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RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper!
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RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: kendall Date: 13 Feb 01 - 03:36 PM Let me try to explain.. I would be glad to avoid places that play annoying muzak. Problem is, they play the same shit EVERYWHERE! You cant get clear of it. I dont care who owns the store, if he wants my business, he had better be willing to at least compromise. (Turn it down, if not off). I would never play my music in public, and I really resent those who do. I must shop for groceries, but, every store has the same thing in muzak, it reminds me of that Hollering Contest in, I think, Tennessee. My motto: If you cant improve on silence, shut up. |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: Hollowfox Date: 13 Feb 01 - 03:33 PM It can be amusing, occasionally. I was having a working lunch with about half a dozen ladies, in a fairly upscale restaurant. The background music was light-weight sorta-Celtic, and nobody was paying attention to it until I said, "Who would have ever thought that people would pay this much to eat while being seranaded by bagpipes?" I agree about sensory overload, though. And I've found that if I'm lucky, I can sit under the TVs in a waiting room, or at least with my back to them, so the flickering screen doesn't distract me from my reading, or whatever else I'd rather have in my brain. |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: Jon Freeman Date: 13 Feb 01 - 03:27 PM As a general rule, background music doesn't really bother me and I don't think that the owner of an establishment should be criticissed for playing music he/she likes. I can appreciate that background music can form part of the experience of going out for a meal, etc. but as with the food itself, if you don't like it, you are better off going elsewhere. Music in supermarkets has been mentioned and I find that slightly more worrying as I believe that music is used to some degree to control the flow of customers - you want the customers lingering and lookimg around, play something slow - you want them out because the store is going to close, play something quick... at least that's the theory. Jon
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: Bardford Date: 13 Feb 01 - 03:03 PM I'm with you on this one, Peter T. At a local gas station there is a speaker right in the gas pump/console/thingy that blasts not-my-choice-of-radio-station right in the ear as I pump the gas. I asked the clerk if there was anyway I could turn it off while pumping gas. Nope. I told him I wouldn't be buying my gas there anymore. You know what he said? "Okay." That's what he said. And, hey, Carole C., this happened in Canada. Noise is everywhere. And it's mediated through wire. Bardford |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: Ebbie Date: 13 Feb 01 - 02:20 PM I've been making the point for some time that just as a couple of hundred years ago, in the days before sanitation systems, the 'elite' classes carried nosegays in the street to block out the odors, today people are trying to block out extraneous sound. I think it does have to do with overload. Soon we will all have our ears plugged into the sound we want at the same time that establishments, buses and subway systems assail the unprotected with the sounds they want. It's like going in and out of stores in a t-shirt in the middle of a blizzard. And I will never understand the need for a Walkman in the forest. Ebbie |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: GUEST,Melani Date: 13 Feb 01 - 02:02 PM I live in a very noisy environment at home, so I can tune things out very easily. Every now and then, I hear something really nice being played as background music. But volume can be very important. I heard Luka Bloom on the radio, loved his guitar playing, and was very excited to have tickets to see him live. To my extreme dismay, the volume was so loud that I had to spend the whole concert with my fingers in my ears to screen out the bass, just so I could hear the melody at all. Even worse, the opening act was group called the Bedlam Rovers, who were even louder. I hated it and thought they were dreadful. A week later I was in a bookstore where they were playing a tape of really great Celtic music at normal volume. When I asked with enthusiasm what group it was, I was told, "The Bedlam Rovers." |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: catspaw49 Date: 13 Feb 01 - 02:01 PM ...........on the other hand, I do like jazz, but like I said in my post back up there, it really doesn't matter what it is.....just turn it off. Spaw |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: Pseudolus Date: 13 Feb 01 - 02:01 PM I'm really confused. Who determines "crappy"? And are you forcing your musical tastes on someone if you play music you