I am currently reading David Toop’s Ocean of Sound. Toop speaks a little bit about Muzak, in relation to Brian Eno and various sci-fi books that predicted AI generated music and store bought Sound Sculptures. The commodification of Sound outside of music. It’s quite an interesting read. Alongside the Radio feature on Muzak I posted previously, I feel I may have enough content to research an essay based on Muzak. I am interested in how threads of background music exist in today’s society, where they exist and what their purpose serves. How has Muzak influenced our relationship with Music with advances in technology, streaming services and the commodification of genre in the 21st century. Whilst new forms of music continue to exist and develop, there is a certain self-awareness and conceptual element to pop music now. How does this effect our relationship with music? Playlists to a degree have always been around with Radio. In the early days of Muzak(the company), they would play music down peoples phone line’s on a monthly subscription fee. In Ocean Of Sound, Toop talks about the increasing fluidity of music. Playlist culture whilst to some degree has existed since Radio, extrapolates diverse ranges of genre & production technique into one linear experience and more than ever human’s listen to (or are exposed to) an increasingly varied array of music. I am interested in how that effects Muzak’s role in society, Shops have for some time played their own curated radio stations, so in essence the new Muzak is pop music. In some chains, the company purposefully uses playlists of pop music that is royalty free in order to save money. Not only has Muzak changed due to a shift in culture, but also it seems naive not to mention the acceleration of business and capitalism and how much these choices are effected by money. On Youtube, channels of ‘Lo-fi beats to study to’ receive millions of views and are in essence exactly what Muzak set out to do.
“Incidental Music”
Stimulus Progression, epitomises to some the troubling nature of Muzak’s practice. A program of recognizable covers will play for 15 minutes, with each piece, tempo will increase and the music will have a louder arrangement. The music would stop for 15 minutes to limit ear fatigue amongst workers and then another ‘stimulus progression’ selection of covers will play. There is something about the silence that strikes a covertness to this program, for the music to zone in and out and almost to try and not impose itself is an attempt for it to be absorbed subconsciously. In reference to Deep Listening, attempt to assert itself as a passive listening experience. The flip side to the criticisms of this style of programming is that these types of BPM oriented conversations for tracklisting are common place in club music an DJ sets. ‘Beat matching’ and tempo progression in a DJ sets are seen as part of the ride of being in that space, the only difference is you are there for the music and whilst you are subconsciously driven, it is a consensual experience.
I have ordered a copy of Joseph Lanza’s Elevator Music and will source that material alongside Toop’s, with reference to ‘The Day Muzak Died’. I am going to search for other sources that could give me insight into narrowing down my Abstract.
But here is an attempt at my Abstract today…
The Future of Muzak…
The concept of Background music hit mainstream society at the beginning of the 20th Century with the continued technological advances in recorded sound and radio. Muzak™ was a branded source of background music, played in supermarkets, elevators and the workspace. The goal? to encourage leisurely spending, fill awkward silences and boost worker efficiency. The music was designed to be a covert influencer, this arguably pervasive and manipulative concept is considered ‘anti-inspiration’ to many artists who have sought to change our relationship to sound (such as John Cage & Brian Eno) and is potentially inspired by Eric Satie’s Furniture Music, a series of pieces written to ‘not be listened to’. On one side Muzak is a cynical, crude, capitalist form of hypnotism, on the other a sound experiment in passive & active listening. In my essay I hope to outlay the historical impact of this industry on sound culture and what legacy it leaves in the soundscapes of our modern consumerist society.
-Whilst I like the jist of the vocabulary in this, upon considering what was spoken out in Milo’s class covering student’s abstract, this fits more of a Introduction than an abstract and should be a little more descriptive and to the point.
Here is an amended draft of my abstract which I will upload late, I am going to send this to my peer mentor for some feedback also.
“The concept of background music hit mainstream society at the beginning of the 20th century with the continued technological advances in recorded sound and radio. Muzak (and it’s competitors) was a branded source of background music played in supermarkets, elevators and the workspace. The intent? To encourage leisurely spending, fill awkward silences and boost worker efficiency. In this essay I will outlay a brief history of Muzak the company, its evolution and eventual downfall. I will then contemplate the historical impact Muzak had on sound culture in reference to Pauline Oliveros’ Deep Listening and finally, I will attempt to draw links to the way the philosophies of Muzak might subsist in today’s society; with AI automated playlists, the commodification of musical genre and modern day uses of ‘background music’ in the commercial setting.”
A really illuminating read on the history of commercial ‘environmental music’ in Japan and the seeds of influence Satie and Eno had on experimental electronic composers. There are some great sources I can site here for my article. https://www.vulture.com/2019/02/how-japanese-ambient-music-became-a-thing-in-america.html