Music is something I love, or loved. I was one of those kids who was drawn to music right from the get go. While my family was not a great music family in that my parents didn’t buy albums or wax poetic about the classic phrasing of James Taylor’s lyrics, it was still a part of our lives. In Los Angeles there was no shortage of radio stations on the AM or FM dial and the radio was always on in our cars and quite often in the house.

Over time I began to see music as something more meaningful, more intimate and something worth exploring. By 13 music was as integral to my life as my family was. I was fortunate to live in Los Angeles where finding music was easy. There was half a dozen record stores that specialized in used rock music, jazz music, world music and the all-important “cut-out” albums. Cut-out’s were promotional albums that had a hole punched in them which meant they were used for promotional purposes only and most of the industry companies dumped those albums at these stores and getting these albums was seen as a score. I picked through stacks, bought, listened and traded-in often.

As I grew older my taste expanded with each year. I found Bach to be a favorite as well as classic Country music. I found electronic music to be quite interesting as well as the New Age genre. I loved discovering Count Basie’s work as well as Leonard Cohen. While in New Orleans, possibly the music capital of the world, I found all manner of music to interest me, as the radio stations there was very eclectic indeed. In my head I figure there are some one hundred thousand songs and compositions rattling around. From Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock” to Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos. From “Frere Jacques” to “Happy Birthday.” From Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” to “How Deep Is Your Love” by the Bee Gees. I can’t play any of them myself, but my head is like some neuro-wired jukebox. As a quick aside, a local musician named Jon Brion does a performance were he mashes up several songs shouted to him from the audience and plays them together, by himself – one can hear “Kashmir” with “How Deep Is Your Love” with “Happy Birthday” and it is remarkable.

Recordings from vinyl to MP3 to live music in clubs to stadiums, I have listened in all the ways possible. I have had my life soundtracked by the music from the s the Gregorian chants to the theme from the Godfather. And it was all great until 2010, as that’s when it died for me.

Music was something special and then something happened in the world. Music became a syringe designed to open a revenue stream from my soul. Music, and the same damn songs, was being played at the gym, in the convenience store, at the hardware store, at the doctor’s office, on telephone hold music and even on websites - everywhere. In early days of my life you made a choice to listen to music or you heard Muzak – the non-threatening, non-confrontational versions of songs piped into elevators. Muzak was there simply to make waiting a wee bit more tolerable but not to rip open your soul to sell you crap you don’t need. Other then Muzak there was only radio and folks new that blasting radio during surgery wasn’t cool.

Then something happened. Madison Avenue realized that music would sell anyone anything at anytime. So The Who went from the soundtrack of my youth to the Marketing Soundtrack Used To Selling Cars To Upscale Men Feeling a Midlife Crises. Suddenly some horrifying, poorly pieced together Rap song was lovingly broadcast to make my stay at the carwash more pleasant, “and I said, fuck you bitch take that uh huh” made my most recent fifteen minute carwash a pleasure. Suddenly the gym was blasting music, the massage spa was blasting music, and the damn gas station was blasting music! The gas station, when it wasn’t showing the TV, was blasting music to what end? And worst of all, the music being blasted at me for my pleasure is not music that is good, but music that is cheap!

Music isn’t free, so folks who work in the business of creating music to make your Home Depot shopping experience more profitable for Home Depot wants something that is cheap or free, and will help them tap into your pocket. So the same songs play over and over and over again in the Lowes, the Home Depot and every other store that subscribes to the idea that a shopper hearing “Paved Paradise To Put Up A Parking Lot” will buy five extra snickers bars at the check out counter (that song’s irony is priceless when played at the home improvement centers). It isn’t bad enough I am no longer allowed to think while getting gas or buying a toilet, I have to hear the same 500 royalty free songs everywhere I go! The once innocuous Muzak’s webpage logo is “multisensory branding,” which translated into English is, “how we destroy music one track at time.”

To make matters worse, the folks controlling the auditory hell are doing so without regard the music itself – such as music has become. The speakers used are almost always defective, the sound is always way too loud to be clear and in many cases that Celine Dion song I can’t stand (but is one of the 100k in my head) is being constantly interrupted by some in-store announcement. I went to a major league baseball game and the blown out speakers, brand new speakers I might add, produced so much distortion that the wrecked song was apparently a song used to open the game was a song I used to favor. Every stadium, every used car lot, every taco stand has music blasting. I was walking down the street and a tanning salon set speakers outside the salon and was blasting music at the 6-lane highway, at nothing in particular just the highway!

I went to a restaurant a few weeks ago, a very expensive restaurant I might add, and the music was so loud I simply stopped talking, as I just couldn’t shout loud enough for anyone to hear me. And the reason for this posh restraint blasting the music was???

I now hate music. Once music was done to express, to entertain, to record experiences and now it has become some vile auditory nightmare used to get me to buy more stuff. At some point a musician wanted to simply play. Times changed and a musician wanted to sell records. Times changed and a musician wanted to sell a lot of records and perform in front of a lot people. Times changed and musicians just wanted to be famous with or without the music. Times changed and now musicians want to be featured in an add selling tampons. Even more horrifying, folks will buy a song off iTunes because it was featured in a tampon add!

The most painful part of this insane alteration in the human expression of something beyond marvelous is the destruction of the personal boundary. Not only has the world of marketing decided I must have music blasting at me at all times, so has everyone else. While sitting at a signal I am forced to listen to that same horrifying rap base-line (nearly all rap songs have the same or similar underlying base-line) whether I want to or not. The guy in the car next to me with the blown-out speakers has them turned up to eleven for my listening pleasure so I can not only enjoy his pedestrian taste in music but his rattling doors too.

Worse yet, my home isn’t protected either. I kept track of how many times I heard music that wasn’t coming from my speakers for one week. Each week I listen to three minutes and thirty seconds of someone else’s music as they pass by, some folks are passing by two or three blocks away. Last weekend a grandmother who was throwing a birthday party for 6-year-old granddaughter needed a two thousand watt stereo blasting rap music for the child to fully enjoy the day. What is two thousand watts mean you say? It means in my neighborhood everyone in a 4 block radius got to hear the music whether they liked it or not – because otherwise the party would have not be worth having!

I hate to say I hate music but I cannot find another way around it. Should I decide to listen to the majesty of the Brandenburg Concertos, actually sit down like I did 30 years ago, I will be interrupted by some car passing by letting me know that the new JZ record is worth blasting at number 11. The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again” the antiestablishment anthem for a generation now sells cars to me while I pump gas. AC/DC gets the fans rockin’ for a relief pitcher and Celine Dion, god bless her, sells more crap at Target then anyone else. Chopin makes people weep as the watch and add for a smartphone.

If you asked me 35 years ago if I thought music would ever die I would have punched you rather then answer.


(And this; It would seem the government has used certain music to torture, or maybe they do not call it torture, prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay.)


So, why is this important to you? If you were not aware that music is being used to manipulate you in a myriad of ways you should know this. That playlist in the store has been created to make you, yes make you, buy, buy, buy. That music purporting violence, gangs, guns and “telling it how it is in the streets” is being created to make people violent. The music added to movies, ads and websites is being added to manipulate you. It is all a seemingly chaotic, but well crafted system designed to get you to hand over your Freewill because you heard a classic love song played over a travel commercial for Hawaiian vacations. Stop and listen now… with this information in mind.

Tags: music rant freewill