The Starbucks I visit doesn't even seem to play music. It's been a while since I've been to a store that did and when they did it was just coffeehouse playlist with Spotify integration so it was kind of cool what they had set up.
I imagine working in an environment where you hear the same music regardless would cause some pain if you focus on that aspect of your work environment.
Just imagine being alive in the 80s with muzak and really crappy jingles play
> Just imagine being alive in the 80s with muzak and really crappy jingles play
I worked in a chain supermarket in the 80s and to this day I know the words and melodies of all the hits of that decade, but not the names of the songs or the artists.
When I was in high school I worked in a Pizza restaurant that had a CD player in the closet. There were two CDs--The Carpenters Greatest Hits, which was used January to November and The Carpenters Christmas album, which they used in December. I must have listened to the Greatest Hits hundreds of times.
I went into a Starbucks the other day early in the morning that didn't have music playing yet, it was really weird. It was actually kind of disconcerting. I think that's the only time i've ever been in one with no music. Everybody's voices echoed really loudly. You could hear every conversation going on and people ordering from the other side of the store.
As much as I dislike their music choices usually, I kind of understand why they have it going. Though a redesign of their interiors could probably do a lot to help the empty echoey feeling without constant music.
All coffee shops and restaurants these days have terrible acoustical design. It's because any kind of acoustic treatment is more expensive than none at all.
I experienced this in a Target last year sometime. No music over the intercom, and the energy in the place just felt more... nervous, restless. I don't know whether that's an effect inherent to silence in large spaces or whether it was an effect created by the absence of something we took for granted.
Wait, target plays music? I've literally never noticed and I was just in one last night. Only thing I've heard is their movies section playing teasers pretty loudly.
After that one experience, I'm pretty sure that if I walked into a supermarket or department store and they weren't playing music, I would immediately notice.
I worked in retail for years before moving out of the states. Pharmacies, specifically. The last couple of years I worked overnights at a 24 hour location. (Hey, only robbed once while I was working - a bonus!).
Anyhow, I used to go into the office and turn off the music at night. The silence you speak of was my entire excuse for turning it off: Corporate expected us to do things in the store at night, yet wait on customers like normal. The added benefit was that the store was sooo peaceful without the bad covers plus adverts they played on a loop.
I worked at the same chain for years. Bad covers of horrible songs for most of the years then off-brand christmas mixed with adverts for Christmas.
The last 2 years before leaving the country, I worked nights. I had office keys and would turn off the music. You don't know proper peace at work until you've done a nice, quiet midnight shift. :)
I experienced this working in retail during the holiday season back when I was in college. The little bell intro to Mariah Carey's "All I want for Christmas is You", will forever haunt my dreams. I rarely listen to Christmas music anymore because of that experience.
Nowadays, I get irritated when I've burned through a 2 hour playlist twice at work and need to find something else to listen to, but I totally take the ability to change my music for granted.
I moved from the UK to Canada 20 years ago this September. Back in High School and University, I worked retail for about 5 years or so. By the time I left, I haaaaaated Christmas music. Couldn't stand it.
Now after 20 years in Canada, I really miss it. Nothing here is the same as it is in the UK when it comes to Christmas traditions. There's no carolers, the smells aren't the same, the shops aren't the same. Everything that made Christmas Christmas to me is missing. For everything I love about living in Canada, that's been the hardest thing about living here instead of where I grew up.
I actually have a Christmas playlist made up entirely of Christmas songs from when I was a kid to try and kick start my Christmas mood when the season rolls around :D
>There's no carolers, the smells aren't the same, the shops aren't the same
Growing up in Canada, I thought carolers and olde-timey Christmas themes only happened in movies these days. Are these traditions still alive in the UK?
Well, obviously I've been gone for 20 years, so I can't speak to whether they still happen but growing up in the village I did, they happened every year without fail. Some years we'd go with them, other years we'd stay home and have hot mulled wine to offer them when they came around.
Another thing I struggled to find this year in my local area was midnight mass. This just doesn't seem to be a big thing here either. The best I could find was a 10pm mass, which just doesn't seem to cut the mustard... plus what's with the singing carols to the wrong tunes?
U.S here. I know carolers who get together and go through hospitals and retirement communities. Definitely a nice way for children and teenagers (who come with) to learn about giving back to a community.
Carolling largely follows a bimodal distribution based on social class. It's still reasonably common among lower-working-class kids looking for a bit of extra pocket money before Christmas; for similar reasons, they're the last stalwarts of the penny-for-the-guy tradition. It's very common for those at the upper reaches of the middle class, who have a real penchant for old-fashioned community activities like choirs, fetes and street parties. It's all but dead for the majority in the middle.
Speaking more broadly, there has been an effort in many rural areas to maintain and revive particular local cultural traditions. Perhaps the most spectacular such tradition is the tar barrels in Ottery St Mary[1], but I'm also rather fond of the Royal Ashborne Shrovetide Football game[2] and the multitude of mumming and wassailing traditions[3].
I’m stunned that you believe those heartwarming traditions common in the UK 20 years ago would still exist today after everything that’s been happening.
Carolers aren't common in Canada but they aren't unheard of. Different places will have different Christmas traditions so you're unlikely to ever get the same smells and shops. If you miss carolers I'd suggest you try getting a small group together and go out caroling.
