The Beat Goes On

"Drums keep pounding
A rhythm to the brain
La de da de de, la de da de da.
The beat goes on.  The beat goes on."   Sonny and Cher

When I choose to listen to music, I listen to music.  I give the music my full attention.  When I intentionally listen to music it is in one of two places.  I am either at my computer with my Bose headphones or I am in my car.  At my computer I am either using Spotify or listening to YouTube videos. When I am alone in my car, I am listening to Sirius/XM radio, Spotify, or a CD. That's all.  Again, these are all intentional choices.

A marketer back in the '50s decided that it would be a good idea to play music while people shopped. My first memory of this phenomenon was music played in large department stores.  The music, as I recall, was rather bland and  mostly non-invasive instrumental music. In 1954 the company Musak became the standard for this type of music. They are possibly who started the whole thing of department store music instead of  just having been riding the wave of the trend. In either case Musak became the generic for any  background music in the same way Kleenex, Frigidaire and Xerox became their respective generics.

This music, though not particularly enjoyable, was at least palatable for me. It didn't get on my nerves. On the other hand it never enhanced any shopping experience either. But as the service evolved, stores more and more used popular music complete with instruments, lyrics and singers. Now it was starting to annoy me.

Now days it's difficult to go anywhere without having to endure whatever form of music the establishment decides enhances the experience of whatever they're hoping we'll buy. Some of my least favorite venues for background music are restaurants.  I use "background" loosely as sometimes the music is so loud I can't hear what the person across from me is saying. At other times it's not that loud, but it still is a distraction for me. Since music demands my attention, I can't give my friend my full attention.  It doesn't help. The worst situation is when it's playing very loudly in a restroom. I never understand how loud invasive music is supposed to enhance my restroom experience.  "Why don't you tune it out?" I can't tune it out because it's there.

There is a convenient store I frequent whose eternal soundtrack  is loud "thump, thump" music. It's a little shop of horrors. Every song sounds the same to me--a steady beat, a monotonous and repetitious  thumping in the percussion, some melody but no harmony.  The beat goes on and on and on and on.  The music plays outside  too."Then why do you go there?"  Like I said, it's convenient. Besides, where can I go to escape?

I don't know where "background music" is headed, but for me apparently nowhere good.  Since I was born in '53 and this phenomenon started at least by '54, you'd think I'd be used to it by now.  But I'm not. Do we ever get used to someone scratching their fingernails down a chalkboard?

I need to amend my opening statement that when I intentionally listen to music I'm only listening to music.  Many times when I'm listening to an artist on Spotify who I'm not familiar with, I'm reading about that artist.  But still my activity is dedicated to that music.  Many times when I'm writing, I select "background music" to listen to. But again it's music I choose for reasons that I choose it.  It's all intentional.

In full support of the opinion I'm offering, while writing this I was listening to nothing but the traffic down the road and an occasional airplane.

Sonny Bono wrote those words in 1967, but the beat  had been going on a long time before that.  And it continues with no end in sight.