Inside the booming business of background music | Hacker News Reader

Inside the booming business of background music

theguardian.com

99 pointsacdanger47 comments

On a tangent, I'm increasingly put off by incessant and obnoxious background music on TV - everything is drenched in emotionally manipulative sound - documentaries, drama series. Stranger Things is the one example that really stuck out to me - in the end I had to stop watching because I got sick of the music accompanying virtually every single scene.

It didn't used to be like this! For the most part I'd prefer to be able to form my own thoughts and feelings based on the content, with music used sparingly and appropriately. Ho hum.

There was more music previously in tv shows. They took a different form like a theme song.

It didn't used to be like this!

That's news to me! I've been annoyed by obnoxiously melodramatic music in movies for my whole life, even from decades before I was born! Check out this famous scene of Lawrence Olivier's Hamlet soliloquy [1]. The music is so jarring I can hardly stand to watch it at all!

[1] https://youtu.be/5ks-NbCHUns

Agreed, it has been like this for a long time for movies though. That's obvious when you find some types of movies really boring if you reduce the sound / have a way to equalize it so that there can't be any spike of louder background music.

For TV shows I don't think I'm as bothered as you, since like movies, the goal is to be entertaining. But I agree that in recent documentaries it's very obnoxious, in the end those looks more like entertainment posing as documentary. It's hard to find good quality documentaries on platforms like Netflix/Hulu/etc

I notice this most on youtube videos, there seems like a large group of editors that can't deal with having a moment of silence during the video.

I've noticed there is also big group of viewers who can't stand silence.

It would be nice to be able to control the volume of background music while watching a show/movie. I wouldn't be surprised to see that sometime in the near future.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/537101/deep-learning-mach...

Or we could just add the music to a different sound track in the movie.

I binged Hells kitchen a while back, the episodes aired in the UK were remarkably more pleasant to watch due to a lack of background music. This clip[0] demonstrates the difference between the two nicely.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFVLPcTWfBk

> “I would be astonished,” he said, “if someone chose a Renault over a Volkswagen just because you play French music in a showroom.”

Ummmm... I'm not sure I would? Perhaps that example is a little obvious, but I'd bet the music goes a really long way in a lot of decision making setups.

Back in the CD era I'd try and choose a record I knew my friend(s) would like as a moving present when they bought a new place. Assuming they actually listened (most did), the record would become synonymous with the new house - "ahhh, I love this song. Reminds me of moving in to number 7!"

Music is a wonderful thing.

Its in our nature to bias towards what we are exposed to through loosely connected emotions and experiences.

Its so automatic we don't even realise it happening unless we are aware of it. I see it as a kind of context-switching.

>> Music is a wonderful thing

Not wishing to seem overly cynical, but marketing types selling snake-oil is also a thing.

>> In 1985, for instance, one study found that diners chewed at a faster pace when higher-tempo music was played. (Researchers measured this according to the delightfully named metric, bites-per-minute.) Interestingly, they noted, diners did not finish their meals faster, suggesting that they had actually been taking smaller bites.

So people chewed faster, but it made no difference to the length of time taken to eat the meal? So perhaps:

"In 1985, for instance, one study found no change in the time diners took to eat their meals when higher-tempo music was played"

agreed. The right music might keep people in a showroom longer. It's less of a leap to assume that more time in the showroom will be associated with increased sales.

I love making playlists for all kinda of occasions: date nights, game nights, long drives, studying, parties...

When I first started dating my girlfriend, I would curate a playlist to play in the car (I would choose music I knew she would like, or something that would set the mood for a romantic evening). The result was that we found out we had a similar taste in music. Now our tastes in music is something that we share a bond over.

I used to do the same thing using foobar2000, typically by providing the playlists as CDs, often even with a nice label. At some point people started to have no CD player anymore and just used Bluetooth from their phones. That's certainly a nice thing too, but it made me stop doing CD playlists. Therefore I wonder: what is your typical medium/platform for doing this nowadays? For just bringing a playlist with me, I could use my phone, sure. But how to actually give a playlist to people, especially for some rather rare music or own recordings? A Spotify link doesn't do it all the time.

A friend of mine still will do "mixed tapes". She's just moved to cheap usb sticks instead of cds, because like you said, most people don't have a cd player anymore.

USB stick and a custom sticker goes a long way to capture the "physical token" aspect that made gifting curated media feel special.

I use Spotify playlists. I usually think of a thoughtful name for the playlist. Also, using the desktop app, I can upload cover art for the playlist.

Another cool thing that I do with my brother is a "shared playlist." We both add songs to the playlist that we want to share with each other. At the beginning of every year we start a new one.

It’s still the CD era for me, or at least I’m regressing back to that. I’ve come to despise the modern method of music consumption. If you want to listen on a simple home stereo, you have to jack around with various streaming and storage methods, library management, etc. Just popping in a CD is far easier.

Just popping in a cd is far more work than choosing “chromecast audio” on Spotify.

And how do you listen to that on a stereo system?

Chromecast audio has a stereo 3.5mm output on it, instead of hdmi.

Although my stereo receiver has hdmi inputs, too.

I'm impressed to not see lo-fi hip-hop getting mentioned.

From my purely empirical perspective, it seems like the biggest reason for the growth of this kind of music is the necessity to fill the void in noise-canceling headphones: the essential equipment for those who work in open-spaces.

