Here’s a post doing double-duty. First, the video of the day:
And now, a related rant, which I wrote back in April after visiting family in South Jersey, and running into the ShopRite in Mt. Laurel to pick up a few provisions.
Attention, ShopRite management: The Scorpions are a fine heavy metal group.* They are not a fine example of supermarket muzak. The same can be said for AC/DC, the Georgia Satellites, and Elvis Costello, all of whom I heard while making a quick expedition to one of your stores today. Regarding Mr. Costello, “Pump It Up” ** is one of the finest songs about masturbation ever written; for that same reason, it is also not a fine example of supermarket muzak.
Plus it’s insulting to the musicians. How must it feel to walk out of a recording studio knowing that your group just nailed the dirtiest, nastiest, rudest heavy metal song ever recorded in the history of man, and then 20 years later hear it on the speakers of a suburban supermarket walking down the frozen food aisle? Back when I was a kid, rock and roll was something hard and bracing with a veneer of still being slightly “underground” that you had to seek out; supermarket muzak was all syrupy strings and soothing melodies.
At some point in the mid-1990s, I guess, that all went out the window. Back in 2007, in a meditation on “Present-Tense Culture” and Alan Bloom’s The Closing Of The American Mind, Mark Steyn quoted Bloom’s statement that “It may well be that a society’s greatest madness seems normal to itself,” and added that in terms of music for public consumption, “We are all rockers now.” And when your local supermarket’s muzak is indistinguishable from your local Classic Rock FM station, despite having a much more diverse clientele, both statements are more true than ever:
Bloom is writing about rock music the way someone from the pre-rock generation experiences it. You’ve no interest in the stuff, you don’t buy the albums, you don’t tune to the radio stations, you would never knowingly seek out a rock and roll experience—and yet it’s all around you. You go to buy some socks, and it’s playing in the store. You get on the red eye to Heathrow, and they pump it into the cabin before you take off. I was filling up at a gas station the other day and I noticed that outside, at the pump, they now pipe pop music at you. This is one of the most constant forms of cultural dislocation anybody of the pre-Bloom generation faces: Most of us have prejudices: we may not like ballet or golf, but we don’t have to worry about going to the deli and ordering a ham on rye while some ninny in tights prances around us or a fellow in plus-fours tries to chip it out of the rough behind the salad bar. Yet, in the course of a day, any number of non-rock-related transactions are accompanied by rock music. I was at the airport last week, sitting at the gate, and over the transom some woman was singing about having two lovers and being very happy about it. And we all sat there as if it’s perfectly routine. To the pre-Bloom generation, it’s very weird—though, as he notes, “It may well be that a society’s greatest madness seems normal to itself.” Whether or not rock music is the soundtrack for the age that its more ambitious proponents tout it as, it’s a literal soundtrack: it’s like being in a movie with a really bad score. So Bloom’s not here to weigh the merit of the Beatles vs. Pink Floyd vs. Madonna vs. Niggaz with Attitude vs. Eminem vs. Green Day. They come and go, and there is no more dated sentence in Bloom’s book than the one where he gets specific and wonders whether Michael Jackson, Prince, or Boy George will take the place of Mick Jagger. But he’s not doing album reviews, he’s pondering the state of an entire society with a rock aesthetic.
Related to the notion of an entire society with a rock and roll aesthetic, a couple of years earlier, after hearing The Cars’ “Drive” on his local supermarket’s muzak, James Lileks wrote:
Not their best song, and I believe it was one of those “let the bassist get one out of his system” numbers. Still, this represented victory. In my skinny-tie days we had the conceit that our music stood in opposition to THE SYSTEM, whatever that was. The grocery stores played Muzak versions of songs that were muzak to begin with – I mean, you don’t truly understand the banality of the melody of “Horse with No Name” until it’s played by a string section. In retrospect I miss the Muzak; I really do. Part of me now wants a grocery store that’s brightly lit with big googie graphics and chipper music-to-seduce-Stepford-wives songs percolating away in the rafters. But that’s over; we won. There’s no alternative to the old alternatives anymore.
