Shop-Play Music

Robert Crowther Sep 2022

I’ve worked in a few shops. And, in a few shops, the staff can choose the music. Usually, this becomes lively discussion. Then a manager will turn in, “Get that off the stereo!” Got to admit, the managers sometimes had a point. The good ones, anyway. Some shop managers self‐seek. Or are panic‐stricken twisters.

For about half a year, I worked in the specialist section in a record store. This makes acceptable shop‐play twice as difficult. The people who come into specialist sections are after something off‐path. My shop had a man come in, lovely bloke, who wanted old‐time band‐music, pier‐end, so he and his friends could ballroom dance. Than others would arrive looking for a Country Music CD. Or something by Mozart, because it improves the brainwaves of babies, or something.

The endless discussion is I guess fun, a play, or situationist concussion. Think about this, I had one guy come in, down with his Sixties music, liked the rock band Family. Alright by me, but isn’t going on the shop system. Anyway, in the long hours, I had a thought. Maybe we could have rules? With a few other staff, I figured them. Here we go. The rules for acceptable shop‐play music are,

  • No sonic extremes

  • A steady dance‐speed beat

  • Diatonic harmonics

  • Keep it clean with the words, with no singer/audience challenge

  • Production must be realistic

    • There’s a world of bicker in this. What’s your favourite music? Does it pass? It would take a book. But, as starters, note that nothing is said about what might be called the intent of the music. It’s fairly common for people to complain, or tear music off the stereo saying, “I don’t want to listen to that depressing stuff!”. Turn‐about, hours in shops are long, can be measured from album to album. Shop staff mutter, “Mind if we listen to something interesting?” Now the rules decide. And the rules don’t care about ‘taste’ or merit.

    But we can talk about the rules. At start, I think ‘sonic extremes’ is clear. Pitchwise, some guitarist claiming top space on his fretboard with a tube amp (or Jesus and Mary Chain). Albert Ayler playing angry bird, Bella Bartok with his rusty wheelbarrow. And, since modern engineering lets producers go there, we can do without the low—though that’s less common. But low frequency rules out a number of commercial‐advertising shots. Beyond, ‘sonic extremes’ has also a temporal form. Soon as that massed free‐jazz into starts, watch the customers cringe—that’s off the stereo. The issue here is extreme volume contrast. And, alright your training put you in that place, you sat in those plain and warm conservatoire rooms for years, but it don’t mean you can play your Harrison Birtwistle. The blank space/twiddles are kinda distracting for anyone who was looking to pick up a new skirt.

    ‘Steady dance beat speed’ is even easier. No argument about what it is. Where it springs a surprise is what it applies to. There is a sector of so‐called ‘pop’ music that likes to go slow for atmospherics. Comes from a few places—Brian Eno art experiments, Steve Reich/Phillip Glass minimalism, anything that claims drone as inspiration. You can find this stuff in all so‐titled ‘genres’ of music. It’s not that it’s ‘miserable’, because it doesn’t have to be, but it’s not fit to purpose. And stuff that goes too fast is obviously out. Interestingly, this rules out older country music. Not that anybody my way listens to that stuff, and they don’t like for sure the modern brand. But Rose Maddox, or the Bluegrass guys getting it down in two and a half minutes, it’s too fast. Anyways, this is a cross‐genre rule. For every virtuoso or Ableton Live user who thinks turning up the dial is radical… it’s the drugs talking.

    Ok, ‘Diatonic harmonics’. I know, you’re onto me about the words. Look, several of the people I worked with were music students, ok? It only means, ‘notes that play together in the usual way’. And a bit more, ‘notes that follow each other in the usual way’. Some people say, “Major/Minor”. Stick with that, ok? There’s a test case here, Western Art Composer Anton Webern. Him and others constructed music using new rules of gathering notes and putting them in sequence. In practice it’s good music to hear, unusual angles, and they knew what they were doing. Off‐stereo for a shop though. I had rare space here, could try it, guarantees confusion. Not even in a shop that sells colored pottery mushrooms. Once you have that in pocket, you know none of the stuff called free‐jazz is ok, not even if it stops squealing. A swathe of so‐called ‘rock’ music is out too, because the string bends are out for those notes that matter. Fields of so‐called ‘world’ music, that people like, are out too. I gotta say this is a rule that holds. Like, if it’s outta harmony, it’s a Massacre.

    Keeping lyrics clean, do I need to explain that? Except that it can sneak into some Rock music. Especially pseud rock music. But not issuing challenges to a listener is a little harder. See, music since punk especially unleashed singers who are on the challenging side. This is sometimes a sonic challenge. Pere Ubu? No. Elvis Costello? Marginal, even if you claim pop hits. Randy Newman? Any old screaming Punk. Joey Ramone… at least it takes you an afternoon to figure out what he’s saying. Bjork? Tom Waits? Marginal again… but look down. Beyond sonics, the stance, lyrics and delivery, of some singers can offer challenge. It’s part of the play of the Rolling Stones that they covered the challenge with subdued production, musical roll and articulation, so they are a close pass—on the outside. As for attitude, as soon as those ‘Protest’ lyrics start up, or other political challenges, drop it. Nina Simone is more marginal than you think, try it in a shop and you’ll see what I mean.