My children are in a primary school level 'English as a second language' program in Australia right now, and my son got a 'Spot's first Christmas' book to take home to read yesterday. So then I had to explain what 'Christmas carolers' are, and why they would be at Spot's door if they're only a thing on the other side of the world? And also - snow? In December, at the height of summer? So that quickly devolved into a long story on colonialism, British world dominance of yore, and what a 'pommy' is . Ah that Spot.
In December I took a trip to southern California, and it struck me as really bizarre to have these songs on local radio repeatedly mentioning snow when it was a relaxed 70°F (≈21°C) on Christmas Day.
I hate the omnipresent Christmas music in stores around the holidays, but had never linked that to the fact that I worked in a store through college that repeatedly played the same music. Now that I'm thinking about it, I probably had the same experience as you. Thanks for the insight!
I was once in charge of the electronics department for a retail store, except for whatever music my bosses wanted to have playing over the speakers. It was one CD with a mix of pop and hip hop. They never would change it, so I decided to commandeer the stereo as I just couldn't handle the repetition anymore. I played new music we got in, both alternative and what was popular. The customers seemed fine with it, and I was happy.
They did not like this. For whatever reason, which they refused to explain to me, they insisted I played their stupid mix that had been playing for months. As I was given no good reason, and was paid minimum wage, I just kept doing my thing and playing newer and better music.
One day I showed up and they had duct-taped the lid of the CD tray to the stereo so no one could open it with a note in all caps saying "DO NOT CHANGE THE CD IN THIS STEREO". I promptly went to the hardware aisle, got a box cutter, and sliced that son'bitch open, this time chucking their CD in the garbage, and continued on being DJ.
They gave up after that. lol And surprisingly they didn't fire me, even though they could have easily replaced me with some younger kid who would have done whatever they wanted.
But I quit soon after since the holidays had come and I knew I was going to have to play "Jingle Bells Rock" a thousand times, and I knew I couldn't really get out of that.
When my boss asked me why I was quitting, I said "I found a better job."
> They did not like this. For whatever reason, which they refused to explain to me, they insisted I played their stupid mix that had been playing for months.
Could licensing have been the reason? Not sure about the US, but in Europe, you frequently need a separate license to play songs in stores, bars or really any kind of public venue. I imagine this is probably even stricted in the US. So the crappy mix might have been the only thing they had bothered buying licenses for - and they might have been afraid to get sued when playing anything else.
I still can feel the pain though, and I have no idea why the bosses didn't even bother to give a reason. So I guess quitting was the best thing to do.
Now that you've pointed out that this process exists, I'm super intrigued to hear the playlists of different stores and compare that with the brand image of said stores.
Maybe if I like 'x' brand, I'll also enjoy their store playlist... could be the key to finding lots of great music.
Maybe if I like 'x' brand, I'll also enjoy their store playlist... could be the key to finding lots of great music.
It actually is. My wife has the sort of job where she spends a lot of time in high-end retail stores, and at that level the music is very important so she's very aware of it.
It's not just selecting the right music, but making sure your company isn't playing the same songs as the competition.
CBS Sunday Morning had a nice long piece about this last year.
I stayed at the W hotel in Chicago on a business trip once years ago. The music sampler they provided was like listening to some mix made from my wife's playlist. So yeah, I don't plan to take her to the W, or that will be the only place suitable for the rest of my life. It's pricey and they have expensive stores all around it.
Sort of ironically given the linked article's subject, Starbucks used to take music very seriously, to the point of selling CDs in store, setting up CD burning kiosks, and even running their own record label in partnership with jazz/folk label Concord. (There were even standalone Hear Music stores for a few brief years.)
I happen to own an oddity in a CD form called Pottery Barn Mix. Mostly jazz/lounge remixes, similar to Verve Remixed. It is really quite nice... except for the disk title :)
I agree it could have been a licensing thing. ASCAP representatives have been well known to send shakedown letters to businesses that haven't paid their BMI/ASCAP dues, and lawsuits can be very very expensive.
It could well have been, but the reality is that most middle managers have no idea why such decisions are taken and just try to assert them mindlessly using their managerial authority. People like that aren't worth the trouble it takes to deal with.
The term middle manager in any low-wage, high-churn corporate retail environment is a joke.
Because why would you empower someone to fix problems, when you can give them just enough authority to act as a glorified day care overseer and only pay them a couple bucks more than their employees?
That's probably the reason if corporate were asked, and I probably would have understood if they told me. The 18 year old me took my boss's "because I say so" attitude as a reason to be defiant.
My main boss was pretty miserable but loved ordering people around like he was the king. He once tried to convince me to go to a conference about cell phones, on my own time and my own money, because... I don't know, I guess he thought I needed to know more about the devices I was selling. I never had problems selling phones to people or helping people with issues, so of course I didn't do it.
Reminds me of working in a big box electronics store during college. One day I answer the phone and the line sounds dead, but I say "hello" a few times and a woman finally acknowledges me and then goes on a long rant about what the world is coming to and she can't believe it. She eventually gets to her relevant question and I answer it. I didn't think too much of it because strange interactions with customers aren't all that rare.
A few hours later I answer another call and it's a teenage boy and he's just laughing but quickly acknowledges me and we sort out his problem. Again, didn't really think too much of it.
The third call I got was from the store manager. "Oh my god. What is going on over there?" "What do you mean?" "Nevermind, go check the hold music CD and change it to something else. Anything else." "Was that it?" "Ya". I go change the CD and carry on.