like, in a public place, that YOU own, where customers are free to come and go as they please? I will leave a store, restaurant, or mall if the music is too loud or truly distasteful to me but if these places would only be allowed to play music that I think isn't "crappy" then am I not forcing MY musical tastes on them? BTW, I'm not trying to start an argument with this post, just trying to understand your point of view..... Frank |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: catspaw49 Date: 13 Feb 01 - 02:00 PM Kendall, that's exactly my point and I'm glad to have heard you say it. I feel as though I am being a real cretin, but I don't want an accompaniment to everything!!!! Can we be cretins together? Spaw |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: kendall Date: 13 Feb 01 - 01:33 PM This is one of my most peevy pet peeves. I've tried different approaches to the management..the one that works best is: "Would you please turn that racket down while I'm here"? sometimes I add, "It is not soothing to me..it is an intolerable annoyance, and it makes me want to break things or, hurt someone." They will turn it down if you ask. Usually. I had dinner at Jeds Restaurant in Belfast last Saturday. The only one in the dining room, silence. I thought, "Great, a quiet dinner." Next thing I knew there was a loudmouth waitress going full speed, saying nothing. That was bad enough, but, the manager turned up the radio. Jazz and commercials. I complained, but, he was locked into this robotic thinking. I paid and was leaving, he asked how everything was, and, I told him, "Fine except for the muzak" I dont (like jazz) He said "Everyone has to have music." I asked "Why"? he looked at me with a blank look and I left. Where the hell do they get the right to force their lousy taste in music on me? My favorite restaurant has muzak, that screeching kind. In spite of requests to turn it down, they are too locked in, so, I take my walkman with me. I've reached the age where I will not put up with that kind of crap. Well, you said, rant |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: Homeless Date: 13 Feb 01 - 01:32 PM Be happy if you have only background music. My ex and I once got tickets well in advance for a ritzy wine tasting. When we got there they had music playing so loud that we could not stand next to each other across the room from a boom box and hear one another talk. Twice we asked them to turn it down, which they did - barely enough to notice the volume change. The third time we asked for our money back and left. Other places we've been we have asked to have the music turned down and someone in authority has been willing to do so. Research may show that people spend more if music is playing, but a customer saying they'll walk out if the music isn't changed has a lot of weight to those in charge. What bothers me even more than background music tho is the sudden proliferation of television sets blaring in all places - fast food joints, hospital waiting rooms, division of motor vehicles, mall rest areas, department stores. How do people keep from having sensory overload? |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: MMario Date: 13 Feb 01 - 01:04 PM Jande - those aren't just "hothouse" tomatoes - those are "factory" tomatoes. Hothouse tomatoes can be pretty da*n good, in fact - ours were usually better in flavour and texture then our field grown tomatoes -we had better control over water, temperature and insects. 'Course we also let them ripen FULLY on the vine. very few companies producing tomatoes for market do that. |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: Shall Date: 13 Feb 01 - 12:59 PM I was at the dentist early this morning,playing in the Lobby, soft rock, not bad, Sting, Crosby, Stills and Nash. The computer screensaver in my room was playing the theme song from WVU along with new age background guitar music accompaning a lovely video of the WVU campus.At the other end of the office I could hear Nat King Cole singing Unforgettable. Glad my visit was not complicated by "The Buzz of the Drill". I left the office singing "You can't always get what you want......." |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: Jande Date: 13 Feb 01 - 12:49 PM OOps! Forgot to put in the tag after background. sorry! But I also wanted to say that this reminds me of hothouse tomatoes. The kind you purchase in the regular gocery stores. They look like pink golf balls and taste pretty much the same, like pink golf balls. I was raised on those things. I din't like 'em much at all, but I thought they were *tomatoes*! Until, at the age of 18 someone gave me a tomato from their garden. I never looked back. :`) What I'm getting at is that people are raised to accept a certain thing as if it were real when it isn't. Music is like that. People aren't born insensitive. They are molded that way by their parents, schools, The Media, etc.
