I forgot my headphones

Some words on music in public places

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. There’s a special place in hell for bluetooth speaker hikers. It takes a very unique individual to think that people hiked 7 miles into the mountains to hear a new Tiesto song. That is next level sensory assault.

But that’s not the worst of it when it comes to non-consensual musical experiences. The pharmacies are the worst culprits. Specifically CVS. Walgreens and Rite Aid aren’t much better, but CVS holds the number one slot for aural warfare.

Before even getting into the playlist or music itself, we must first acknowledge how insane it is that they ripped the intercom system from my elementary school and said, “Yes. Let’s play music through this thing.”

At Walgreens and Rite Aid, you’ll find a mix of old top 40 hits. 70s, mostly 80s, and some 90s. But at CVS, they said no, we can top that. These are songs I can confidently have never touched the top 100 on any list, and I have a theory on where they’re sourcing them.

At any given moment, there are thousands upon thousands of aspiring songwriters in LA, NY, and Nashville, churning out songs and pitching them to artists in hopes that they’ll land on a record. The majority of those songs spend their lives on hard drives, dying a slow death. I don’t know how CVS gained access to the collective database that is the pop song graveyard I speak of, but they are seemingly determined to give those songs a new life.

If you can actually hear what’s being played through the giant walkie-talkie that is the stereo system in that place, you’ll notice that all the songs have something sort of off about them. A line that doesn’t quite fit. A hook that’s just slightly weird. An instrumental that just doesn’t match the vibe of the vocal. These skewed tonal qualities have a car wreck effect. I can’t turn away. I end up wandering the store in a hypnotic trance like a character in Westworld. My wife saying, “Hey, are you listening to me?” No. Not at all.

Next we have the grocery stores. Trader Joe’s is the only safe haven here. You’re gonna get some Tears for Fears, Cyndi Lauper, a 90’s song that wasn’t the big hit, but the follow up to the big hit. Trader Joe’s is pretty dialed. One would think that Whole Foods, a place where even the vegetables are arrogant, would have a listening experience akin to it’s snobby food offerings, but it does not. It’s all arbitrary. Fallout Boy. Lionel Richie. Kesha. They don’t give a shit. They’re banking on the idea that you’re so wrapped up in dropping $15 on a cup of pre-sliced zucchini that you won’t even notice the music.

Ralph’s is owned by Kroger and they only play Shawn Mendes there. Just the “Stitches” song though. I kind of back it. Some multi billionaire at Kroger headquarters in Cincinnati basically said, “Listen, this kid wrote the greatest song of all time at 16 and we’re gonna make sure people hear it.”

We can’t do a deep dive into the restaurant music experience because there’s too much there. But we will acknowledge that nine times out of ten, it’s an afterthought. It’s hard to wrap your head around the amount of money, work, and time that goes into building a restaurant. I can’t imagine the amount of opinions and drafts that go toward every creative decision that will eventually be received by all five senses. The ingredients, the lighting, the art on the walls, the fonts on the menu. But sound? Who gives a shit.

I once got in an argument with an ex because I asked if we could eat somewhere else upon walking into a really nice restaurant and hearing a lounge cover of “24k Magic”. She said no, and that I needed to work on being present and not being so sensitive to my surroundings.

We took our seats and I quickly realized that lounge covers was the thing here. Unlike the random and un-curated playlist at Whole Foods, this was an intentional creative decision. Songs you know but…make them fancy. I felt my brain and soul exit my body as I vaguely recognized the chords to Rihanna’s “Work”, just before the most velvety vanilla white girl voice started singing “he said me haffi work, work, work, work, work,” on top of a silky smooth jazz piano playing unnecessarily complicated chords.

A portion of the collection at home

I know it’s me. The majority of people are simply not affected. I learned this back when I still lived on Long Island and my parents bought me a massage gift certificate for Christmas, and I had to kindly ask the masseuse if she could not play Journey while doing her deep tissue work. She was taken aback. The place had like 500 five star reviews. It’s me, not them.

And for the amount of bitching I can do on the topic, when a place dials it in, I appreciate it so much. My former bandmate jumped worlds and became a chef, eventually working at Ippudo, an acclaimed ramen spot in NYC. It was always a mix of everything there. Sometimes it was Biggie, other times it’d be weird instrumental shit I had to Shazam. I asked my friend one day, and he said they all take turns choosing the music. I thought that was really cool, because it revealed that everyone working behind the counter at this place had really great taste. This place made food that was highly regarded, and so it attracted a specific type of person who wanted to work there, and then those people were sharing their taste and creating an environment and experience for people like me.

It may seem like I’m winning the battles, but at times I’ve felt I’m losing the war. Like it’s only a matter of time before I’m the one yelling, “Alexa, play the classics,” while cooking dinner.

I have a lawyer friend, a father of 3, and he is fighting the good fight. He recently made a spreadsheet out of Rolling Stone’s Top 500 albums and has been spending a week with each record that he never got around to listening to but always wanted to. Sensing the apathy was trying to sink its teeth in me, I asked him if I could join in his ritual. And so we now have our own little record club. We take turns choosing the record of the week, and then we get on a call, end of week, to talk about it. The most recent selection was Radiohead’s Ok Computer.

I was already familiar with the record, but it’d been years since I did the full ride from front to finish without any distractions. And all these details started to jump out at me mid week. The way I never noticed “Electioneering” is basically a bar rock song, but they somehow made it fit on this artistic statement of a record. The fact that all these recording techniques I’d been utilizing the last 5-6 years were things I’d likely learned from artists and producers who assimilated them from Radiohead, as this record came out in the year 2000, making it so insanely ahead of its time.

And so, I felt sensitivities start to return. My baseline began to adjust. I could hear the birds again. Could feel the details. And I’ll slip from time to time and may even get lazy and allow an algorithm to take the wheel on what I should listen to. But regardless what life throws my way, I know, deep in my heart, no matter what happens, I will never be the type of person who hikes with a bluetooth speaker.