About an hour later the night shift restock crew comes in. A few minutes later one of them comes out and asks me if I had seen a CD he left in the warehouse CD player last night. My eyes open like I've seen a ghost and he's like, "What?"
The thing you have to know is that the night crew are all West African and they listen to the most hardcore gangster rap you've ever heard in your motherfucking life. The warehouse stereo he's talking about is actually for the store's PBX (phone system). It was in the back warehouse and there was a small bookshelf stereo system next to it with a CD player that was on loop to feed the hold music into the phone system.
After the store closes and the phones stop ringing, the night crew switches the CD to their music. Apparently someone had turned the volume down to take a phone call so they forgot that CD was still in the transport. The amp volume doesn't affect the line out volume so it was still feeding the phone system.
We laughed. Oh, we laughed so hard. Then I paged all the other employees over and told the story and they laughed too. The assistant manager laughed the hardest, then he went and called the store manager. He already knew of course.
The warehouse crew was no longer allowed to use the hold music stereo.
I feel you, I used to work in a hardware store and would loathe when it came time to switch over to the repetitive Christmas music. Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmastime" is my most cringeworthy song. Argh that syth intro...
I had a similar experience working at Macys during the holidays many years ago.
I had to listen to about 100 different versions of whatever that “last christmas I gave you my heart” song is every day, and to this day it drives me bonkers when I hear it.
When I worked at Radio Shack and they mandated that we play Christmas music all the time after Halloween, I'd switch it to one of SomaFM's more casual Christmas stations (Xmas in Frisko) when the boss wasn't around.
No one ever noticed except for us employees, and it was so, soooo much better than hours of the same five songs on repeat.
no doubt your brazen cavalier attitude towards corporate rules were the prime reason behind radio shack's downfall. corporate had it just right, except for those pesky employees failing to follow their edicts. Good thing you're using a pseudonym!
I worked at a toy store for a couple years and had to endure The Goof Troop movie on repeat all day as well as a toy crate at the counter that would vibrate and say “Excuse me!? Can you let me out of here!??” Just thinking about this toy now makes me feel a little sick.
But what I find interesting is back then you just put up with it. Awful repetition was just an accepted part of a minimum wage job then. Nowadays, we question everything. I do think our questioning is a good thing though.
I flew on the same international airline for business dozens of times and they always had the same tune on for the first hour during boarding/etc and then again during landing. I've now developed a bad Pavlovian response to that track because it is associated with brutal long-haul travel, jetlag, dry air, customs hassles, etc.
Note: I then got Gold/Platinum ranking, started boarding sooner, and so got exposed to the music even more!
Note 2: International flights have much longer boarding periods and usually large plans, so the time intro music is played is long.
I worked at a Macy's in college one holiday season, right across the aisle from the dancing santas that alternated their tinny versions of "rockin around the christmas tree" and "jingle bell rock". The tinny sounds on top of the general background muzak was extra-insanity-inducing. One day after being at work for 10 hours I got in my car and jingle bell rock came on and I totally broke down crying.
I've a lot of sympathy for retail people since then.
I totally agree with this. As a high school kid I used to work at Toys R Us, we'd broadcast a mix tape that would be changed maybe once every two months? This meant hearing Margaritaville 3-4 times a day every day I worked. It could drive you mad.
I once sat in a Starbucks for a few hours and I noticed that the music shifted with the customer base. So oldies and jazz got played around the time senior citizens would come in and the vibe would change depending on the demographic at that time. I thought it was interesting.. Maybe coincidence.. maybe not.
I think some Starbucks have a little more agency. The one near my apartment in NYC is always playing a mid-00s hiphop/R&B throwbacks playlist. Definitely not the mainstream suburban mom stuff, but, ya never know, maybe they have separate "urban environment" playlists.
In general I don’t understand why people think that it’s ok to pollute every bit of space with noise of their choice (aka music). I view it as a big nuisance.
As with many things, it's profit-driven. As a related example, bars intentionally turn the music up loud enough that conversations are difficult because this causes patrons to buy more drinks.
I'm friends with a lot of bar owners, and have had a few bars in the family in the past.
Owners don't want someone getting plastered. We want the high functioning alcoholic who orders 3 pints to his partner's 1 and draws his friends to come to the pub with him every night or two.
Seeing that you have experience in this sector, what is the purpose of a bar exactly? I never have gone to a bar, but always have had the assumption that bars are pretty much for getting plastered.
Nah, it's generally not very economical to do so. They serve primarily as a evening/weekend social hub, much like a restaurant. If you want to get plastered, you're much better off doing that in a private residence, in my experience.
If you want to get plastered, you can buy absurd amounts of alcohol by volume by purchasing cheap vodka and making it palatable by running it through a water filter to remove the bitter contaminants, then soak fruit in it to give it some flavour.
For 30$, you can make yourself enough very nice booze, flavoured to your tastes, as you would be able to get for $300 or so at a bar.
As for the direct question: different bars have different purposes, which is why there are so many different types.
Bars in the financial district are often vehicles to waste money as a social display. Bars in the artistic sector are often vehicles to meet likeminded poor, but cool, artists and misfits. Bars in residential areas are normally places to relax and have a few pints. Bars in the nightlife areas are normally places to meet people. Some bars have good food. Some bars have cheap drinks. Some bars have great music. Some bars have familiar staff.
