Muzak to your ears

My story in today's paper (and, of course, online) about Fort Mill-based Muzak's move to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy was more about dollars and cents than pop and rock. But the weight of the company's "elevator music" past is such that it seems just about every time we or any other media outlet write about Muzak, we're duty-bound to mention that the company-circa-now is not, we repeat, not, Your Father's Elevator Music Provider anymore. Since the 1980s, Muzak has strived to reinvent itself as a modern, knowing source of custom playlists for business environments, particularly retail, featuring songs performed by their original artists (as opposed to, say, a smooth jazz combo, or, well, you get the picture). The hope, of course, is to provide the soundtrack to your shopping (and, merchants hope, spending). For an excellent picture of this (and suggested soundtracks for several Charlotte neighborhoods), check out my erstwhile colleague Jeff Elder's fine 2007 feature story on the company's reinvention, and the work of its "audio architects."

That said: It was still rather awesome to find, after a bit of online hunting yesterday afternoon, that not only is the much-maligned Elevator Music of old still available, amid Muzak's 90-odd other programs, but that you can also listen to a sample of it online, in case you wish to evoke memories of, I don't know, instrumental pop-rock covers drifting over the dentist's waiting room. Yes, that's right, sax solo fanatics/sadists/ironic fans of aural Velveeta: The program is called "Environmental" - why, I cannot say, as to me the word suggests more "nature soundscapes featuring waves hitting the shore" than "easy listening instrumentals" - and apparently, it's quite popular in Japan. You can find the info and clip here: Just scroll down a bit to "Environmental" and hit "sample." Yes, that's right. Think Hall & Oates couldn't get any smoother? Well, you thought wrong.

Though I wouldn't want to listen to it for an extended period of time, there was nonetheless something weirdly nostalgic about the sample - a reminder of a not-so-distant era when mainstream shopping environments perhaps weren't as aspiring-hip, and a trip to the produce section didn't mean hearing a micro-programmed tracklist featuring Aimee Mann and the Foo Fighters playing faintly overhead.