like a fish needs a bicycle...

music/muzak

so i just heard this really interesting story on NPR about music and muzak being present in every public place in the western world. they were interviewing julian lloyd weber, who is the brother of the famous broadway producer, andrew lloyd weber. he's a musician, and he was talking about how some people in the UK (no idea who -- i think i missed that part) did a study and found out that people in heathrow airport actually don't like having music blasted at them over the airport speakers all the time. so they just stopped playing music there. it was amazing. julian just kept expressing, in his adorable british accent, his indignation and shock that everyone would think that there always has to be music playing everywhere ("why?! why do we need it?!").

i've personally wondered why there's always music playing everywhere too. it just seems so unnecessary. and it's an imposition -- what if that's not the kind of music i want to listen to? what if they kind of music i want to listen to is not the kind someone else wants to listen to? there's no possible way to please everyone when choosing music, so silence seems the best option.

of course, as i was mentally agreeing with julian, the president of the muzak corporation (or some similarly generically-named entity that distributes muzak) chimed in. (needless to say i have no recollection of his name, which is fine with me -- why anyone would make it their life's work to proliferate muzak is beyond me anyway). he was saying how in retail establishments that had no music playing, there was a "screaming silence." attempts at poetics notwithstanding, this seems a little silly to me. why is silence so freaking uncomfortable? why must there always be noise? is it because people will be forced to look at each other and converse with each other, or perhaps even be alone with their own thoughts? and more to the point, if there MUST be some auditory distraction everywhere you go, doesn't muzak seem the worst choice for performing that function? who decided that was a good idea?

as the conversation progressed, the host was talking about how they always play vivaldi in penn station in new york, and he played a sample of it on the air. at this point, some other british guy with a cute accent jumped in and started talking about how playing classical music in the london underground actually prevents vandalism. they found that vandals don't frequent the tube stops as much when there is classical music playing -- it's so bad it's a petty crime deterrent. isn't that interesting?

anyway, it was just a really interesting 5 minute segment and it reminded me of a lot of questions i've always had about the prevlaence, volume, and genre of the music that we are bombarded with everywhere. so i thought i'd share.