I used to think I was *strange* (well, I am, but not for being normally sensitive)
~ Jande |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: catspaw49 Date: 13 Feb 01 - 12:45 PM I'm a cretin......I admit it. I couldn't tell you what any store or restaurant plays. I just don't pay attention to it. Loud bothers me because its an aggravation, even things I like. It doesn't matter what is on if it isn't getting through. Besides, White Castle doesn't have much atmosphere anyway. Truthfully, I don't play the radio in the car or much here at home and when I put on a CD or tape, I focus on it and don't do anything else. I rarely play anything around home just for background. When I wash the dishes I occasionally put on a favorite CD to sing along with, but I never do when I cook. Anything that requires the least bit of thought or creativity, I kill background music. Like I said, I'm a cretin who can't walk and chew gum at the same time. I've had the Muzak stuff tuned out so long I have no idea who uses it. The phone hold things are beginning to reach the same "tuned-out" level and I'm grateful to my pissant mind that it has made the adjustment. Spaw |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: LR Mole Date: 13 Feb 01 - 12:32 PM Styrophone? For light music lovers? |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: Jande Date: 13 Feb 01 - 12:18 PM I can't agree more with you Peter! Beethoven's 7th as background music??? I coudn't even concentrate on the menu, let alone *eat* anything. I've never been able to mix my passions. ::grin:: But Lord, how I dislike that constant noise pollution. Down here in NY state they have piped-in crappy music and _advertising_ in some places where you get gas for your vehicle. Carol, I do hope Canada stays free of that sort of thing! (but I don't feel hopeful that it will) Orwell was right on so many counts that it really worries me sometimes. I guess the only thing we can do is keep making the good music and making it available for people whenever we can, eh? Draw them out into the streets if we must, heheh... ~ Jande |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: Morticia Date: 13 Feb 01 - 12:15 PM I've always wondered where they churn the wretched stuff out? My pet peeve at the moment is the music played whilst you are put on 'hold'.....twice today I got the same piece of tinkly, tuneless crapola.....from two different places.Did they bring the 'stylophone' out of retirement for this stuff? |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: Mrrzy Date: 13 Feb 01 - 12:14 PM And I thought this was going to be a computer thread! I have wallpaper on mine that talks, and a screen saver that plays the airport scene from Casablanca, and people are forever closing my door. I've had to turn the volume way way down to avoid bothering people, which is after all not the intent, I just like that movie! But back to the thread. It bothers me if they are playing music I don't like in a store. It bothers me if they are playing music I do like, and interrupt it for announcements. They can't win. Unfortunately, there are scores upon scores of data that indicate that shoppers BUY MORE if there is music than if there isn't. We do not a population make, in other words, unfortunately! |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: CarolC Date: 13 Feb 01 - 12:01 PM In the grocery stores near where I live (Shepherdstown WV, USA), they pipe in country music. It makes going to the grocery store an ordeal. I was just wondering whether or not the music in the grocery stores here in Orillia, Ontario, Canada has been bothersome to me. I realized that I can't remember hearing any music being piped into the stores here. This is a great country. Carol |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: LR Mole Date: 13 Feb 01 - 11:48 AM Well, I seem to be able to ignore most of it. I can't abide genre fascism: there's a record store near me that ALWAYS has reggae on. Out of some interest/assumption of its merit/guilt, I try to listen and appreciate it, only to go through fading enjoyment to irritation. The same would probably happen to me with (gasp) bluegrass, which after 100 measures all sounds like deedle-deedle-deedle. Taste and choice are owned. Exploration is good.Down with eyrrany! (Did I just write a bumper sticker?) |
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Subject: RE: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: katlaughing Date: 13 Feb 01 - 11:26 AM Absolutely, Peter! What bothers me the most if the kids who have to have something on, no matter how crappy the music, just to have noise. Orwell was spot on! kat |
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Subject: RANT (Please join in):Musical Wallpaper! From: Peter T. Date: 13 Feb 01 - 11:24 AM I thought that this was a place where I could rant about this, feel good among the dwindling numbers of what I assume are sympathetic souls, and maybe achieve some group solidarity. I am now constantly finding myself in places -- including upscale restaurants -- where crappy music is being piped in, and when I ask them to turn it off or down they look at me as if I had woken them up out of a trance. I was in one elegant bar the other night, and the music was from a local crappy radio station, and no one seemed to notice. If I walked in there and started spraypainting the place, they would notice -- yet the music is like mental graffiti. Orwell, in his pre-1984 days, predicted that humankind would need to have piped in music to cope with the emptiness of modern life. Boy was he right. And they have no idea. Even when they play non-crappy music, they have no idea. People are playing Beethoven's 7th symphony as background dinner music! Anyone who has the slightest musical sensitivity has to be totally distracted -- it is like someone standing up in the middle of the restaurant and beginning to read War and Peace! My musical sensitivities may not be up to some Mudcatters, but it drives me crazy! I know, I know, this has been said a million times, and I have ranted about this before here too, but I felt I had to get it out of my system again. Thank you for your time. AAAAARRRGGGGGGGHHHHHH. yours, Peter T. |
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