Or as Lileks wrote last year, “In fact if I managed a store today I’d play the old Muzak; some could enjoy it Ironically, others could enjoy it for what it was, cool and distant, a soundtrack of idle consumerism.”
Plus with the whole Mad Men early-’60s fad, it would seem pretty cool to shop in a store that looks like this — and sounds like it, too. Maybe it could be called…Samuel’s, to coin an upscale, yet retro brand name.
* I saw the Scorpions in concert at the Philadelphia Spectrum around 1985; my hearing finally returned at 3:27 PM on Tuesday of last week.
** My old rock group played “Pump It Up” once or twice back then; the chromatic main riff was certainly lots of fun to bash out. Before it become music to shop for Fresca.
About twenty-five years ago, I was in a K-Mart (I believe it was), when I heard a familiar tune (a Muzak-style instrumental) playing quietly in the background. I kid you not, but it was Frank Zappa’s “I’m the Slime (on the Video).”
Somebody was having a little fun with the mix, I think. =^[.]^=
My wife’s fond of pointing out that the Carnival Cruise lines commercial uses Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life” as a background. She tells me it’s about heroin addiction. You have to wonder what people are thinking, at times…
I was at a TJ Maxx a few years ago when the most insipid version of “Dancing With Myself” was played. It drove me out of the store. I dread going into Tuesday Morning stores. They have the worst Muzak ever. I long for silence.
Weirdest choice for the Muzak treatment I ever heard was “Golden Brown,” by the Stranglers. Mind you, the song’s very atypical for the Stranglers, being a seductive waltz, and made for really good Muzak. It’s just that it’s hard to imagine how the Muzak folks ever heard it in the first place.
Other weird commercial music choice: the late Nick Drake’s haunting “Pink Moon” in a Volkswagen commercial. “Pink Moon” is, literally, a curse against the listener. Think on it, and never climb into a VW again.
But I’m forced to admit that one of the reasons I favor the local Shoprite over my many other local supermarket choices is that they DO play lots of my favorite eighties music. Well, that and the good prices and convenient location. But the music does help!
My guess is that even if someone at Volkswagen or its ad agency read the lyrics, they failed to be intimidated by the curse. Warning people that a “pink moon” is “gonna get you all” is about as scary as warning them that “Barney the purple dinosaur” is “gonna get you all” would be.
IN 1995, I heard Siouxsie & the Banshees “O Baby” in Toys-R-Us. What a long strange trip it’s been.
In the mid 90s, standing in line at the bank, I heard EMI by the Sex Pistols, which includes the line: “Stupid fools who stand in line like EMI.” I will never be shocked again.
Another vote for The Strangler’s “Golden Brown” as fine Muzak–except I heard it in a Taco Bell in 1987 in a particularly unhip city. My own local ShopRite relies on a pretty neat mix of hit ’60s tunes and some fun obscurities.
I’ve been hearing a lot of muzak versions of Coldplay recently. It’s like the precise opposite of what you’re describing. I like to think of it as Muzak squared. I did also hear a muzak version of Sweet Child o’ Mine once though. With strings and orchestra. *shivers*
I think the wierdest for me was a muzak version of Devo’s “Working in a Coal Mine”.
I think they produced it themselves, an album called “Devo Muzak”
It gets worse.
Several years ago, I had some Mohs surgery on a suspect blemish. It is kind of different, because they keep taking tiny slices off you, look at them under a microscope, and see if they need to cut more. It seems a lot of bother, but my father was horribly disfigured by the old process, and nearly died doing reconstruction, so I think it’s cool.
Well, because you have all these slices and this looking, it can take a couple of hours in the waiting room between slices. The room is, of course, packed with old people. Not stylishly middle aged, OLD. And as a distraction, they are playing a movie on the TV. It is a modern movie, meaning every single word had at least one obscenity attached to it. In fact, it was possibly the most gratuitously dirty movie I had ever seen, including Buddy Hackett’s nightclub act.
