than normal conversational level. Something about that really worked - never made it hard to talk or listen, seemed to encourage conversation, clarity, and focus.
I worked at a catalog showroom in college; and one day,working the return desk, I put my foot up on the shelf underneath the counter and bumped one of the knobs on the muzak machine. Apparently I hit the subliminal track volume because now, in addition to the mindless background noise, there was an authoritative voice saying, “You don’t want to steal here”, “put that back if you are not going to buy it”, and an assortment of other theft aversion messages. The muzak just covered the subliminal messages.
The manager was not happy.
Muzak isn’t just elevator music anymore. They have several different stations. My work listens to the one that’s mostly popular music. It usually turns into background noise. When I start singing along to a song I actually dislike… Then I get slightly annoyed. Right now I have some Gwen Stefani song stuck in my head because they usually play it twice during a shift. It’s driving me crazy.
Several other popular places use the same muzak station. When I’m shopping at the grocery store, and the annoying songs are playing, I’m reminded of how we have some of the worst music mixed in with tolerable music.
When I started at that place over 10 years ago, they did have a lot of really popular songs sung by someone else. I guess it was cheaper for muzak to get the rights that way. Nowadays, it’s all of the original artist renditions. At least on the station we have.
Here’s a list of all their different station offerings. If you click one, it’ll give you the last ten songs. Muzak also changed their name to Mood:, which I find kinda funny seeing as the word muzak is pretty popular.
On patriotic type holidays, they switch the station to the most godawful marching band music. Sounds like the flute and piccolo players going into civil war battles. I must of heard five different versions of Yankee doodle dandy on the 4th of July. Then it’s interrupted by patriotic country music. The music is pretty much my own personal hell.
Most of the time I don’t pay attention to the music when shopping. Unless I’m in the mall. Those stores always play the music too loud. I don’t mind if the music is good.
My local supermarket seems to have a real knack for playing music I hate. One insipid 80s or 90s song after another. It’s like they purposely avoid playing good music from that era.
I seriously think they’re trying to drive me mad. Mad, I tell you! But they won’t do it. I have a magical ear unicorn that eats bad music and poops rainbows directly into my brain. Bwa hah aha hahah ha ha haaaaa!
I usually notice the absence of it more than the presence of it. A small store or restaurant with no one else around and no music? It can get pretty awkward. Makes you realize that music is a nice lubricant for staff and patrons to ignore each other. There’s already noise involved, so you don’t feel obligated to make some of your own. (Exception is around Christmas, when Wonderful Christmas Time and Last Christmas follow me from store to store.)
That said. I worked at Blockbuster in the early 00s. We had Blockbuster TV, a verrrry short loop of trailers, music videos, ads, etc. People didn’t tend to shop there that long, so it was maybe a 10-15 minute loop at most. I got to hear Lizzie McGuire songs and obnoxious trailers a million times during an eight-hour shift. Worst were definitely a guy saying DESTROY ALL HUMANS! over and over from a video game ad, and WILLY WONKA, WILLY WONKA, HE’S OUR FAVORITE CHOCOLATIER from the Johnny Depp monstrosity. I would’ve killed for some silence.
Listening to music in public gives one the ability to avoid awkward conversation in an intimate or close quarters setting and still be acceptable to society.
So, if there is music playing, one can act righteously annoyed if anyone speaks to you.
Cut the music off, and suddenly the silence is absurdly profound…
… yet in the distance conversations can be heard, striking up, until the music of humanity chitter-chattering away leads to a lulling calm, the music of society resounding.
I’m that person who sings along to the music at Trader Joes while I’m shopping. They generally have a decent soundtrack playing.
@AnnaB They were playing some 80s hits the last time I was in there. I was suppressing the urge to start dancing around with my overloaded basket.
@AnnaB - Several times I have commented to the TJ’s staff about the music. Some of their sets are so upbeat and energizing.
@AnnaB Trader Joe’s is the only venue in which I have ever heard Gloria Jones’ original Tainted Love and Rickie Lee Jones’ cover of The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys. Somebody there had a real thing about musical women with the last name Jones.
With my headphones in, I don’t have to hear whatever they decide to play!
In restaurants, I hate it when it is so loud you can barely hear the person sitting across from you. Those people controlling the music need to burn in the 6th circle of hell.
@DRBLAW WTF is up with Applebee’s and Chili’s? It’s like there’s something in the corporate policy stating “thou shalt inhibit interpersonal conversation at all cost!” The music volume is bad enough at Applebee’s, but at Chili’s there’s the loud music combined with hard tile floors and wooden ceilings. When I leave Chili’s I feel like I’ve just spent an hour confined in an echo chamber.
I like the muzak that my local Staples plays. I know, I’m broken.
Generally I am fine with music in stores if they play 80’s-90’s stuff (aka Ace of Base, Abba and such). But 00’s and on pop music has became unbearable, so when they play that I actively hate that. Even worse is when they play mainstream rap or christmas music, both of which should DIE DIE DIE.
And of course employees in 99% of restaurants should have their ears checked, because they put music way too loud.
But even worse I hate people, that listen to music in their cars (in 99% cases it’s rap or r’n’b) louder than hell. Those should be legal to kill on sight.
@serpent I work in a Walmart for one year of school. I can’t stand Christmas music as a result. I used to love it, but it was constant from October through December (no, it did not stop at Christmas). “Walking in a Winter Wonderland” is the soundtrack to Hell. Seriously, we had a whole day of just that song, in a million different versions.
