Blog #4 - Why muzak is evil

As described in Hamilton’s book, “the term muzak was coined in 1922 by George Owen Squier, who launched a company to pipe music, advertising, and public service announcements into homes and businesses; the word is a fusion of ‘music’ and ‘Kodak.’” The concept of sound-design, originated from muzak. As Professor Langguth said in class, research companies now exist which devote themselves entirely to it. According to Hamilton, muzak is evil and manipulative. The primary purpose of muzak is to anaesthetize —to deprive of feeling — by putting customers in a relaxed mood in which they are more likely to consume. And other kinds of muzak aim to influence consumer choice more directly. Muzak compilations use, that is, mention music, and therefore have many of the auditory properties of music, but are engineered to make them bland and inconspicuous.

So while background music subordinates the aesthetic, muzak rejects it completely in favor of commercial or political aims. It has no aesthetic aim; it is not meant to be listened to, but rather to evoke a subliminal reaction. As Professor Langguth has said in class, it is comparable to odors or drugs. Muzak is an evil according to Hamilton because it degrades people’s aesthetic capacities — their ability to hear anything. It degrades their response to music. “Muzak, whether in elevators or restaurants or piped to telephone customers on hold, belongs under the heading of sound-design, and while sound-design can have an aesthetic purpose, it does not do so when it takes the form of muzak.”