    Production is a border attribute, doesn’t come into play very often. The idea of ‘production’ is often confused between the engineering of external sounds, and producer contribution. Of course, if producer contributions consist of orchestral arrangements and the like, then we’re talking of sonic extremes and the like. But mainly the rules here are talking about cranky engineering. Interesting, I’ve never had any problems with old‐time engineering. There’s more on this further down, but a limited recording pitch range is not really a problem for shop play. If not an orchestral recording, can go back to the 1920’s. Roll that Fats! But we’re talking about engineers spinning sounds round stereo, jerking out the low‐band, burying vocals, inserting non‐pitched sounds, and so forth.

    And a final note. Technical. So, you may be in an electronics or music shop that spends a little time, and spends a little on it’s stereo. But most would not. The tech guys sling a few speakers about to make sure something can be heard wherever a customer stands. Any good Public Address guy can tell you that’s a long way short. Technically, with the racks and shelving, a shop offers sonic possibilities but you think anyone is bothered? And that’s if it’s good, and shop kit doesn’t come down to a ghetto‐blaster behind the counter. So this is a technical reason for the case against sonic extremes. For one thing—pretty much no Western Art Music passes, not the orchestral oeuvre, symphonies, that kind of thing. Whatever name it goes by—Baroque, Rococco, Romantic, whatever. You wander round a shop, and at best you’ll be hearing a narrow band of what was intended. It’s usually worse than that. The event will be wandering in and out of focus and direction—not like you can hear those flute decorations, or the piano interjection, because the horns are being reworked into something that sounds like a road junction.

    There you are. Course, you’re going to tell me this ends in Sade. Of course it does. All roads lead to Sade. By way of Simply Red, UB40, Texas… Actually, for me, it gets worse. Pretty much all that gets called ‘Jazz’ passes. Truth, ‘Jazz’ is a wide field. But most people mean a small group with those stiff beats and theme‐threesolo‐theme compositions. But you’re not condemned to listen to Sade and Jazz combos through a shift. I didn’t say that. That’s the thing about rules, they can set you free. It would be a crazy job to list all shop playable music, so here’s recall…

    I remember from a little later there were albums that got played time and again. Then, I worked in a shop that pitched as a fancy wine vendor. That meant, with licencing, staying open until eleven o’clock. Eleven, in the winter in the North. At closing you’d step out in the dark into a cold wind that cut through gloves and up sleeves… jumping and dragging down the shutter that creaked and ground in the hinges because they didn’t want to move from where they were contracting and freezing, stomping in half‐ice slush, somewhere in dim ghastly streetlight. In the dismal evenings, stuck behind the wooden counter with all the wooden shelves and smell of wood and straw and racks of wine and people queueing for crates of beer, shop music would get adventurous. Some of them were,

    That’s not so bad, is it? The ‘Allsorts’ collection I can’t trace, but I think it may have been a magazine giveaway, had PJ Harvey ‐ ‘C’Mon Billy’ and a couple of Oasis tracks ‐ ‘Champagne Supernova’? On the list, Trainspotting has iffy moments, and better not listen to some of those Macy Gray lyrics. Then again, you couldn’t make out the lyrics if you were rooting the Chardonnay rack. Also, mostly on the ignorable side. On the positive, that set can get everyone through some shelf‐stacking.

    Got to admit, a few others kept making their way onto the system. I remember these,

    Mate of mine I knew also loved to bring in his Weezer album. Anyway, the first is interesting. Fans and journalists built a mystique about it. But in shop‐play terms, the band turned their abilities towards home‐made punk. I can tell you the sound is not only acceptable but welcome to people of all ages. Even in the last track, where the lead singer channels his ability to scream, this is delivered precisely. And the lyrics are personal intrigues. Even people who have no knowledge of, or interest in, the mystique like this. As for the second one, I got to factor out my own dislike of mersh. But it does aim at a band‐level projection, as opposed to the proposedly similar Jane’s Addiction, or the overloaded Faith No More. So, a few lyrics aside, it’s sonically good—and plenty rolled it.

    To show you where this goes wrong, this next one was a big deal with everyone who had any allegiance to Sixties music. At last!

    It was big at the time. Many of the staff loved it, wanted to hear. Others thought it was fun. But customers,

    Oh, God, harmonies. Do you have to play that?

    Look it over, you can hear Smile breaks a few shop‐play rules. You can argue the massed singers break the ‘no extremity’ rule. Those tunes and notes that are played together, they’re not common. The words may not break the ‘keep it clean’ rule, but they lean towards bonkers. And excessive sound effects break the production rule. Perhaps not excessively, but enough.

    Here are some older ones that came out often,

    Al Green, never gets airplay, never fails. Stevie Wonder is pushing it a little. But makes people stop, listen, smile, then maybe come talk about it. Journalists always have Hawkwind down as a hard rock band or something, and the recording is from ’72, but it passes the rules, never had a complaint—staff took it as relief. Some would vote for ACDC ‐ ‘Back in Black’ but, y;know, lyrics, sonic extremes… How ’bout ZZ‐Top ‐ ‘Eliminator’?

    Anyway, the point is, this has nothing to say about you or your interests. Your personal interests in music are not right or wrong. The rules are no comment on that. They decide what to play in a shop. And are objective assessment. And work—you can see the effect on customers. Kinda like limited DJaying—“Does this track get them on the dancefloor?” Or, does this make the slog of shopping alright? Go ponder. And it’s all good by staff. At least we’re not working to Celine Dion… or Queen and ABBA’s Greatest Hits. We, most of us, can agree on that.