Elevator Music

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It seems like it's been years since I've been in an elevator that played music. I miss it.

How about you? Been in any good elevators lately? What was the playlist?

― Mark, Monday, 7 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Assuming that elevators no longer play music, where are you most likely to hear MUZAK? It doesn't seem as popular as it used to be.

― Mark, Monday, 7 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Doesn't this have something to do with the rise in custom-playlisted piped music?

― Josh, Monday, 7 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

I can't think where I have heard MUZAK lately - although I know it's still out there. (Retail stores, restaurants....)

The problem with MUZAK now is that it's trying to be less like elevator music - so the innocent public is subjected to the likes of Mariah Carey & Nelly Furtado, which are much more invasive than a string version of "knock three times". I long for the good old days when elevator music was crap and we all agreed it was.

― Dave225, Monday, 7 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Do you really spend so much time on an elevator journey that you need to be entertained? Muzak stills lives on, however, in casinos and hotel lobbies.

― Andy, Monday, 7 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

I've never been in an elevator that played music. What did they play, Mark? Aldo Nova?

― sundar subramanian, Monday, 7 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

I passed a Muzak van the other day on the freeway. I wondered what the driver was listening to. Ga-ga-ga-gooey.

― Andy K., Monday, 7 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

I think elevators should play the really cool instrumentals for old folks that hit the shelves when stereo was invented. Sizzling strings, jazzy guitars, organ dust, all that crap. It's great. Imagine hearing a little bit of "Baby Elephant Walk" from the ground floor to the 4th floor. It would be so disorienting that it would be fun.

― Nude Spock, Monday, 7 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

As far as I know, every single supermarket near me pumps muzak. I'm surprised you haven't heard it. It's awful, awful I tell you. (I suspect, deep down inside, however, I secretly love it--ahhhh the angst!)

― Mickey Black Eyes, Monday, 7 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

What did they play, Mark? Aldo Nova?I wish!

I was thinking that supermarket probably still had the Muzak going on. I worked as a butcher in college, and my position at the cutting table was about 36 inches from the paper speaker on the ceiling, which would pump out the instrumental Muzak 24-7. The Beatles were huge, of course. "Yesterday" and "Elenor Rigby" are the ones I remember most. Elevators really did used to play music, mostly in hotels. I don't know what happened with that, but there's a great feature article in there somewhere. Such a strange feeling to be in a packed elevator with the tunes going...you feel like your life has transformed into a Coen brothers film.

― Mark, Monday, 7 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Mickey: I've heard, and hear, Muzak. Just not in elevators.

― sundar subramanian, Monday, 7 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Actually, I was referring to the posts by Andy and Dave225--I felt like that invisible viewer/contestant on Family Feud. (The most popular answer is not POCKET PROTECTORS!)

― Mickey Black Eyes, Monday, 7 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

The Kenny G version of "My Heart Will Go On" was playing at the market the other day. This must count.

― Honda, Tuesday, 8 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

What an odd thing -- I heard music in an elevator today. It was an historic building in downtown Richmond. They were playing Mozart.

― Mark, Friday, 11 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

The elevators in my building, once I purchase it, will have Scott Walker's "Tilt" on a continuous loop.

― dan, Friday, 11 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

You could set up said elevator to specifically play "Farmer in the City" whenever someone wants to go to the 21st floor.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 11 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

I once got for cheap a tape of Grunge Music turned into Muzak. It was hysterical.

― Lord Custos, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

one month passes...

In the spirity of using ILM as my personal blog, I now work in the building where I heard that elevator music. So now I hear music in the elevator every day. Just classical, unfortunately.

― Mark, Tuesday, 26 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I heard a muzak version of Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams" in the lift the other day. I felt too apathetic to get het up about it though

― electric sound of jim, Tuesday, 26 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

hetero up?

― ethan, Tuesday, 26 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

eight years pass...

so why don't they play music in elevators anymore? RIP elevator music

― ice cr?m's world of female people (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 25 February 2011 20:57 (thirteen years ago) link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcgvW-KzJNw

― banjee trillness (The Reverend), Friday, 25 February 2011 20:59 (thirteen years ago) link

haha awesome

my new favorite rapper btw

― ice cr?m's world of female people (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 25 February 2011 21:02 (thirteen years ago) link

kinda makes me want to pull out a tribe called quest album.

― mamma mia pizzeroni (kelpolaris), Friday, 25 February 2011 21:36 (thirteen years ago) link

there is a really good book with this title, kind of a history of Muzak and easy listening, by Joseph Lanza.

― sleeve, Friday, 25 February 2011 21:52 (thirteen years ago) link

If retailers have completely moved on to custom-playlists piped in by satellite, are they still inserting subliminal anti-theft messages into the music?

― http://tinyurl.com/lil-shits (Pleasant Plains), Friday, 25 February 2011 22:10 (thirteen years ago) link

And is Muzak really mob-owned, or is that just a rumor?

― Christine Green Leafy Dragon Indigo, Saturday, 26 February 2011 02:15 (thirteen years ago) link

seven years pass...

In the lobby of my office building the background music until recently was lite current pop, smooth jazz, and the occasional Paul Simon song. Last week it switched over to a totally retro beautiful music format, like Mantovani and 101 Strings type stuff I grew up with on my dad's hi-fi in the 60s. It's the only place I've heard these sounds in years and I'm loving it!

― I don't come off well (Dan Peterson), Wednesday, 30 January 2019 19:46 (six years ago) link

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