Strange Music In Public Places

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Such as, for instance, both discs of Can's "Cannibalism" being played as in-pub music in the Blue Posts when Alex and I were there a few months ago.

Your favourite examples of incongruous piped/ambient music?

― Tom, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Melody Maker once reported Only Built 4 Cuban Linx being played in the waiting room of a train station near London. It may have been Woking, I can't remember.

― Jack Seale, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Any half decent sort of music is incongruous in Woking.

― Madchen, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

You already know mine, Tom. Hearing The Wedding Present's 'Brassneck' in a tropical rainforest on the far side of Maui. Of course it was the Ep with a cover of Pavement's Box Elder on the other side, I ought to say that 'Gedgy' discovered them over a year before Slanted and Enchanted, but he's very modest about such things.

― K-reg, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

the flaming lips in a supermarket. ("waitin' for superman" to be exact.)

― fred solinger, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Air "Kelly Watch the Stars" in Walgreens. Now, Air do make sense as a sort of ambient backround music, but you have to understand that Walgreens is nearly as unhip as Walmart so the fact that they were playing it was a little jarring.

― Nicole, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Inserted in a Beach Boys/Ventures/Chuck Berry/etc mix playing as decor music in rock'n'roll-themed NZ branches of Burger King, Black Sabbath's "Paranoid." Heard it several times (about as often as I've dined at Burger King, in fact), song always occuring in the same sequence. Assume it was an act of subversion on behalf of the programmer. Whether it originates from corporate HQ in the USA and spread to all parts of the globe, I've no idea. But always worth a laugh: "Finished with my burger 'cos it wouldn't help me with my mind / Think I'll eat your chips now, thanks, you're too kind." Etc.

― AP, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I once heard 'The Fucking Cunts They Treat Us Like Pricks' being played piped through the speakers in Safeway (Stamford Hill store).

― Nick, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think you just overheard Tim Hopkins, Nick.

― the pinefox, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Frank Zappa being played in Dunnes Stores...

― Michael Bourke, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I heard the Glands being played in an Abercrombie and Fitch at the mall. Which I suppose isn't THAT strange, just alarming that someone conneted with that store could have good taste given the unbearable clothes they carry.

Sugarcubes "Birthday" oustide a gas station in Atlanta.

Any halfway decent song heard at a major sporting event. Such as The Ramones' "Blitzkreig Bop", Hoodoo Gurus "Good Times" or the Cult's "Love Removal Machine".

― Tim Baier, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I was once in a supermarket playing Rancid. I never returned there.

― Ally, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Terrence and Phillip's Uncle Fucka on the bus to town - somebody's mobile phone ring.

― Geoff, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The Bad Seeds in a burger place in Bologna station (this must've been '88/'89)...

― Mark Morris, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Mmm...I know I have some examples kicking around, let me think. Ah, I've got it! NWA's _Straight Outta Compton_ in UCLA's central book/clothing store, 1990. The era was right, the locale was anything but.

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Aube's Cardiac Strain at this huge frat/sorority type bar in Davis. Actually, I'm the one that got them to put it on, I assured the bartender it would be mellow. It was at first, and then it got all loud all of a sudden, and everyone started looking up at the ceiling like the roof was about to cave in or something. The bartender gave it back to me and said something like, "I don't think this is gonna work". I have no idea actually, I was drunk off my ass at the time.

― Kris, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

My brother reckons he heard 'Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment' on Homebase FM the other day. After it had closed though (he stacks shelves there).

― DG, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Every time I've ever heard Ween's "Push th' little daisies." There is no proper place and/or time.

― Ed, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

ed: not even on beavis & butthead? i fondly recall the duo having a fine time picking on good ol' ween.

― fred solinger, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

ok, i guess i stand corrected...

― Ed, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Can someone explain what is congruous piped/ambient music?

― Guy, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

That's easy. Imagine waiting in a doctors office with a tattered 1978 copy of Readers Digest, and what's this coming faintly from above? Why it's a Muzak version of Captain and Tennile, Love Will Keep us Together. Not quite jarringly unexpected is it?