There's a bar near where I used to live that offers manicures, male model servers and foot rubs. A few streets down is a sports bar which seems to employ exceptionally chesty waitresses. As you might imagine, the target demographic for each is different.
It's not terribly surprising that people that choose to spend a lot of time interacting via text vs. conversation (e.g. programming) could have sensory processing disorders. Research in auditory processing disorder is relatively young, but at least some cases can be objectively diagnosed with FFR https://journals.lww.com/thehearingjournal/FullText/2016/080...
It's also worth noting that auditory processing disorder is associated with autism spectrum disorder. I'm particularly interested in the various etiologies of autism, and whether the traits of 'minor' autism are well explained by simple sensory or sensory-processing disorders.
That’s really interesting. I definitely always had problems with understanding people in noisy environments so I often avoid them. I once went to an audiologist and based on the measurements my hearing is way above average. But I still have trouble listening to people.
I haven’t been to malls in a while, so maybe it’s done stateside too, but some overseas malls go the extra effort and make sure they pump it up to 11 (as if at a bar after hours) It's as if they’re trying to drive traffic out of their stores instead of trying to keep them in.
They're not trying to drive traffic out, they're trying to discourage loitering. If you're there to buy something you're likely to just go in and buy it despite the problem. And if you're on the fence, you're likely to just make a hasty decision instead of considering it if it's too loud to avoid.
The big impediment though, is loiterers. If there is a problem with people loitering in or in front of your store that tends to drive away more people than the music will.
eg if I'm going to the mall to buy a shirt, I'm not really interested in how many "loiterers" are in the store browsing, I just want to go in and buy a shirt.
If the music's offensive then I'm not going in at all.
I'm sure they've done studies and focus groups and whatever, it's just odd to me that even with all the comments here to the contrary, businesses still think they're going to make more by making their stores unpleasant to go into.
I have quite a bit of discretionary income so I would have thought I'd be a desired customer, but malls are so unpleasant that I do almost all of my buying online.
Depends. Some places just like it, but a lot of it is to shoo loiterers away.
>eg if I'm going to the mall to buy a shirt, I'm not really interested in how many "loiterers" are in the store browsing, I just want to go in and buy a shirt.
You're not thinking like a status conscious retailer. Some retailers prefer to not have people of certain races be seen associated with their brands. Their target market will be disinclined from shopping there.
Also, in many cases loiterers actually just intimidate people.
I'm put off going in a place if there are people hanging around outside. I guess it's the subconscious thought that I also have to meet them going out and face their silent judgement. It's not rational, but little is in non-B2B business.
It actually makes me sad to see great music used as a tool for coercion, but I get why it happens.
Classical music is actually really mentally engaging. I've tried listening to stuff like Brahms or Gershwin while working and it's kind of hard. Chamber music is designed to be kind of ambient and inoffensively bland, but most of what's on a classical album just engages your brain too much to let you focus on what you're doing. Even if people don't realize that's what they're listening to, I can see how just being around it a lot can get agitating unless you can consciously tune it out.
Being stuck on the subway several times a week with 1 or more people playing bass dependent music/game audio through their phone speakers... shoot me now.
I think it shows the motivation of the business. They're creating an area of easy conversation, not concentration.
By having something similar to the volume of conversation, you make conversation both "safe" and less distracting. Safe since speaking won't break some period of silence that is bound to happen. Breaking silence in a populated area requires a certain amount of social tension, "Why is everyone quiet? Will I bother people if I talk here?" etc. Less distracting since there is no period of silence for someone to break. The two people talking to each at a normal volume no longer become loudest thing in the room and the center of attention, they're just "lost in the noise". Many references can be found for these concepts, but I apologize for not providing them.
Sound masking would be more ideal for concentration, but I'm sure the regular Starbucks patrons would be a bit confused at constant "hoooshhhh" sounds of a noise generator.
You can find a few quiet coffee shops with very quiet music, but it's extremely awkward having a conversation in a place like this. I don't frequent these places with company.
>Sound masking would be more ideal for concentration, but I'm sure the regular Starbucks patrons would be a bit confused at constant "hoooshhhh" sounds of a noise generator.
Sound masking is very dubious with respect to the ADA - you're deliberately making it harder to understand speech, which has obvious implications for hearing-impaired guests or employees.
I notice this with some people in general, that seems to always want to pollute the air with words when sometimes, there is beauty in silence. And then I get called "quiet" for not doing the same. Ugh.
I know a few people that for some reason feel the need to narrate what I can see with my own eyes.
I love the click-baity videos that carefully spell out what you can plainly see on the screen.
Some people have a strong urge to socialize. I was on a long drive with one guy like that, there were four of us in the truck. He'd go for almost exactly 3 and a half minutes before he'd start talking, then get an "uh huh" response, and go awkwardly silent again. He was pretty consistent, this pattern repeated a good dozen times.
> In general I don’t understand why people think that it’s ok to pollute every bit of space with noise of their choice (aka music). I view it as a big nuisance.
I presume your comment was addressed to businesses, but I've noticed it for people as well; there seems to be a growing trend of believing that it's perfectly OK to listen to music, or watch TV, in public, without headphones, and without even a minimal attempt to lower the volume. I've noticed this increasingly over time in the US on trains and—this one really gets me—in the bathroom. (I suppose I can see watching a video in there, but without headphones?)