@serpent “legal to kill on sight” yikes my dude maybe reign it in a little there
@anemones No, really, people with loud car stereos, with loud pulsating bass that makes your head explode and such, are worse than ISIS. I also hate bikers for all the same reasons, so it’s not like I am saying that just because I hate rap (because I don’t, Death Grips rules).
My company recently got Mood Music. They play quite the variety and most of the songs are pretty good. We were without music for a couple years and the silence was really eerie.
I would much rather have music and patronize a place that has music; preferably decent music.
@TheCO2 my old job (a call center) started piping in “white noise” to keep us from getting distracted. It was a 30 second loop of the same static, and something about it literally nauseated many of my coworkers. Almost everyone at least got a headache. But the main boss was convinced that it was a good idea, so it lasted almost a year. I, thankfully, got a new job after a couple months, so I didn’t face the whole ordeal.
@simplersimon That’s really strange. Did it at least keep you from getting distracted?
@TheCO2 well, it did keep you from noticing other noises, but it also made it tougher to hear the customers. So we still kept having to ask people to repeat what they said.
If I notice it, it usually means they failed. For example, Taylor Swift’s Shake it Off is a poor selection for a funeral parlor. In all fairness, they didn’t select the song; they just had a radio playing in the back. On the other hand, they tuned it to the type of station that plays Taylor Swift, so it’s still epicly poor taste. And yes, we did walk out and take our business elsewhere.
The other day I heard Muzak versions of Van Halen, GNR, U2 and Nirvana. I have never cried so much in my life.
Kohl’s usually has a dreadful selection of songs that they play over and over again. I’ve seriously considered leaving the store a few times because of it.
i like music in the background, but most of the time, it’s too damn loud and annoying … turn that shit down!!! i hate that… grumble, grumble, grumble…
I once loved a restaurant in NYC (The Brasserie? Not sure) that played a sort of “instrumental coffeeshop-type jazz” a bit lower than normal conversational level. Something about that really worked - never made it hard to talk or listen, seemed to encourage conversation, clarity, and focus.
I worked at a catalog showroom in college; and one day,working the return desk, I put my foot up on the shelf underneath the counter and bumped one of the knobs on the muzak machine. Apparently I hit the subliminal track volume because now, in addition to the mindless background noise, there was an authoritative voice saying, “You don’t want to steal here”, “put that back if you are not going to buy it”, and an assortment of other theft aversion messages. The muzak just covered the subliminal messages.
The manager was not happy.
I guess my brain is just tuned to focus in on anything that sounds musical in the slightest. I don’t ever mind it.
Muzak isn’t just elevator music anymore. They have several different stations. My work listens to the one that’s mostly popular music. It usually turns into background noise. When I start singing along to a song I actually dislike… Then I get slightly annoyed. Right now I have some Gwen Stefani song stuck in my head because they usually play it twice during a shift. It’s driving me crazy.
Several other popular places use the same muzak station. When I’m shopping at the grocery store, and the annoying songs are playing, I’m reminded of how we have some of the worst music mixed in with tolerable music.
When I started at that place over 10 years ago, they did have a lot of really popular songs sung by someone else. I guess it was cheaper for muzak to get the rights that way. Nowadays, it’s all of the original artist renditions. At least on the station we have.
Here’s a list of all their different station offerings. If you click one, it’ll give you the last ten songs. Muzak also changed their name to Mood:, which I find kinda funny seeing as the word muzak is pretty popular.
http://muzakwpn.muzak.com
On patriotic type holidays, they switch the station to the most godawful marching band music. Sounds like the flute and piccolo players going into civil war battles. I must of heard five different versions of Yankee doodle dandy on the 4th of July. Then it’s interrupted by patriotic country music. The music is pretty much my own personal hell.
Most of the time I don’t pay attention to the music when shopping. Unless I’m in the mall. Those stores always play the music too loud. I don’t mind if the music is good.
And after that whole dissertation, I still have no idea what to vote for.
@RiotDemon I did a little research and found out Mood Music bought out Muzak.
My local supermarket seems to have a real knack for playing music I hate. One insipid 80s or 90s song after another. It’s like they purposely avoid playing good music from that era.
I seriously think they’re trying to drive me mad. Mad, I tell you! But they won’t do it. I have a magical ear unicorn that eats bad music and poops rainbows directly into my brain. Bwa hah aha hahah ha ha haaaaa!
I usually notice the absence of it more than the presence of it. A small store or restaurant with no one else around and no music? It can get pretty awkward. Makes you realize that music is a nice lubricant for staff and patrons to ignore each other. There’s already noise involved, so you don’t feel obligated to make some of your own. (Exception is around Christmas, when Wonderful Christmas Time and Last Christmas follow me from store to store.)
That said. I worked at Blockbuster in the early 00s. We had Blockbuster TV, a verrrry short loop of trailers, music videos, ads, etc. People didn’t tend to shop there that long, so it was maybe a 10-15 minute loop at most. I got to hear Lizzie McGuire songs and obnoxious trailers a million times during an eight-hour shift. Worst were definitely a guy saying DESTROY ALL HUMANS! over and over from a video game ad, and WILLY WONKA, WILLY WONKA, HE’S OUR FAVORITE CHOCOLATIER from the Johnny Depp monstrosity. I would’ve killed for some silence.
Listening to music in public gives one the ability to avoid awkward conversation in an intimate or close quarters setting and still be acceptable to society.
That is why it is a plague on humanity.
So, if there is music playing, one can act righteously annoyed if anyone speaks to you.
Cut the music off, and suddenly the silence is absurdly profound…
… yet in the distance conversations can be heard, striking up, until the music of humanity chitter-chattering away leads to a lulling calm, the music of society resounding.