Elevator soundtracks across the world fell silent on Tuesday 5th February out of respect for the day that Muzak died.
Yes, with a capital ‘m’, as the label – which has become a generic trademark, a brand name synonymous with bland, background music – has shut up shop after its owners, the Ontario-based Mood Media, announced that it is folding the label under the company’s singular banner of Mood, reports The Star.
First founded in 1934 outside of Charlotte in North Carolina, Muzak supplied featureless, innocuous ‘wallpaper’ music for retail outlets, restaurants and, most famously, elevators. Think ‘The Girl From Ipanema’ drained of all its Brazilian charm and vocals.
As the practice of businesses using homogenised, inoffensive music licensed from Muzak and its contemporaries increased, it eventually became a household name, becoming a pejorative for any kind of music that was soft, lame, and lacking interest. Even reaching a point where musicians would consider it the death knell of their careers when Muzak picked up their songs for re-arrangement.
The current website for the company shows off various business packages and audio samples, including classics like ‘The Cafe’, ‘The Spa’, and ‘Bright Jazz’.
But no more, as the Muzak brand is rolled into parent company Mood Media, who will continue to produce easy-listening soundtracks to businesses under the banner of Mood, providing “sensory marketing” through designed signage, audio-visual interactivity, and, of course, ‘mood music’ to more than half a million commercial businesses across the globe.
Muzak supplied featureless, innocuous ‘wallpaper’ music for retail outlets, restaurants and, most famously, elevators
Mood Vice President of Investor Relations, Randal Rudinski , said it was a hard decision to drop the Muzak brand name, but had little to do with its stigmatising association with bland music.
“It took a while to come to a final conclusion on which way to go. That was definitely part of the equation that people were very sensitive to internally, because it does have a legacy. It’s got really strong brand awareness,” says Rudniski.
But removing the Muzak branding is “about having a unified brand and a unified message among the businesses that we operate globally,” says Rudinski. Mood Media first purchased the Muzak brand in 2011, and the company’s staff have been reduced as part of its consolidation into its new owners.
Muzak’s history isn’t just all about specialising in the science of using background music to get shoppers to spend more, workers to work harder (and elevator riders to, ughhh, ride smoother?); as music blogger Alan Cross points out, it’s potted history includes an interesting side-note. Two of Muzak’s Seattle employees: Jonathan Poneman and Bruce Pavitt, who worked at the tape returns warehouse, eventually left the company and formed famous indie label Sub Pop.
Muzak indirectly inspiring the formation of the label that first gave us Nirvana and beloved electropop side-project The Postal Service almost makes all those awful elevator rides seem worth it, doesn’t it?
Randal Rudinski says that particular public perception is a bit of a cliche, noting to The Star that ‘it’s been years, if not decades’ since Muzak provided music for elevators.
