One of the minor tyrannies of employment is the music, of course. Terrible - the same terrible mix of music day after day, hour after interminable hour. Bad songs, bland, empty, irredeemably square. Bad songs in the taunting "Don't Worry, Be Happy" mold. Good songs that never need to be heard again. The rare classic killed by mindless repetition (another taunt). To customers passing through once a week, it's grease that moves them along, promoting a frictionless consumer environment. To the clerks and cashiers and waitresses and hostesses working full-time, getting underpaid to ensure stores and restaurants run smoothly, it's one of the hazards.
Or so I once thought. And it has to be true for many. But at the business where I'm currently working, the employees actually get to choose and now I'm forced to modify my longheld stance. What's the sound of democracy? Sometimes it's terrible music - the same terrible music that is evidently the inescapable soundtrack to commerce. Usually putting in my hours with mouth sealed shut, I suddenly find myself pinching the flesh at the bridge of my nose and saying aloud: "Someone is listening to this voluntarily. You have the choice to listen to anything, within reasonable limits, and this is what you choose." Deep breath, gigantic sigh, back to the task at hand. A customer standing nearby coughs.
But how can it be any other way? My internal music library is filled with hot tracks because your ears are wasted listening to tracks that are not hot. A lack of taste and discernment, imagination and openmindedness is one of the leading causes of cancer, in my opinion. And yet the wise person realizes that one's hot tracks are not necessarily others's hot tracks. Some but not all. Age has taught me that it's a big world and there are those who looove their wack tracks. The rules for a democratic playlist in this context, devised by me alone:
(1) It must be open to all. I suffer for hours so, if my music plays and you don't like it, it's only fair that you suffer for at least 30 minutes or so.
(2) The majority wins. If everyone truly finds the music objectionable, it immediately changes. No hard feelings.
(3) To minimize the pain, change it up! Thus far I've played nothing twice - Todd Terje, Dusty Springfield, Augustus Pablo, Vivaldi, Depeche Mode....
Every one of these rules no one has agreed to because no one knows about them but me has been broken. Someone shuts off my experimental electronic music after one song. Okay, perhaps an overreach. Then someone shuts off what I always believed was universally accepted, if not beloved, Motown, Diana Ross and the Supremes - before the first song finishes! My jaw drops. "Ugh! Blasphemy!" Back to another hour of musical abuse, verging on tyranny: soporific acoustic country pop. Purely out of spite, as I leave for the day I interrupt whatever is playing and put on the extended version of Chuck Mangione's "Feels So Good," a refined jazz pop gouda from the 70s. And, under the baleful glare of my coworkers, I strut out the door. That was for democracy.
The next day I refuse to pick anything. Listen to garbage, see if I care. Then: "Love in an Elevator," "Sharp Dressed Man," "Bad to the Bone," "Cum on Feel the Noize," that last one spelled correctly, unfortunately. I care, all right? In another act of musical protest, I run upstairs and change it to Beethoven. After 30 minutes: "Every Rose Has Its Thorn."
Sometimes the sound of democracy causes whiplash. And sometimes there's no agreement and the sound of democracy is silence. I suffer but, as a champion of democracy, I ask: "Do you have anything you want to listen to?"
The number one response: Whatever.
"Your Body is a Wonderland": Whatever.
"Gangster's Paradise": Whatever.
I'm 34 years old. I'd estimate that I've spent three of those years listening to Bob Marley. Another day, another spin of that obscure outtake, "Jammin." It's a radical, life-affirming anthem from a musical icon, cheapened by oversaturation and commercialization into a punishment groove. I think about hearing this song for the rest of my life and - I start laughing. Whatever? Is this not madness? I can't stop.
Once more, we're jammin.
And we're jammin by the cleaning supplies.
Possibly a coworker, along with the whole store, overhears because the playlist abruptly changes. Some sort of balearic porno music. I'll take it. Yay democracy.