So, I’m surrounded by sept, oct, and nonagenerians being screamed at by an unending stream of profanity, and I’m pretty embarrased. I spent my life on construction sites, so I’m no prude. And I know there were veterans there, who would have merely laughed if alone, but their wives were there. It was horrible.
When I finally saw the doctor for the next slice, I mentioned this to him. He said, “The girls just put on anything they like.” I told him that was just rude, and that he should set some standards for his office. He grunted, and did nothing about it. I never saw him again.
But my wife did. A few years later, she took care of him while he was dying of cancer. She told me he was not a nice man. Then she told me his name. She was right. Jerk.
It’s not freedom of speech. It’s freedom to offend. I never thought libs could tell the difference.
@John J, what the hell was that about, and what did it have to do with the article. Are you trolling, or do you just wander in and thread-jack discussions?
Anyhow, 10 yrs ago is about when I became distinctly aware that the music in stores was no longer the Muzak’d versions but the actual honest-to-fsm songs by the original artists. It was very strange at first hearing Pink Floyd in grocery store (“Money” of all songs).
But I’ll tell you, I don’t even notice anymore. It’s faded into the background just as Muzak did for me prior.
How right you are. For professionals like that doctor, “the girls” are in charge of just about everything except his actual diplomate skill: record-keeping, customer service, referrals, co-ordination with other practices, hospital scheduling. And they’re entirely on their own. The doctor doesn’t know a thing about running a small business, setting its tone, or leading its people. Things just…happen. The miracles of modern medicine (and its many levels of waiting rooms) are played against a backdrop of blathering nonsense about what the staff will do for dinner, the weekend, tonight’s TV lineup. Meanwhile, patients ponder their mortality.
Considering the leadership they get, “the girls” don’t do badly — but they have no frame of reference in these matters. Years ago, there was a level of prestige and professionalism attached to being a mere “medical receptionist,” even though they seldom had more than a first-rate high school education. Today’s staff are more educated, but inconsiderably more self-centered.
I now associate the Scopions’ “Rock You Like a Hurricane” with Thanksgiving because my husband and I heard it in the grocery store one night while doing the shopping for the big family Thanksgiving dinner (which is now at our house because we are the oldest ones who aren’t yet “too old” to cook it).
But I do have to say that sometimes I’m comforted, at the end of a long day, to hear a burst of Elvis Costello at the old supermarket. I guess it all evens out.
A few years ago, my nephew and I were shopping in a local Walmart. The piped in music was some crappy semi-rock, and it was a little loud for my (conservative) taste. When I complained, my nephew said: “You’re just mad because the Rat Pack broke up.”
(heavy sigh) For my sins, I temped long-term at a local Muzak affiliate, and got to know the repertoire and programs pretty well, at least as they were about 5 years ago. Their tentacles reach far and wide, and at last count, had about 95+ different programs of very carefully selected musical schemes, set to play in a wide number of very carefully designed programs . . . any sort of venue, mood, and atmosphere, Muzak could supply.
Yes, I worked for Muzak . . . and I also got let go by them, so it all worked out OK. It was a life-changing moment, since started writing historical fiction immediatly after upon being let go. The HR guy was freaked out about how cheerful I was at being fired. One of the things that I didn’t say was that I would not have to listen to that godawful music during all of my working day ever again.
Ha! Very funny. I love that story–particularly the last part about being glad about being let go.
I currently work at a university, but I have a shared office and someone at a nearby cubicle likes to listen to a station that plays a lot of 80s and 90s songs. When I first found that station (about 7 1/2 years ago), I thought it was really fun; it was sort of nostalgic but also a little unpredictable. I enjoyed listening to it in my car when I ran errands and things. Then about three years later, that colleague started working in my office and turning on that station every day. It is not loud, but I can still usually make it out. And after a few years of that, I must say that if someone told me when I was 21 that I’d be hearing some of the songs I liked at the time every day at work for several years, I don’t know what I would have thought.
