Shop workers demand Xmas muzak compensation

ananova ^ | 11:23 Wednesday 3rd December 2003 | no byline

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

Here! (brass fanfare warning)

Click here, just in case you wear out your parachute pants.....

[Mamzelle]

Psychological terror, eh? This guy must hang around Books a Million, too. They have the most appalling music of any store I've ever been in...

[weegee]

As opposed to the other eleven months when they are subjected to around the clock repeats of Nancy Sinatra's Sugartown and Barbra(sic) Streisand's recordings?

I'll bet that the increased crowds also irk these salespeople but that wouldn't make a good bargaining point for the Union... "I want you to post someone at the door and only allow 2 customers in the shop at a time!".

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

By the way, if you're ever in the neighborhood, you really should check this out: John Philip Sousa Archives - with lots of obscure instruments built for the Sousa band era

[weegee]

I make my own Christmas compilation tapes at times and listen to those every year. There are more than just the basic 20 or so Christmas songs that get repeated ad nauseum just as there are more than the 20 or so "current" rock songs that get repeated ad naseum on radio and tv.

Best time to stock up on Christmas CDs is the week after Christmas. Price may be dropped up to 33%. After Christmas, the albums are stored away until next year. I may be buying my CDs a year early but they can always be played next year and I am not buying "dated" recordings that will go out of fashion within a year.

[Lady Composer]

LOL! I have worked jobs listening to "101 Strings" playing The Chipmunk Song and the like! "A Crumhorn Christmas". I love it! How about "A Schaum Christmas"!!? Incidently, I happen to be nerdy enough to own and PLAY all of the recorders!

[weegee]

"Muzak" is sometimes used as a generic term but there is a real company. I've even seen the van driving around in traffic from time to time.

I've got a book on the history of the company (that I got from a library book sale) but I haven't read it.

I don't think that they use subliminal messages in the recordings to get people to buy but there is psychological theory behind the recordings just as there is psychological theory behind painting a dining room's wall's green or the color selected for a waiting room.

Some "anxiety" in the music may be good for keeping shoppers moving (but that can become irritating when a shopper is stuck in a checkout line for over an hour).

Other recordings may be used to make the shoppers sentimental (open the wallet). Then again if one is sentimental for how things were (nostalgia) they may walk away empty handed/with regret seeing nothing but newfangled crap and at today's prices.

I'm listening to Christmas music when I can find one of my tapes or CDs because it just seems so inappropriate to listen to these recordings out of season.

[Jim Cane]

How about "A Schaum Christmas"!!? Incidently, I happen to be nerdy enough to own and PLAY all of the recorders!

A guy in my "band" just bought a wood job with which to cue a couple of a capella angels singing "Oh Come, O Come Emmanuel". He spends half the play trying to keep the thing warm so that it's in key, which is ironic since the singers are already off in microtoneland by the time they sing "come".

Oh God, it hurts, it hurts...

[weegee]

101 Strings was just a label name for recordings made by different studio musicians. There were some psychedelic recordings made in the 1960s that collectors look for (but those albums mix genuine "strings" cuts with the jam band).

Slightly off topic, there were all sorts of musicians who worked as studio musicians (Glenn Campbell recorded hundreds of surf songs if I recall and Jimmy Page recorded for many bands before getting his own). Even the jazz band Sun Ra Arkestra recorded a "Batman" record under the "Surf Guitars of Dan and Dale" front name (they are not on the other "Dan and Dale" records).

[E Rocc]

I'd say replace it with Mr Hankey's Christmas Classics o((:D)( )( )( )( )>

-Eric

[MEGoody]

"the "psychological terror" of being subjected to hours of piped Christmas music."

I know how to fix this. Give them more to do. Then they won't have time to worry about what music is being played. It will just kind of fade into the background.

[LizardQueen]

This reminds me of what went on up here one year. On Burlington's Church street marketplace they had one store that had singing Chipmunks (a la Alvin and the Chipmunks) in the window, with Alvin's Christmas Album chipmunk music piped through the speakers in front of the store at about 120 decibels.

It drove the street cart vendors in a 2 block radius NUTS. And it didn't impress the shoppers much, either. There were so many complaints that they eventually had to ban loud singing rodents from the Christmas displays.

LQ

[Lady Composer]

Probably caused a huge surge in online shopping!

[nuconvert]

LoL. Thanks.

[wideminded]

"Muzak" is sometimes used as a generic term but there is a real company.

I have read that Muzak company was originally conceived as a patented way to pipe music through the power lines in a building. This gave them a lock on the business when many buildings did not have lines set aside for music.

It seems likely that most Christmas music played in stores is not official Muzak, but whatever can be put together for the minimum royalty payment. Perhaps the music is successful at getting the large majority of sheeple to buy more at the expense of annoying the rest.

The other day in the grocery store I noticed that they were playing Michael Jackson.

I've got a book on the history of the company (that I got from a library book sale)

I'm a big fan of library book sales. There's a lot of junk but a few gems that you might never have picked up at the original price.

[wideminded]

On Burlington's Church street marketplace they had one store that had singing Chipmunks (a la Alvin and the Chipmunks) in the window, with Alvin's Christmas Album chipmunk music piped through the speakers in front of the store at about 120 decibels.

LOL. The Chipmunk music is definitely the worst! Sometimes people I know put it on around Christmas just to see me boil over.

[weegee]

Does this include The Chipmunks' 1968 single they recorded with Canned Heat?

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

"You're a mean one... Mr. Grinch..." :)

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Classic!

[.cnI redruM]

I'm glad someone finally gave that a chuckle...thanks.