I think it's because the alternative is silence, which many merchants see as setting a scene that is low energy and makes people lonely -- the last thing a retailer wants.
Most retailers want to set a mood that attracts their target demographic groups. In some clothing stores that serve women age 30-40, they play pop music that was in vogue 10-15 years ago, when these customers were in their teens or twenties and had more youthful energy, knowing this music was a very big part of their lives.
It wouldn't surprise me if music were also intended by PR/marketing types to put these customers in the same frame of mind they were in when they were most socially vulnerable (their teens?), when fashion was a necessary way to become more popular... or less unpopular, anyway.
Hence the litany of companies advising/streaming music for businesses based on the ideas from those PR/marketing types. Creating playlists for consumer-driven companies to match their brand image, target audience, etc. Such as MoodMusic[1]
O/T but people do the same thing with light, as well. e.g. just had a nighttime flight (so they turn off the cabin lights) where the person diagonally in front of me blinded me with his 100% brightness screen for hours.
Couple that with the countless people using their phones at max brightness, and I would've just preferred keeping the cabin lights on.
I can't say why everyone does it but soft/moderate volume music does encourage people to talk to each other more. No one wants to break silence. People are more likely to talk when they think no one can hear them.
My wife managed a department at a craft store and one day their sound system broke. She said that was worse than the repetitive music. Retail spaces are not designed for good acoustics and that music really drowns out a lot of even more nuisance sounds.
I am never in a Starbucks for long enough to really notice the music. There usually isn't any place to sit, as the place seems to turn into an office or study space, with Macbooks (rarely something else) taking up nearly every seat.
My Starbucks has a large oval desk with a raised central oval with lots of plugs (as a kind of divider), very reminiscent of University. Not a coincidence. They also have some soft chairs, some standard cafe tables and chairs. A real mix. Designed for each person to find their place.
Shame it takes them 10 minutes to make an Americano: they're often very busy washing the sugary goop out of the blender containers...
I have never been the kind to want to work from a cafe, but I know plenty who do it. Fair enough. I'm more of the kind who wants to meet friends to have a conversation at a cafe, which we really can't do when the seats are gobbled up by people who are camped out there all day long. There are cafes where this doesn't happen, and they seem to be the ones without free wifi. I guess there's a market for each.
I hate Starbucks in America. Usually looks like a sh#tty library with people all on laptops. If you want to actually sit, drink coffee and talk there is no space for you. I never go as a result.
The music is also a factor of what the manager feels like playing. I know that sometimes they can change to a different station and change the volume, though they'll always claim they can't.
I've had to leave Starbucks on several occasions because the speakers were blaring. Other times the musical selection is the opposite of "easy listening", like you're working in a club or something.
I don't know about Starbucks but have you ever been to a Family Mart convenience store in Japan? I'm wondering how the music didn't drive the employees mad.
The Family Mart welcome song is probably the most recognizable but the same goes for stores like Bic Camera and many others.
But yeah, I feel for the retail employees in Japan. Several of the franchises and chains jingles really get to you after a while. I think Don Quixote and Lawson are worse, because they actually have vocals.
It's just on a completely different level. The same 45-something-seconds jingle on loop, perpetually 24/7, interspersed with ads.
Oh god. This. I work out of starbucks(prefer the white noise than my office) and the music is becoming so irritating now. The same small number of tracks on repeat the whole day.. everyday.
While I have nothing against coffee shop working (done it myself plenty) I respectfully submit that irritating worker-sitters is the actual reason for the repetition and irritation. They'd rather free up our seats.
I owned a Domino's and put up a LCD in the customer waiting area. I bought a BluRay player and a copy of Finding Nemo.
It took two shifts for me to fill a disc with <cough> backups <cough> of dozens of Disney/Pixar/etc movies. Once I broke 50 hours of video, I stopped being able to recite it at will.
We can hem and haw about piracy for personal use. But piracy and public playback of pirated media at a business you owned seems like a totally different beast to me.
I owned the blurays/dvd for everything I showed. I got the backups from the "usual places" because it was easier than ripping them myself. I had every single disc in the office.
This is a normal part of working retail.
I'll forever have Smooth by Carlos Santana and Rob Thomas etched into my memory from my time working at Blockbuster Video in the early 2000s
I worked at a movie theater and we were supposed to get a new CD every month from corporate to play in theaters before the movie started, but in the year or so I worked there it never changed. I don't remember all of them, but the ones I do remember are a cover of Convoy by Mannheim Steamroller, which is a godawful treacly piece of shit to begin with, and a cover of Girl You'll Be a Woman Soon by Urge Overkill, which I utterly loathe to this day.
This makes me think of Groundhog Day, and how brilliantly the film used the repetition of I've Got You Babe to show how the protagonist was going crazy.
Did MS actually do a cover of Convoy? The original "C.W. McCall" Convoy stems from the same people, but I didn't know they redid Convoy in the MS style.
The 1980s McCall-branded reunion album ("Comin' Back for More"?) is good.
I worked at Chick-fil-A in high school and experienced this but with Christian contemporary music. If I never hear "Jesus Take the Wheel" by Carrie Underwood again it will be too soon. I feel the same way about steel drums after a summer working at Bahama Breeze, a Caribbean themed Olive Garden.