I haven’t heard the old style muzak versions of anything in years. now every retailer I go into is playing the real version. The retailer I work at has (most of the year) 5 channels: new country, old country, recent pop, old pop/rock, and early 60s crap. Some real asshole of a manager keeps putting it on new country. It really f’in’ sucks to hear Taylor Swift every f’in’ third song. The classic pop/rock chan does have some decent music on it, including La Grange by ZZ Top. Not old school muzak instrumental. Its ZZ Top with Billy G singing about a certain historic brothel and all.
Taylor Swift sings country music like the old timers did. Songs she writes about her true life!
I hope this is the year she finishes junior high.
At about 2 a.m. in a nearly empty but very well lit all-night California supermarket, what should come on the Muzak but Nino Rota’s “Juliet’s Theme” from the Fellini film “Juliet of the Spirits.” Surreal but somehow appropriate. I expected Allen Ginsburg to pop up from nowhere and ask me about the pork chops.
I remember stopping, stunned, in my dinky neighborhood grocery store to listen to the Rolling Stones play “Brown Sugar”.
Half the clientele was black or hispanic.
I’ve heard it many times since. I don’t notice it anymore.
I once worked for a Muzak radio station: KWIZ, Santa Anna CA. Cira ’67. Late at night (2AM or so) I’d stop the regular mix machine and play a little Les Paul. Or something similarly avant guard. I was so good I had groupies (two). Really. I couldn’t believe it either since I was just the engineer keeping the machinery running. I never talked on the air. I just answered the phone.
I thought you were going to tell me you heard “Me So Horny” playing over the loud speakers.
And it wouldn’t shock me anymore…
“Bloom is writing about rock music the way someone from the pre-rock generation experiences it.”
You don’t have to be from the pre-rock generation to be obvlious to rock. You just have to have good taste.
I wonder if Tipper Gore ever thought that there would come a day when both Ozzy Osbourne and Judas Priest had songs used to advertise family minivans…
Ed, when I was in Columbia, SC, 1997-2002, and the Capital Cities baseball games they played YMCA. By the Village People. Yes, that song. This was an area that cancelled an Indiago Girls meet with high school students becAuse they’re lesbians. But people got I to that song, none moreso than Baptists groups (and these are Southern Baptists).
Yeah, that’s, um, well, I’ll leave that out there.
Hearing rock music everywhere you go is a perfect metaphor for the sell-out popular culture has become. Rock and roll was never meant to be listened to by parents, for Pete’s sake – it was meant as a form of rebellion by their amped-up, hormonal kids. The whole point of it is that your parents hated it when Elvis – or the Beatles, or the Stones, or Def Leopard, or Snoop – came on the radio. The dead-end kids who used to listen to the Stones were the ultimate outsiders; now they and the group have grown up and become establishment they once hated. The rebelliousness has become a gigantic pretense – U2 are supposed be some exemplar of living dangerously, but its all rubbish; they came to town on a private jet and after the show is over, eat at the finest five-star restaurant in town while discussing their investment profolios. Next week, they’ll drop in at the U.N. to talk about world hunger before having a $500/plate meal. Give me a break.
I’m old-enough to remember muzak, and I miss it when I go shopping at the grocery store, or – dare I say it – simple silence. I like a good rock song as much as the next bloke, but the idea that there’s virtually no public place around without it blasting away does only one thing – assure that I patronize these places as little as possible. There used to be times and places in our culture off-limits to commercialism, but no more. That’s both a pity and tremendously frustrating at the same time. Just another indication that our culture is headed in the wrong direction.
Tonight at the grocery store I heard Cindy Lauper’s “She Bop”. Not the Muzak version.
Heh. I remember walking into the Vallco Sears about 1979 and hearing “Frank Mills” from “Hair” on the Muzac.
Might as well get used to it Ed.
Having lunch in an IHOP a couple weeks ago in suburban DC…
XTC’s “Making Plans for Nigel”
and then at the mall, “Counting Out Time” from Genesis, which I’ve never even heard on the radio in 30-odd years.
It must have been over 20 years ago in a supermarket – the Muzak was “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”.
I once worked at an Italian restaurant which, at least daily, played the muzak version of Lou Reed’s Walk on the Wild Side. At least is was in Italian, which almost kind of made it a little bit okay…or not.