
A Backlash Against Piped Music - evolve2k
https://www.citylab.com/life/2017/12/the-backlash-against-piped-music/548399/
======
sytelus
TLDR; article is about new organization called PipedDown trying to convince
stores to turn off background music citing bad health effect on employees due
to continuous forced upon music.

I myself have wondered how employees of some restaurants and shops survive
this day after day. However, marketers have long used music to influence
customer behavior:

\- Effects of Background Music on Consumer's Behavior: A Field Experiment in a
Open-Air Market (2007)
[http://nicolas.gueguen.free.fr/Articles/EJSR2007.pdf](http://nicolas.gueguen.free.fr/Articles/EJSR2007.pdf)

\- The Influence of Background Music on Shopping Behavior: Classical Versus
Top-Forty Music in a Wine Store (1993) [http://www.acrwebsite.org/search/view-
conference-proceedings...](http://www.acrwebsite.org/search/view-conference-
proceedings.aspx?Id=7467)

\- Using Background Music to Affect the Behavior of Supermarket Shoppers
(1982)
[http://freakonomics.com/media/Using%20Background%20Music%20t...](http://freakonomics.com/media/Using%20Background%20Music%20to%20Affect%20the%20Behavior)
%20of%20Supermarket%20Shoppers.pdf

\- The Power of In-store Music and its Influence on International Retail
Brands and Shopper Behaviour: A Multi-Case Study Approach (2002)
[http://www.semus.lt/medziaga/1.pdf](http://www.semus.lt/medziaga/1.pdf)

~~~
teh_klev
Grr..."TLDR;". Please if you're going to insist on doing this then at least
summarise the facts of the article accurately. Pipedown isn't a new
organisation, it was founded in 1992 in the UK[0]. What the article mentions
is the establishment of the first US Chapter of Pipedown.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipedown_(campaign)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipedown_\(campaign\))

------
squarefoot
I find music in stores to be always really annoying, not just during xmas
holidays; as a prog rock fan myself just about everything they play hurts my
ears and surely doesn't make me want to stay more in the shop beyond the
strict necessary. If they can't or don't want to play prog rock that's fine to
me, I understand it's not the best kind of music in that context, a gentle
soft jazz background would be wonderful to me too, but please don't hurt our
ears with the latest top chart rubbish. No matter if a lot of people normally
likes it because that's probably not the case after listening to it a dozen
times; I personally would hate to hear even my favorite bands played in a loop
every day, so please be respectful and creative.

About that pic of a woman measuring sound pressure using an app, that's fine
for non professional comparative measurements using the same phone (this place
is louder than that place), but don't expect to get any accuracy from that
unless it can be connected (and calibrated - very important) to an external
higher quality mic with no software or hardware compression, otherwise 10
phones using the same app to measure the same sound will give 10 different
results, all of them possibly wrong.

~~~
kurthr
I ran into WholeFoods for the holidays to grab a couple of spices... and got
Rick Rolled!

Seriously, as I'm checking out I hear that "Never gonna give you up; Never
gonna let you down"... turn to the checkout and mention I didn't think I'd
ever accidentally hear that Rick Astor song again. She noticed and was
horrified, yelled over to the Customer Service desk next to us pointed up and
mouthed WTF! That person's eyes got wide... and I walked out the door.

~~~
acqq
> I didn't think I'd ever accidentally hear that Rick Astor song again.

It’s Rick _Astley_

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ)

~~~
kurthr
You're right! Blocking it from memory... again.

------
lunaticlabs
I live in America, and the insistence on playing music at every location has
long bothered me. It tends to never be music that I care much about, and the
volume often makes it difficult to hear other people when you're in larger
groups. I don't mind music at clubs, but consistently playing music at bars,
for example, makes it difficult to go to bars and have a conversation with
friends.

I've heard a number of justifications for the existence of the music, but I
don't often find any counter-examples (places without music) here in the US.