I always feel so bad for people that work at Hobby Lobby, it's just nothing but the WORST elevator music versions of Christian shit. I give thanks everyday for the Michael's we got a few years ago, so much better in every single way. Every time I'm forced to go to Hobby Lobby when Michael's doesn't have what I need, I can't get out of there fast enough.
I wouldn't be surprised if the real goal was to make customers spend less time sitting around.
In the last year or two, I've noticed Panera has been playing godawful music that makes it nearly impossible to sit down, relax, and work on something.
It works of course, but now I just don't go at all.
Perhaps. I don't drink coffee, I liked their fruit smoothies, and bagels are bagels. The music used to be generic enough (probably something quiet and instrumental but I honestly cannot recall) that it was not something I registered, but more recently they've played loud country/pop (observed in both Massachusetts and Maryland) that I now avoid them.
In the specific case of Starbucks (at least in the US), the employees do have a bit of control over the music. They're able to curate a playlist of store "favorites" and are usually able to change the playlist from whatever's playing to the "favorites" playlist. The problem is not very many employees know about it, and it requires using a specific piece of hardware (an in-store iPod also used for inventory). They playlist will also switch roughly every 30 minutes or so, so they have to keep switching it back.
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[ 2189 ms ] story [ 963 ms ] threadI don't doubt that this is a problem, but this isn't a good look at it.
I imagine working in an environment where you hear the same music regardless would cause some pain if you focus on that aspect of your work environment.
Just imagine being alive in the 80s with muzak and really crappy jingles play
I worked in a chain supermarket in the 80s and to this day I know the words and melodies of all the hits of that decade, but not the names of the songs or the artists.
It was Russian Roulette with the revolver loaded when mom ask what music you want to listen to. You want audio arsenic or audio cyanide?
As much as I dislike their music choices usually, I kind of understand why they have it going. Though a redesign of their interiors could probably do a lot to help the empty echoey feeling without constant music.
https://coffitivity.com
https://rainymood.com
There are other sites that do a similar thing. This one just has a memorable name.
Anyhow, I used to go into the office and turn off the music at night. The silence you speak of was my entire excuse for turning it off: Corporate expected us to do things in the store at night, yet wait on customers like normal. The added benefit was that the store was sooo peaceful without the bad covers plus adverts they played on a loop.
The last 2 years before leaving the country, I worked nights. I had office keys and would turn off the music. You don't know proper peace at work until you've done a nice, quiet midnight shift. :)
Nowadays, I get irritated when I've burned through a 2 hour playlist twice at work and need to find something else to listen to, but I totally take the ability to change my music for granted.
Now after 20 years in Canada, I really miss it. Nothing here is the same as it is in the UK when it comes to Christmas traditions. There's no carolers, the smells aren't the same, the shops aren't the same. Everything that made Christmas Christmas to me is missing. For everything I love about living in Canada, that's been the hardest thing about living here instead of where I grew up.
I actually have a Christmas playlist made up entirely of Christmas songs from when I was a kid to try and kick start my Christmas mood when the season rolls around :D
Growing up in Canada, I thought carolers and olde-timey Christmas themes only happened in movies these days. Are these traditions still alive in the UK?
Another thing I struggled to find this year in my local area was midnight mass. This just doesn't seem to be a big thing here either. The best I could find was a 10pm mass, which just doesn't seem to cut the mustard... plus what's with the singing carols to the wrong tunes?
https://youtu.be/JlBnLlKPPGA?t=11
Speaking more broadly, there has been an effort in many rural areas to maintain and revive particular local cultural traditions. Perhaps the most spectacular such tradition is the tar barrels in Ottery St Mary[1], but I'm also rather fond of the Royal Ashborne Shrovetide Football game[2] and the multitude of mumming and wassailing traditions[3].
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8-0wQmPeMg
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uV1zrZFzZo
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEDaRQO5Utk
and the Shrovetide Football with only 1 rule?! :'D That's insane!
Only in England! I miss you guys :D
Grab a couple of neighbors and go caroling yourself. In my experience it can snowball quite rapidly if somebody actually gets it rolling...
Playing christmas music is surely the quickest way to drive me away from your store.
They did not like this. For whatever reason, which they refused to explain to me, they insisted I played their stupid mix that had been playing for months. As I was given no good reason, and was paid minimum wage, I just kept doing my thing and playing newer and better music.
One day I showed up and they had duct-taped the lid of the CD tray to the stereo so no one could open it with a note in all caps saying "DO NOT CHANGE THE CD IN THIS STEREO". I promptly went to the hardware aisle, got a box cutter, and sliced that son'bitch open, this time chucking their CD in the garbage, and continued on being DJ.
They gave up after that. lol And surprisingly they didn't fire me, even though they could have easily replaced me with some younger kid who would have done whatever they wanted.
But I quit soon after since the holidays had come and I knew I was going to have to play "Jingle Bells Rock" a thousand times, and I knew I couldn't really get out of that.
When my boss asked me why I was quitting, I said "I found a better job."
Could licensing have been the reason? Not sure about the US, but in Europe, you frequently need a separate license to play songs in stores, bars or really any kind of public venue. I imagine this is probably even stricted in the US. So the crappy mix might have been the only thing they had bothered buying licenses for - and they might have been afraid to get sued when playing anything else.
