Peace on earth… chance would be a fine thing!
Calvin posted this on Dec 26th 2007 at 22:57 under Children, Evening Echo Column, Rant, Writing
Published in the WOW! supplement of the Evening Echo 17/12/2007
In 1922 retired Major General George O. Squire patented the technique of transmitting music over power lines, and changed the world forever. North American Company bought exclusive rights to the patent, and by 1934 started piping music into Cleveland homes under the name of “Muzak Corporation”.
Free commercial radio sounded the death knell of Muzak’s chosen route to market, but undeterred they refocussed their efforts on targeting New York City businesses. As buildings in New York soared skywards, the lift became practically ubiquitous, and Musak had found it’s niche. “Elevator music” was born, as Musak filled the space between floors with bland and banal music… the rest, as they say, is history.
“Until Major General George O. Squier came along, lobbies were silent. Offices were silent. Stores, banks, factories. All silent,” says the blurb on the Musak website. Somebody should have told Major General Squire a very simple truth: just because you can do something, doesn’t necessarily mean that you should.
Apparently in the 1930’s having your music played as “Muzak” was all the rage. The medium was considered something of a “hit-maker” because its reach into business and commercial premises got your music out to a huge captive audience. For a time in the thirties the company was even owned by media giant Warner Brothers.
Some of its other distinctions are that President Eisenhower apparently used to “brightened up” the atmosphere in the Whitehouse with Musak programming, and it was even played to Astronauts on the Apollo spacecraft. You know what they say: “in space, no one can hear you scream”!
I guess it just goes to show that not just the good ideas end up being successful.
Generally I can’t abide “Muzak”, but at this time of year I yearn for its return. The reason for my change of heart… Christmas songs!
I’m not against Christmas songs in principal… I just don’t want to listen to them everywhere I go. And this time of year there’s simply no escape. They’re piped into shops, lifts… even the gents toilets. If a group of children turn up at the front door and launch into a slightly off-key rendition of “Holy Night”, that’s all well and good, but I don’t want to listen to a sickeningly jolly jingle-jangle while I’m trying to pick out the wife’s Christmas present, thank you very much. Christmas shopping is hard enough!
You can’t even escape the Christmas music pandemic in your own home. Turn on the radio and practically every station’s schedule is crammed with the same old Christmas “favourites”; switch on the telly and RTÉ will be re-running a carol concert from 1978. Even shopping online is no guarantee you’ll avoid the onslaught. Last week I logged on to a site and was greeted with a version of “Jingle Bells”, complete with animated one-horse-open-sleigh… lovely!
To top it all the little one has been learning Christmas carols for her Playschool Christmas Show, and she practices them all the time. She’s off key, out of tune, and makes half the words up as she goes along. And she’s relentless. You can turn off the radio, you can turn off the TV, you can turn off the PC….
If anyone knows how to turn off a four-year-old, I’m all ears.
