Then in -- when it could boast affiliates with , business clients in two dozen countries -- Muzak changed hands again when its management joined with Centre Partners to acquire the firm from the Field Corporation.
In Muzak moved to downtown Seattle 3rd Avenue, Suite and in the whole operation relocated to South Carolina. Indeed, for a time they were "the world's largest music service business" AEI, fundinguniverse.
By , when DMX was sold to Liberty Media, it could tout itself as "the world's leading multi-national music programming and distribution company" hunterscapital. The musical merits of "muzak" have been debated for many years, and although it is difficult to locate many true fans, there have been a few.
One was the artist Andy Warhol, who once enthused, "I like anything on Muzak -- it's so listenable. They should have it on MTV!
But foremost among them is Joseph Lanza, author of the book, Elevator Music. His questionable concluding assertion is:. A world without elevator music would be much grimmer than its detractors This is because most of us, in our hearts, want a world tailored by Walt Disney's 'imagineers' On the other hand, it was the famed novelist, Vladimir Nabokov, who once described "muzak" as "abominably offensive.
Another writer offered the biting socio-political-economic critique that "muzak" has "now invaded public space like a cancer everywhere," and that it. A mood where one's critical faculties are overwritten by a pacifying effect via one's emotional receptors. The instinctive emotional responses are harnessed to the economic dictates of the marketplace, office and factory.
A colonization of emotional responses, all the more totalitarian in its very inoffensive and unobtrusive nature" "Muzak to My Ears -- Canned Music and Class Struggle". At least one contributor to an online discussion board would likely agree; his response to the open question "What is Muzak? Among musicians themselves, very few have ever defended "muzak. On the other hand, many other musicians have taken steps to combat it.
Avant-garde composer Philip Glass put the music in its place: "The range of [contemporary] music is truly enormous -- opera at top, Muzak at the bottom" Moore. In addition, plenty of musicians have had their own fun at Muzak's expense. In the British synthpop group, M, produced its No.
In Devo put out their first of two E-Z Listening Muzak cassettes, which featured new instrumental renditions of their earlier hits. Around an entirely new use for "muzak" was pioneered. That year it was reported that various convenience stores in Southern California had begun blasting high-volume Muzak programming out into their parking lots in an effort to repel youthful chronic loiterers.
The renamed Muzak Ltd. Full Circle: Grunge Lite It is deliciously ironic that in the years immediately prior to the massive global success of Seattle's hard-rockin' grunge music scene between approximately and , the city's biggest musical export was "muzak. Needless to say, none of these scruffy rockers were allowed to actually program song selections and instead had jobs in the warehouse, the tape-duplication department, or the company offices.
It was after Grunge had swept the world that another Seattle musician, Sara DeBell, produced her Grunge Lite CD, which featured what The Seattle Times described as "elevatorized versions" of some of the local scene's heaviest hits.
The level of interest was zero; as she later informed the newspaper: "They told me: 'We never did this kind of thing. It's much too square'" Dunham.
That assertion may be questionable, but one thing is certain: General "Squier's gift to the world was Muzak, a commercial product that irritated some, soothed others, and reigned for generations as a household name" "Muzak Inc.
Deep Background The saga behind the emergence of Muzak began with a former U. To Be Heard But Not Listened To In the s the company adopted a slogan -- "Muzak While You Work for Increased Efficiency" -- which is arguably better than another that they reportedly considered at a later date: "Boring work is made less boring by boring music" Lanza, p.
Hi-Ho, It's Back To Work We Go Muzak soon began investing considerable sums in "research to develop technological improvements and to scientifically refine the music itself" Dunham.
The Business Music Biz Keeping factory workers awake and motivated was one thing, and mildly energetic "muzak" seemed to do the trick. If a shop or restaurant just plugged in an iPod and let the tunes fly, it would need to pay licensing fees to the copyright holders for each song it played. To answer that question, we need to go back to the early 20th century. As skyscrapers began popping up in urban areas around the world, the necessity of elevators shot up.
Subscribe to our Newsletter! Muzak tunes are purposely made to hold very simple melody and to be unobtrusive and easily looped. It has been proven that some kinds of elevator music can psychologically make buyers to shop longer and browse items more easily. Their main goal was distribution of music without the use of radio waves.
If you find yourself in a more money-spending mood while shopping at the Target store in West Hills next week, that might be no coincidence.
Actually, it never left. That deal closed last month. Muzak, which debuted in , was based on the idea that a catchy soundtrack can put consumers in a shopping state of mind. It sold variations of the service to workplaces for decades. As opposed to unapologetically corporate reasons. Mood says it reaches more than million consumers daily in over countries. A study in the Journal of Consumer Marketing determined that age is a factor.
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