I'm half Finnish, and travel to Helsinki relatively often, and if you want to
see what its like to not have music constantly playing, go there. It's
incredibly refreshing to be able to go to a bar or a restaurant and not have
music playing (if its not a music specific venue). My wife, who is not Finnish
at all, noticed it immediately as well, and thought it was great. I really
wish some places in the US would actively encourage a quieter environment.

~~~
SOLAR_FIELDS
I'd say in general Europe has better tastefulness when it comes to music in
public spaces, both in choosing the right time/place for music and also
choosing the right genre of music for the occasion.

I remember the first time I boarded a Norwegian flight hearing the music and
thinking "Wow, an airline of all businesses can find some decent tunes".

------
S_A_P
Gas station “television” must cease to be a thing.

~~~
wildrhythms
Gas station TV is somehow worse. You're forced to stand in that spot so they
blast that spot with ads, entertainment "news", and other garbage that I
didn't ask for and usually with no easy way mute or decline (do pumps usually
have a mute button that I'm just not seeing?)

I'm just here for the dinosaur juice yall

~~~
camtarn
This is a thing?! Thankfully it has not yet reached the UK.

...ewwwwww.

~~~
tarboreus
It'll get there. It's not like you're above it. Probably won't happen on the
continent, though.

~~~
camtarn
Yeah, indeed. My 'ew' was more an instinctual and physical shudder at the as-
yet-unimagined horrors in my future than a value judgement.

------
b6
Ubiquitous music bothers me, too. I tend to work in coffeeshops just to get
out of the house, and I'm not aware of a single one without music. I never
enjoy the music. I just endure it, or I defend myself with louder music of my
own choosing in my earbuds. It's definitely stealing some fraction of my
mental power. I worry that it's an indication that many people find silence
uncomfortable, that they get anxious without some kind of distraction.
Sometimes I wonder if it's like the smoke beekeepers use with bees.

~~~
smelendez
I think the employees often like it, too. It also helps make conversations a
bit more discreet, I think?

~~~
Atheros
Indeed. In a coffee shop, one has two priorities when talking to another
person:

\- Being heard by the other person easily enough

\- Not being heard by anyone else.

The second one is important so that you don't need to put as much effort into
self censoring or rapidly adjusting volume when saying something especially
private. In a silent coffee shop, there is no volume low enough such that
other people can't hear you. Lack of privacy is obviously not a deal breaker
but obviously neither is piped music for a lot of people.

The best coffee shop I've been to was a series of small rooms without doors
with about four tables in each room. Often you would be the only group in the
room especially if you were a big group. Even if you weren't, the walls
absorbed a lot of noise. It was nice.

~~~
dbatten
I'd personally suggest some low white noise for this purpose. Used all the
time in offices already.

------
smelendez
The place it annoys me is airports. Some have music, some have TVs playing
news and ads.

But virtually everyone there has a smartphone and headphones--if we wanted to
hear audio, we'd play our own.

~~~
im3w1l
I like having a shared experience with people around me.

~~~
thisacctforreal
Taken further, some people might want different "audio zones" in their
vehicles[1].

I mean, sure, you could, but is sometimes having to compromise really so bad?

It feels like nowadays everything is about unique content tailored to our
individual tastes, without compromise, and that we should each be sheltered
from any experiences we might dislike. Or not be "engaged" by.

[1] [https://m.phys.org/news/2013-05-speaker-cars-audio-zones-
fro...](https://m.phys.org/news/2013-05-speaker-cars-audio-zones-front.html)

~~~
tomxor
My problem with piped music is not that it's not personalised... just that 99%
of the time it's complete trash, it's so bad I actually find it offensive. I'm
hardly a consumer so it doesn't affect me much but there are still other
places you have to be where you can't escape it. Every time I go to the barber
I get subjected the latest pop trash, it's so crap it sometimes makes me feel
a little physically sick. I don't need it personalised, I just need it absent.

------
stevenh
When I go to the gym they are always playing the most atrocious garbage at a
deafening volume. Is there any way to locally hijack a Sirius XM signal and
have it play something else?

~~~
Finnucane
My wife says it’s bad at her gym too, but if the music isn’t playing you hear
all the grunting and clacking.

~~~
kazagistar
You can set your own music to whatever volume you want, instead of being
forced to turn it up to overpower the piped music...

------
mancerayder
NYC has become increasingly insufferable with what appears to be an
unmitigated need for music everywhere, all the time. The bar blasts music so
you shout. The restaurant does to, and everyone's shouting across tables. The
Uber driver plays his terrible radio hip hop permeated by long commercial
breaks. People blast music in their backyards that make your house shake. Cars
drive past with a similar blast.

It's not cool, especially if you're the type of person who reads, studies,
writes or codes.

What is going on in US culture? The article above references UK anti noise
groups and the desire to spread that to the US. I assure you the UK is much
quieter as there's more of a reading and whispering culture.

What's happening here, is it a reflection of an ignorant or anti intellectual
population? Or am I just sensitive to distraction?

------
fergie
As a Scottish person, I read the link title and got defensive.