I'm interested, why do you think this genre in particular deserves mention?

I think because that genre became quite hyped in 2018.

Personally I had not heard of it until reading in a newspaper that lo-fi hiphop was the new generation of calming music.

It apperantly has a big community around it with livestreams etc happening.

Just a guess though

My wife works for BDO doing document work, which involves alot of spreadsheet data shuffling. She was complaining yesterday that there is some humming in the office that she finds very distracting. I recommended she look into streaming lofi hiphop/chillhop for her to focus more clearly. I started listening to it in 2018 when I need to shut out open office distractions and it was a real game changer for me.

I will have to give it a shot. Working in an open office kills my productivity.

Makes me appreciate the days that I work from home even more.

Yea, it's quite the meme. Akira the Don is my favorite artist doing this and he's been very prolific this year. Lofi hiphop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OKnUk59pZk

Some of his best work has motivational or philosophical quotes over the lofi hip hop from an inspirational speaker. This one just came out yesterday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGh3KDkonQE

About a decade ago, London Underground began piping classical music into some tube stations to deter petty crime and anti-social behaviour. The scheme was deemed a success.

There are a couple of possible interpretations of the success:

1. Classical music had a calming effect that dampened anti-social behaviour.

2. (A bit more depressing) Classical music is so uncool that anyone with anti-social intentions didn't want to hang around in a station while it was being played

Here's a 2008 article from The Independent newspaper on the scheme: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/featu...

Last year the metro in São Paulo - Brazil, started playing classical music inside the trains and stations and no one understood why.

Makes sense since they always try to copy stuff that worked elsewhere, but I've seen more people mad at the decision than supportive of it.

Is that because it's perceived as being annoying to listen to or are they aware that their actions are trying to be subtly manipulated?

Give criminals time to adapt. Then they'll have to come up with a new genre.

Would death metal actually _increase_ crime rates I wonder?

Seems unlikely. Events where metal music is played generally have lower crime than other forms of popular music.

My evidence for this was the general lack of interest from the London police at metal events, although it seems[1] that could be a way to measure race without asking — the metal scene is overwhelmingly white and also more middle class.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jan/10/police...

Have you ever met any death metal fans? They're not exactly a burgeoning criminal fraternity :)

Generally classical music has more dynamic range than popular music, some passages are barely audible, while others are explosively loud, so I think they are a bad fit for noisy public places. Also many classical works wasn't composed as background music, but rather as music that itself is the centerpiece of a performance, and thus they do need more attention from the listener, rather than remaining in the background of things.

Dynamic range compression and compensating for ambient noise (many car stereos do this) works well.

A third perspective that I’ve read from someone who claimed to live near one of these implementations was that the music was so loud, it didn’t matter what it was. No one wanted to stand around such an obnoxious noise source.

As an aside, it was actually Newcastle's Metro that pioneered this tactic in the UK, back in the late '90s..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/4710426.stm

Just adding as I was there at Uni at the time and there was a distinct dissonance hearing classical music playing in some of the bleaker stops.

Somewhat related, the tendency to have (IMO often overly loud and inappropriate) sound, including but not limited to music, just about everyplace is only continuing. Combined with the modern aesthetic of a lot of hard surfaces in places like restaurant interiors and having conversations can often be a challenge.

Here in NYC there's a disease of loud hip hop and rap music blasted in innocuous places like expensive restaurants and wine bars, places where you'd expect to have a conversation with someone that doesn't involve yelling. Since it's intended to be loud, the long bass beats drown out voices, and then comes a rapper voice in the form of an angry yell. So a guy is yelling at me when I'm trying to eat. Is this a political statement or routine Top 40s playlist playing?

It's played out loud on the subway as well on people's phones. Two problems:

My Sennheisers with noise canceling don't work on hip hop.

Even if they did, it'd be awkward to bring them on a date.

Hip hop is increasingly influencing all aspects of American culture - the tipping point being my mother texting me if “I liked Cardi B”

Just as haute-coture fashion houses have embraced streetwear trends, hip hop is the dominant force in American music. It ain’t going anywhere.

It's got the power of billions of dollars of media money pumping it, so of course a heavily marketed item will be purchased. But that's not the discussion, which is loud music being played in such places as restaurants. I mentioned hip hop because loud hip hop is more distracting to a conversation than loud, say flute music. The fact that I loathe it just adds to the pain.

Great story. One thing however they don’t do is quantify “Booming business”. Is this a few small boutique agencies or larger industry?

I have the same question, but I'm now wondering if it's just a pun - as in 'booming' music etc.

Background music is a very tough business. This article was focused on the custom and boutique programming end for highly brand conscience clients. I co-founded Trusonic and competed with Muzak and DMX for several years eventually servicing 50,000 locations. It is a competitive business at scale. There are companies that are willing to pay top dollar for music programmers who will completely customize playlists for a brand, but these are somewhat rare and not necessarily the business one looks to engage due to the labor required.

The W Hotels chain used to be excellent at this - they even sold a mix CD in your room that contained “selects” from the lobby with a great mix of swanky tracks.

I’ve also found high-end restaurants and other boutique hotels employ highly-specific mixes. Adds to the atmosphere without a doubt

W Hotels spotify playlist

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4J6mxgvlelSTYaR0D8RqRN

The OP should consider forwarding this post to the operators of a particular help line associated with Her Majesty's government, which one hopes, must be the only such line.

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