― Kim, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Hmm..hearing a Sundays song in a Bonanza in TX way back when. I also remember hearing an Imperial Teen song in a supermarket out in the midwest. Probably not so unusual, but at the time they seemed to be.

― JC, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I once had a dream I was in a department store -- Macy's -- and Loretta's Scars was playing in Muzak form.

― JM, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Aphex Twin's "Ventolin" being played on a packed Friday night in the wine shop I used to work - eeeh we were pranksters!

― dog latin, Thursday, 3 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I once heard Black Sabbath's 'Paranoid' being played in a shopping mall. I think they were getting ready to close, but it was still open.

A local M&S took to playing 'Fire' by the Crazy World of Arthur Brown in the run-up to Christmas.

― Dirty Vicar, Thursday, 3 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"automatic" by jamc played quite loud while installing 30/40 pcs in a bank. Amazingly, nobody told me "put that thing off!"

― fernando, Thursday, 3 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Our local rapid transit system (tyne & wear metro) recently was playing a compilation of sci-fi film music. The first time I encountered it, they were playing this stockhausen-ish bleeps & bubbles piece - I think it was the end of "2001". It really freaked me out.

Before that, BTW, they played pastoral classical music, because (thiz bitz fer U, geordie racer) IT PISSED THE CHARVERS OFF!!!

x0x0

― norman fay, Friday, 4 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i remember pulling into gateshead metro - looking at that oriental mountain art and as the doors opened - that music from 'breakaway' came on - eine kleine nachtmusik - and i strode purposefully into Monday.

Don't stations south of the river get the ropey art - hebburn - urgh !

― geordie racer, Sunday, 13 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Irrelevant in solid socialist Tyneside (and scarcely more relevant these days even in Dorset), but of course I recall that snatch of Massive Attack at Tory events.

And Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody Who Loves Me" at a Momus show.

― Robin Carmody, Sunday, 13 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

As best I recall: In 1977, when I was a teenager (ages me, doesn't it?) I was stuck at the Honduran/Nicaraguan border at a little grass- thatched pop stand operated by impoverished Central American Indians. While the border guards ransacked our bus, the kids at the stand seemed to take pity on us by playing Frankie Valli's "December 1963" on their little portable record-player. It was probably the only American 45 they owned. I'd always hated that song, and I hated it even more because they must have played it ten times in a row while we languished in the heat and drank sangria soda-pop. If I ever hear that song nowadays, I'm still taken back to the heat, the dust, the squalor, and the sad eyes of those Nicaraguan teenagers trying so hard to entertain the "rich" Americans.

― X. Y. Zedd, Sunday, 13 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I don't expect to hear anything decent in the local record stores (HMV, Virgin), and I never do.

― DG, Sunday, 13 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I was in a clothing shop and I heard some lite, inoffensive House on the PA.

― Mark, Sunday, 13 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

breakaway = 'breaking away'

― geordie racer, Monday, 14 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Seems pretty normal to me, Mark.

― Josh, Monday, 14 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i was queuing in a bank recently and dean freidman's You Can Thank Your Lucky Stars - the worst song in the world - came on the radio.

*shudder*

― irene, Monday, 14 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Shouldn't you expect such things in banks, though? Not exactly "strange".

― Robin Carmody, Monday, 14 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Just a strange way of listening to music. Frequently I find myself racing through traffic on my bike (Oh look here I am) and hear the radio coming out of windows, most people are listening to Radio 1, Kiss or XFM so I get snatches of the tracks I hear so often that I unconsciously fill the gaps from memory. What's interesting is following two or three songs at once, having them mix in my head as I move down the line.
Last summer I was picking up some Moby in traffic, as usual. But it was really fragmented, out of sync, all over the place. So I pulled over, into a garage where I know they play loads of radio, when I found it wasn't on, it dawned on me just how many people were playing the first side, repeatedly (Wasn't there a ridiculous stat from the 80s about the percentage of people listening to Phil Collins on the M25??)

― K-reg, Tuesday, 15 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

one month passes...

VU - "Sunday Morning" at a restaurant in Granada, Spain. Not a hip, youth-oriented restaurant, it was a moderately "classy" place and the song was sandwiched between the stuff you'd expect to hear in a place like that.

― Nick, Sunday, 17 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

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