I still can feel the pain though, and I have no idea why the bosses didn't even bother to give a reason. So I guess quitting was the best thing to do.
Maybe if I like 'x' brand, I'll also enjoy their store playlist... could be the key to finding lots of great music.
It actually is. My wife has the sort of job where she spends a lot of time in high-end retail stores, and at that level the music is very important so she's very aware of it.
It's not just selecting the right music, but making sure your company isn't playing the same songs as the competition.
CBS Sunday Morning had a nice long piece about this last year.
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/02/st...
Because why would you empower someone to fix problems, when you can give them just enough authority to act as a glorified day care overseer and only pay them a couple bucks more than their employees?
My main boss was pretty miserable but loved ordering people around like he was the king. He once tried to convince me to go to a conference about cell phones, on my own time and my own money, because... I don't know, I guess he thought I needed to know more about the devices I was selling. I never had problems selling phones to people or helping people with issues, so of course I didn't do it.
Reminds me of working in a big box electronics store during college. One day I answer the phone and the line sounds dead, but I say "hello" a few times and a woman finally acknowledges me and then goes on a long rant about what the world is coming to and she can't believe it. She eventually gets to her relevant question and I answer it. I didn't think too much of it because strange interactions with customers aren't all that rare.
A few hours later I answer another call and it's a teenage boy and he's just laughing but quickly acknowledges me and we sort out his problem. Again, didn't really think too much of it.
The third call I got was from the store manager. "Oh my god. What is going on over there?" "What do you mean?" "Nevermind, go check the hold music CD and change it to something else. Anything else." "Was that it?" "Ya". I go change the CD and carry on.
About an hour later the night shift restock crew comes in. A few minutes later one of them comes out and asks me if I had seen a CD he left in the warehouse CD player last night. My eyes open like I've seen a ghost and he's like, "What?"
The thing you have to know is that the night crew are all West African and they listen to the most hardcore gangster rap you've ever heard in your motherfucking life. The warehouse stereo he's talking about is actually for the store's PBX (phone system). It was in the back warehouse and there was a small bookshelf stereo system next to it with a CD player that was on loop to feed the hold music into the phone system.
After the store closes and the phones stop ringing, the night crew switches the CD to their music. Apparently someone had turned the volume down to take a phone call so they forgot that CD was still in the transport. The amp volume doesn't affect the line out volume so it was still feeding the phone system.
We laughed. Oh, we laughed so hard. Then I paged all the other employees over and told the story and they laughed too. The assistant manager laughed the hardest, then he went and called the store manager. He already knew of course.
The warehouse crew was no longer allowed to use the hold music stereo.
No one ever noticed except for us employees, and it was so, soooo much better than hours of the same five songs on repeat.
But what I find interesting is back then you just put up with it. Awful repetition was just an accepted part of a minimum wage job then. Nowadays, we question everything. I do think our questioning is a good thing though.
Note: I then got Gold/Platinum ranking, started boarding sooner, and so got exposed to the music even more!
Note 2: International flights have much longer boarding periods and usually large plans, so the time intro music is played is long.
I've a lot of sympathy for retail people since then.
This movie was ahead of it's time. :)
They had the same 6 songs playing on repeat all damn day, every single day. It was tortuous.
That was the second worst thing about that place. The first being the hourly spray of chemical fumes everywhere for their signature smell.
I know that I am weird but this makes me just want to run away,.
They want mindless binge drinkers, not talkers.
It's weird because I feel I'd drink more when I'm comfortable, with music audible but not loud enough to drown out conversation or be too offensive.
I'm friends with a lot of bar owners, and have had a few bars in the family in the past.
Owners don't want someone getting plastered. We want the high functioning alcoholic who orders 3 pints to his partner's 1 and draws his friends to come to the pub with him every night or two.
They might actually be the least efficient retail or service venue for achieving that purpose.
For 30$, you can make yourself enough very nice booze, flavoured to your tastes, as you would be able to get for $300 or so at a bar.
As for the direct question: different bars have different purposes, which is why there are so many different types.
Bars in the financial district are often vehicles to waste money as a social display. Bars in the artistic sector are often vehicles to meet likeminded poor, but cool, artists and misfits. Bars in residential areas are normally places to relax and have a few pints. Bars in the nightlife areas are normally places to meet people. Some bars have good food. Some bars have cheap drinks. Some bars have great music. Some bars have familiar staff.
There's a bar near where I used to live that offers manicures, male model servers and foot rubs. A few streets down is a sports bar which seems to employ exceptionally chesty waitresses. As you might imagine, the target demographic for each is different.
It's not terribly surprising that people that choose to spend a lot of time interacting via text vs. conversation (e.g. programming) could have sensory processing disorders. Research in auditory processing disorder is relatively young, but at least some cases can be objectively diagnosed with FFR https://journals.lww.com/thehearingjournal/FullText/2016/080...
If you have difficulties understanding speech, it's worth talking to an audiologist; you can effectively train for this! https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29056453
It's also worth noting that auditory processing disorder is associated with autism spectrum disorder. I'm particularly interested in the various etiologies of autism, and whether the traits of 'minor' autism are well explained by simple sensory or sensory-processing disorders.
As I was trying to scream in my friends ear, I looked around, just drunk. No one there was exchanging ideas.
Obviously not all places are like this, but I didn't need to go back there.
The big impediment though, is loiterers. If there is a problem with people loitering in or in front of your store that tends to drive away more people than the music will.
eg if I'm going to the mall to buy a shirt, I'm not really interested in how many "loiterers" are in the store browsing, I just want to go in and buy a shirt.
If the music's offensive then I'm not going in at all.
I'm sure they've done studies and focus groups and whatever, it's just odd to me that even with all the comments here to the contrary, businesses still think they're going to make more by making their stores unpleasant to go into.
I have quite a bit of discretionary income so I would have thought I'd be a desired customer, but malls are so unpleasant that I do almost all of my buying online.
Depends. Some places just like it, but a lot of it is to shoo loiterers away.
>eg if I'm going to the mall to buy a shirt, I'm not really interested in how many "loiterers" are in the store browsing, I just want to go in and buy a shirt.
You're not thinking like a status conscious retailer. Some retailers prefer to not have people of certain races be seen associated with their brands. Their target market will be disinclined from shopping there.
Also, in many cases loiterers actually just intimidate people.
Classical music is actually really mentally engaging. I've tried listening to stuff like Brahms or Gershwin while working and it's kind of hard. Chamber music is designed to be kind of ambient and inoffensively bland, but most of what's on a classical album just engages your brain too much to let you focus on what you're doing. Even if people don't realize that's what they're listening to, I can see how just being around it a lot can get agitating unless you can consciously tune it out.
By having something similar to the volume of conversation, you make conversation both "safe" and less distracting. Safe since speaking won't break some period of silence that is bound to happen. Breaking silence in a populated area requires a certain amount of social tension, "Why is everyone quiet? Will I bother people if I talk here?" etc. Less distracting since there is no period of silence for someone to break. The two people talking to each at a normal volume no longer become loudest thing in the room and the center of attention, they're just "lost in the noise". Many references can be found for these concepts, but I apologize for not providing them.
Sound masking would be more ideal for concentration, but I'm sure the regular Starbucks patrons would be a bit confused at constant "hoooshhhh" sounds of a noise generator.
You can find a few quiet coffee shops with very quiet music, but it's extremely awkward having a conversation in a place like this. I don't frequent these places with company.
Sound masking is very dubious with respect to the ADA - you're deliberately making it harder to understand speech, which has obvious implications for hearing-impaired guests or employees.
I know a few people that for some reason feel the need to narrate what I can see with my own eyes.
Some people have a strong urge to socialize. I was on a long drive with one guy like that, there were four of us in the truck. He'd go for almost exactly 3 and a half minutes before he'd start talking, then get an "uh huh" response, and go awkwardly silent again. He was pretty consistent, this pattern repeated a good dozen times.
Don't forget about the Nostalgia Critic-style "review" videos that are actually just an extended summary of the source material.
― Sathya Sai Baba
I presume your comment was addressed to businesses, but I've noticed it for people as well; there seems to be a growing trend of believing that it's perfectly OK to listen to music, or watch TV, in public, without headphones, and without even a minimal attempt to lower the volume. I've noticed this increasingly over time in the US on trains and—this one really gets me—in the bathroom. (I suppose I can see watching a video in there, but without headphones?)
Those bloody bluetooth speakers are too cheap. It's so rude IMO to force everyone to be subjected to your noise.
Most retailers want to set a mood that attracts their target demographic groups. In some clothing stores that serve women age 30-40, they play pop music that was in vogue 10-15 years ago, when these customers were in their teens or twenties and had more youthful energy, knowing this music was a very big part of their lives.
It wouldn't surprise me if music were also intended by PR/marketing types to put these customers in the same frame of mind they were in when they were most socially vulnerable (their teens?), when fashion was a necessary way to become more popular... or less unpopular, anyway.
[1] https://us.moodmedia.com/custom-music-business/
Couple that with the countless people using their phones at max brightness, and I would've just preferred keeping the cabin lights on.
What's wrong with a bit of quiet reflection?
Shame it takes them 10 minutes to make an Americano: they're often very busy washing the sugary goop out of the blender containers...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place
I've had to leave Starbucks on several occasions because the speakers were blaring. Other times the musical selection is the opposite of "easy listening", like you're working in a club or something.
The Family Mart welcome song is probably the most recognizable but the same goes for stores like Bic Camera and many others.
But yeah, I feel for the retail employees in Japan. Several of the franchises and chains jingles really get to you after a while. I think Don Quixote and Lawson are worse, because they actually have vocals.
It's just on a completely different level. The same 45-something-seconds jingle on loop, perpetually 24/7, interspersed with ads.
Don don don, donki, don quijote...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJyYrrDKYZE (Don Quijote)
Kamera wa yodobashi kamera!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4QSu1ZHunw (Yodobashi Camera)
How do marketers come up with such reliably earwormy stuff? Are there papers I can go read about this?
It took two shifts for me to fill a disc with <cough> backups <cough> of dozens of Disney/Pixar/etc movies. Once I broke 50 hours of video, I stopped being able to recite it at will.
This makes me think of Groundhog Day, and how brilliantly the film used the repetition of I've Got You Babe to show how the protagonist was going crazy.
The 1980s McCall-branded reunion album ("Comin' Back for More"?) is good.
In the last year or two, I've noticed Panera has been playing godawful music that makes it nearly impossible to sit down, relax, and work on something.
It works of course, but now I just don't go at all.
SF at 4th and King was the lone exception.