~~~
drdeadringer
My father plays oboe. He was surprised to learn, in late middle age, that
bagpipes have reeds.

------
ahartmetz
I've been wondering about something else - who determines, how, which music to
play in stores, and is there money in offering something better? In a few
stores the music is surprisingly good, in most it is awful. There is a bar
that I like among other things because it plays good music on high quality
speakers. I believe that there is a market for good music. The charts are bent
by the type of people who still buy music in ways that are reflected in the
charts. An example of IMO good music that I think most people can enjoy would
be Ladytron.

~~~
golergka
Music is not or bad; it's subjective. There's a whole industry that provides
music for stores and cafes, and big chain clothing stores that care about
their brand do careful music selection so it fits their demographic; young
adult brands mass-market brands like Zara and Topman, in particular, come to
mind.

As far as bars and clubs go, music is often their defining individual trait. I
used to DJ in a small bar on a crowded bar street; these places offered the
same drinks at the same prices, but each had their own visual and musical
style - one had a mexican-ish feel, another was all about classic rock, third
one top40 and trap music in particular, and one I played at was a moody techno
place.

What's curious is that most people actually went back and forth between these
places all the time - seems like they liked variety more than any particular
music genre.

~~~
ahartmetz
You seem to be implying partially that it's about which style of music to
play. That is not what I mean, although I do like or not like certain styles.

I think that people who don't care much about music either way (who are
responsible for most bad music) are easily convinced of something better. A
famous example of great taste in music is John Peel. He could figure out what
people would eventually like because he just knew it was good. AFAICT he
wasn't just trying to predict what would sell best in the near future, he just
trusted his taste.

Taste isn't 100% subjective - otherwise what's the point of ratings? This
discussion comes up on sites such as this regularly and I'm on the side that
good and bad art exists. I don't think it is worth rehashing that discussion,
if we disagree we should just agree to disagree.

------
JoshTriplett
I've seen multiple bits of documentation supporting the idea that adding music
makes the ambient noise noticeably higher, as people attempt to talk over it.
I'm all for this. Restaurants that don't play ambient music are so much nicer,
whether you're talking or just quietly enjoying.

~~~
zzz157
I think the volume and your preference for the music matter a lot. Some places
I visit, I love the music and it makes me want to stay longer and come back.
In other places, I hate it and want to avoid it.

------
RichardCA
It's not all bad. Back in the 90's I was working out at a gym in San Jose and
heard a song that kind of haunted me for a few years. As the internet gained
in the ability to search for obscure music, I would try to find it based on a
few lyrics that I'd committed to memory.

Eventually I was able to trace it to a forgotten Sandra Bullock movie and from
there to an Australian singer whose life was sadly cut short after
experiencing brief success the early 90's.

I think everyone has that one song they love, even though no one else has ever
even heard of it.

[https://vimeo.com/101789691](https://vimeo.com/101789691)

------
chendragon
Honestly, I actually really enjoy the music they play in stores. It's nice to
have some background tunes that are typically upbeat to sort of make shopping
less painful than it would be otherwise.

------
nitwit005
I've always been a bit curious if it was worth the cost in larger stores. You
sometimes notice that it's quiet in some areas because they weren't willing to
install enough speakers for full coverage.

------
Jaruzel
Reading the headline made me think it was a Backlash against Piped Piper
Music...

... which as proven by the Red Hot Chilli Pipers, is _awesome_.

------
Noos
This is so first world problems that it hurts.

~~~
taneq
The thing about first world problems is that, while they're not life
threatening, they're real problems.

~~~
walshemj
The trend for a lot of bars to have hardwood floors that don't deaden sound
that well and causes bar staff hearing problems is not a first world problem
its the same problem as say hearing loss in a gold miner in Africa for example

