The company responsible for the sticky-sweet string arrangements of Beatles songs anybody over the age of 40 remembers hearing while they got their teeth cleaned, traveled in elevators, or stumbled through retail stores, is about to go the way of the record turntable and dedicated fax machine: Muzak has filed for bankruptcy.
The idea of ambient music was a true innovation back in its time (the company would have celebrated its 75th anniversary this year). Purposefully filling geophysical space with sound was a precursor to using smell, touch, and other senses to help craft experience.
Muzak was busy repurposing recognizable songs so that they demanded less active attention, yet still contributed to the environment. Hearing the stuff on something other than a scratchy 45 or AM radio station was a revelation, even if it drove some people bonkers.
Lately, though, it has been supplanted by all of the other ways music could be piped into stores (iTunes, satellite radio, etc.), and the fact that today's shoppers seem to prefer their music loud, as any visit to an Abercrombie & Fitch store would attest. With no catalog of its own, Muzak has eeked out a marginal existence acting as a middle-man for providing "branded playlists" for stores, and otherwise managing its slow demise.What a waste.
Ambient music is a totally cool idea. I remember when Brian Eno came out with albums recorded with the specific purpose of getting played in the background: his "Discreet Music" (1975) and "Music for Airports" (1978) were compilations of looped, twisted instruments. Each song was constructed to at once trigger your attention, but then to lose it a moment later, and then blend into the next number.
The idea of not just playing music in the background but creating a sonic architecture for various experiences was very powerful. I think it had a lot of promise, and doing far more than somehow supporting the brand (try to hear your own thoughts in an A&F store).
So imagine if Muzak had led that innovation:It could have developed the science and philosophy to support the conceptSolicited composers to sign exclusive agreementsCreated custom music solutions (compositions) for clientsGot clients (employees) and end-user customers to contribute to the process (recording tech got very cheap about ten years after Eno's groundbreaking experiments)Developed communities of composers, recording technicians, and clients to support additional creativity/applicationsRepurposed the music for a variety of consumer segments, including consumers (couldn't individuals even order their own customized music solutions for special events?)Instead, Muzak became a joke or worse, a joke about itself, kind of like Spam.
I know that much smaller competitors (and the high cost of custom music) probably pushed it out of the market, but couldn't it have come up with a novel proposition?
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