No More Old Songs

I am in the lobby of my hotel, waking up. The coffee is lukewarm. The breakfast is freezer burnt. And the overhead music playing is “Highway to Hell.”

You can’t get away from canned music. It’s everywhere. Like the IRS. Playing in public spaces just loud enough to hear the music thumping, throbbing, pulsating, lamenting, howling, crying, screaming, bawling, thrumming.

There are no old songs used for canned music anymore. These days, most canned music is young music. The kind currently being produced by kids who are barely old enough to buy lotto tickets.

Kids.

It’s hard to find silence anymore. Silence is not a thing in our modern world. The National Park Service’s Natural Sounds and Night Skies Division recently measured noise pollution and discovered noise levels have tripled in the last few years.

The roar of traffic, the booms of bulldozers. Whirring distant blenders, making smoothies. TVs blaring 24-hour news channels. Every 11 seconds, somewhere in this country, someone uses a leafblower.

But canned music is perhaps the most aggravating of all these things. This piped-in music is constantly running inside supermarkets, restaurants, public restrooms, colonoscopy exam rooms, etc.

Per day, Americans are exposed to an averaged 76 minutes of “unchosen” music in public. Stores use this music to develop what businesspersons call “immersive branding” experiences.

The canned music tunes are usually ones you’ve never heard before, produced by artists young enough to be your grandchildren, with names like Rihanna, Ke$ha, and Lady Gaga.

You cannot avoid this music. The music is blasted in parking lots, public parks, and nursing homes. When you are in the hospital, drawing your final breath, Ke$ha will be singing “We R Who We R” overhead, and the nurses will be humming along as they wheel your body off to the morgue.

It’s gotten so bad that some stores are removing canned music. Many Walmarts have stopped music. Many Targets do not play music. Lots of restaurants are ending canned music for good.

FACT: The second most common complaint in US restaurants is the music.

Just a few days ago, I was trapped on an airplane awaiting takeoff to Chicago. There was piped-in music on the plane. It was not happy music. It was angsty music. Music that made us passengers deeply fantasize about using the emergency exits.

The playlist featured songs like “Demons” by Imagine Dragons, followed by “J CHRIST” by Lil Nas X.

“This music drives me nuts,” said the passenger next to me, a woman traveling with her husband. “Why can’t they play any old songs?”

All the passengers in our vicinity seemed to agree. The music was aggravating. Each song was indistinguishable from the next. Mainly, the music consisted of an assaultive electro-beat with rhythmic vocalization sounds often associated with carnal knowledge.

So I took an informal poll. I asked several passengers whether they recognized any of these songs, and more importantly, whether they LIKED them.

The vote was unanimous. None of the passengers liked the music. It’s important to note: these people hailed from different walks. Different ages. Different creeds. Different political persuasions. These are Americans who cannot agree on ANYTHING.

And yet when asked whether they liked the music on the airplane, the resounding response was, “THERE SHOULDN’T BE ANY MUSIC ON AN AIRPLANE!”

Still, it was the 15-year-old girl beside me who delivered a remark which stuck with me:

“There’s noise everywhere you go today. We as a society don't know how to embrace silence because we’re trying to drown out how lonely we are. We’re lonely because we’re separated. Technology separates us, politics separates us, social media separates us. Noise is one way to hide from each other.”

Kids. What do they know.