• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

I'd like to dedicate this thread to VChimpanzee...

michael hagerty

michael hagerty

Went to our local "upscale" grocery store, Bel Air, in Folsom (suburban Sacramento) a few minutes ago.

The in-store music during my visit?

  • The Clash-Should I Stay Or Should I Go
  • Quiet Riot-Come On Feel The Noize (the board's software won't let me spell the first word the way the song title does)
  • Midnight Oil-Beds are Burning
  • Phil Collins-Mama


...and on my way out the door, "Shattered" by the Rolling Stones started---meaning three minutes later, folks in the produce department got to hear Mick Jagger say:

"Go ahead
Bite the big apple
Don't mind the maggots!"

Muzak and irony are dead.
 
Daryl Lynn L.A. said:
What does this have to do with broadcasting?

:( :( :( :( :(
Click to expand...
You do know that Muzak used to be transmitted through FM subcarriers, right? That kept quite a few FM stations alive in the 1960s and even the 1970s. That was finally being phased out in the mid-1990s. The audio fidelity for those subcarriers wasn't exactly the greatest. They're still legal, though, and are in use in a few places even today.
 
michael hagerty said:
Went to our local "upscale" grocery store, Bel Air, in Folsom (suburban Sacramento) a few minutes ago.

The in-store music during my visit?

  • The Clash-Should I Stay Or Should I Go
  • Quiet Riot-Come On Feel The Noize (the board's software won't let me spell the first word the way the song title does)
  • Midnight Oil-Beds are Burning
  • Phil Collins-Mama
Click to expand...
The upscale grocery stores (note plural) nearest to me in Denver all have a mid-1990s "grunge lite" playlist.

michael hagerty said:
Muzak and irony are dead.
Click to expand...
Hearing Depeche Mode's Enjoy the Silence on a background-music system in a supermarket comes with enough contradictions and implications to stymie the living Buddha.
 
Daryl Lynn L.A. said:
What does this have to do with broadcasting?

:( :( :( :( :(
Click to expand...
It's close enough, given the association with broadcasters that background music services had in the past.
 
Can confirm: Raley’s (Bel Air’s parent company) definitely has a similar playlist at their stores. I figured the late night crew figured out how to unlock the DMX/Muzak machine, but it’s a corporate decision apparently. It’s got my approval!
 
seattlesarchiebunker said:
Can confirm: Raley’s (Bel Air’s parent company) definitely has a similar playlist at their stores. I figured the late night crew figured out how to unlock the DMX/Muzak machine, but it’s a corporate decision apparently. It’s got my approval!
Click to expand...
When I was shopping one night the stock crew hijacked the system and had the rock station playing over.
 
exdjted said:
I learned to load reel-to-reels when I was little helping my Dad with the Muzak system in Paducah, KY.
Click to expand...
I spent a dismal year as a 10-year-old in a southern Iowa town of 783 people. One grocery store. It had background music on these gigantic tape cartridges. It was a decade later that I learned that "NAB" cartridges came in multiple sizes, including what I had seen at that grocery store.
 
inari said:
Missed opportunity to play The Clash - Lost in the Supermarket. I am trying to remember if I ever did hear "Lost in the Supermarket" in a grocery store or if I simply had the wish to hear it played in a grocery store. I think I really did hear it but I'm not certain. What a drag it is getting old.
Click to expand...

Apparently, it's a trend. I posted this to my FB page and heard from a friend in Orange County who says he was in Von's (a supermarket chain) a few days ago and they were playing The Ramones.

I mean, "I Wanna Be Sedated" would actually be an inspired choice.
 
I always thought that MUZAK or other background music in stores was supposed to be just that, background. When you leave the store, you weren't supposed to even remember you heard it.

Now I can't help but remember it.
 
I do a *lot* of my shopping in the last hours before closing. And between the 8 pm hour at Trader Joe's and the 9 pm hour at Grocery Outlet, the restocking staff likes to take over the radio and play 60's/70's oldies. Amazingly, the Gen Z kids restocking the shelves also seem to enjoy it. They largely agree on that genre and are familiar with the songs. (As are many of the "People of the Night" customers, once the soccer mommies have left for home.)
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom