Letters to the Editor
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How about...
... a No Christmas Music Month. It could start at Thanksgiving.
Personally I stay out of stores as much as possible especially around Christmas. Internet shopping has the benefit of being music free.
I hate it when I am in a store and I hear a piece of music that I like. This hardly ever happens, but when it does I feel violated.
Fortunately Benny Goodman and Charlie Barnet numbers don't seem to sell stuff, so they are relatively safe from desecration.
A No TV Year in airports would be a good thing. I guess CNN must pay the airports a lot of money to be allowed to narrowcast to people who otherwise don't watch TV while they are waiting to board planes to destinations out of range of English language broadcasting.
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Pink Moon
I always thought it was also a metaphor for Armageddon...
Either way, the tone of the ad (enjoy the true pleasures of youth and friendship, which don't necessarily include getting trashed at a roadhouse, while you can) seems perfectly consonant with the song.
You can't say the same of Moby's commercial choices, which contributed to ruining "Play" for me. (But not as much as his awful followup album did.)
Anyway according to Joe Boyd, Drake's album sales have always been on a steady upward trend, so he was due for some kind of mass popular breakthrough, commercial or no commercial. If you want to be an indier-than-thou fan, Kevin, tell people your favorite album is that studio tart "Bryter Layter."
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Here's teh problem
That leads to a deeper reason that music in public places gets under your skin. You hear songs that once lifted your spirits employed to sell you a computer.
I place the blame for this squarely at the feet of The Rolling Stones. Start Me Up, indeed.
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don't forget . . .
If this became a widespread phenomenon rather than a quirky opportunity for discussion or social critique I insist that it be permanently extended to all sporting events and arenas.
Actual atmosphere has been replaced by a simulacra of atmosphere.
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How About No TV Day (Month or Year)?
Agree with the writer about no music day...while I love music, I appreciate quiet much more, esp when there is no choice about what music I am hearing. There is so little quiet in our world, and that is a true impediment to peace of mind.
I also agree with the person who proposed No TV in Airports Year...let's do that forever! And I would also add "No TV in hospital waiting rooms" (did I really need screechy talk shows playing while I very tensely waited for my husband's surgery to be completed this summer?) and "No TV in restaurants or hotel breakfast areas." I am not talking about sports bars where people go to watch a specific game or event. I am talking about blaring, idiotic, TV morning news shows disturbing the peace while you eat your breakfast. I don't know why anyone thinks this is an appropriate practice but my cynical assumption is that someone, somewhere is getting a fee for shoving all that advertising down my throat. And if you manage to get the tube turned off, there is often Musak playing underneath! Are we a culture that is afraid of silence?
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If you really want to get away from the music...
go spend a night in the backcountry. It can be awfully quiet.
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Pandering to the feeble-minded
The people who think I will be happier and buy more if I listen to Top 40 crap music miscalculated. I flee nearly anyplace that forces me to listen to it, and will not stay anywhere where a TV is playing. It limits my choices, but I value my brain cells. (The only forced music that I ever found worth hearing was at a Staples store, where I heard a Muzak version of Lou Reed's "Perfect Day." Too strange for words....) Music is one of my greatest pleasures, but so is silence.
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No Rap
I like this no music day idea! Now let's take it a little further and try NO RAP MUSIC FOR A CENTURY!!!
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What a wonderful world it would be....
The closest supermarket to my house plays the '50s hits from my teenage years. Do I really want to shop to the strains of "To Know Him Is to Love Him" and recall my unrequited crush on my best friend's brother as I paw through the green beans? No. I stopped patronizing the bloody place. The other night I was having dinner with a friend in Brooklyn, and we could hardly hear ourselves talk. Great food, intrusive music, dreadful experience: I'll never go there again. And so I think about a "no music day" and wonder if such a civilized thing will ever come to this misguided country. We all love music, but when it fills the world it's actually possible to begin to hate it. And how horrifying is that?
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No music=shopping bliss
I am convinced that Target's success is due to the fact that they don't play music in their stores. If you have to shop in a big box, life is much better if "You're Beautiful" is not blaring throughout the store.
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Good intentions; faulty reasoning
"The commercial did help the Drake estate sell records but at a terrible cost to "Pink Moon." The emotionally fragile song, whose central image is a haunting metaphor for encroaching depression, is now forever bound to an automobile. It's an incredible shame and a phenomenon sadly taken for granted, even endorsed."
I was a fan of Drake's prior to the commercial hawking the (as only you've reminded me) "Cabrilolet." I, as a (I assure you) champion of artist's sanctity, as well as someone who despises America's love of the automobile, sees that commercial as a "happy accident" in ratcheting up the quality of American indie music. The commercial was a sublime marrying of Nick's music, beautiful videography (that I would dare say I haven't seen since...esp now that commercials are all so convinced they're oh-so-clever in their supposed culture jamming), and rejection of drunken party culture.
Ideally, Nick Drake's music would have achieved its three-decade-too-late prominence in music's pantheon based on it's own merit, rather than riding the back of commercialism.
However, I ask you this: how many of those who, as a result of seeing the commercial, had their ears open to the potential of music, or more importantly, if not becoming Iron & Wine or Sufjan Stevens, came to demand their Drake-esque music? How many others went on to buy a...what was the name of that car again?