hahaha... What makes this funny is that it's coming from you.

Fuck dat Nicest Member award!

Don't make me regret my decision!
I will then have to put you into the "most improved" category!

Could you please just send me some boudin instead?

Honestly, I'm from Louisiana, but I'm not THAT from Louisiana.

Everyone has their preferences in music, nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with someone extolling the virtues of a particular genre.

However for someone to dismiss a whole genre of music isn't really that sensible and tends to strongly suggest ignorance rather than any effort to understand it.

And music at work is just wrong unless it is agreed by all whom it is imposed upon (which would very rarely be the case I expect). There is definitely a strong case for banning music at work.

But I worked in a supermarket and hated 95% of the songs played, but when Rush's Tom Sawyer came on once in a while it was pleasant... In some places, to work without music... in silence... would be un-nerving. Especially markets... who wants to shop in silence?

Offices should probably be headphones only...

I leave for two days and this is what happens. I miss everything good.

I don't see the difference. And if you hated 95% of the songs played how could you have liked it? Imagine having to listen to the same music over and over again too. Music is something that is a choice, not an imposition.

I greatly appreciate listening to music while I work .. particularly if I'm working somewhere quiet and am bothered by tinnitus.

I also disagree with the notion that all who like music are music haters. There's stuff I don't like, but hate is too strong a word for me. I try not to define my taste in music by what I hate, but rather what I like, and I think that goes for many if not most. As Starrynight mentions, writing off entire genres smells of ignorance to me and I think of it as something mainly kids who like to think they know music does.

I think the most irritated I've been in a discussion was with a self-proclaimed music lover who, during the discussion, dismissed all of prog and all of jazz music, all of romantic classical music and the only thing he seemed to like was baroque. That's not a music lover to me. At best, he was a baroque lover.

there are times when I need music playing

there are times I just need silence or ambient sounds

how about a "sometimes yeah ice cream truck, sometimes **** off, ice cream"?

That's crazy. A real music lover always has an open mind.

An individual may like music at work, but the problem is it's normally a communal environment where everyone will have a different opinion as to if or when they want music or what type of music they will tolerate. Somebody is likely to be aggragraved.

^^I sit pretty isolated from the people who hate my music

and next to someone who loves it

With music played over loudspeakers nobody can avoid it and it invades everyone's space.

Hell yeah, ice cream!

I would groan and moan about just about every song played, and what's worst is they have a small enough playlist to hear the songs everyday.

The store has the idea that if it plays generic radio music that won't offend anyone it will put people in a better mood. My qualms were that it was too G-rated, and that I wish I could pump through something of my own with a little more flai, but still acceptable, like Incubus for example, or maybe some mellow jazz.

I am talking about corporate Safeway by the way, but I don't think I've ever seen a grocery store that didn't have something playing.

For example, right now most businesses are playing Christmas music. I generally despise most all Christmas music and try to bring headphones into stores this time of year. But their idea is solid in their viewpoint... they feel it's more welcoming than silence ... which it is. I think it's eerie when stores are silent. They don't care that they're not pleasing the 10% of us that like music enough to care that they play generic adult contemporary radio music, because most of the families listen to that stuff.

I don't think they should cut the music out of the store because they play upbeat family-approved music like Alannis Morisette, etc. (I don't know the names of most of the artists, but have heard them on the radio growing up with my mom for example)

On the flip side, I went to the Dollar Store where I used to work. They USED to have a control box for the music where I could change the genre from adult contemporary, and they had holiday, surf, and soul genres. Quite limited but I enjoyed the surf channel the most, with the likes of Dick Dale and so on...
Well I went back there and corporate policy is now NO music. They weren't even playing Christmas music. It was akward.. I don't think that was a good policy decision. It's like a funeral procession. Very quiet, people whisper FFS ... and all you hear is the sound of the cash registers and cashier up front, and occasionally someone drops something. That's not a very inviting place to shop. I'm happy they're not playing Christmas music, but who wanted them to turn off ALL the music.

Sounds like the Dollar Store has been having conversations such as we are in this thread.

I'm not sure stores are that silent, grocery stores certainly aren't. I suppose it might depend how busy they are. Offices are probably far more silent. But really people are just there to buy things and leave anyway. I think it's probably just a matter of getting used to it, maybe some people are so used to hearing music in every store now they just expect it.

Frankly, I would rather listen to music I hated, or news radio, than the sounds of my work environment. The sounds present in my work environment include an assortment of whirring fans, rushing heaters, buzzing and clicking equipment, beeps and bells and chimes, and when I focus on all of that, I develop a raging migraine so intense I verge on throwing up.

Music, of any sort, gives me something else to focus on and use to drown out those sounds.

I imagine you'd notice a hell of a lot more sound-pollution in your various environments if you didn't have the organized sound of music to distract from them, and it's not the pleasant silence you would hope for.

And that's why you don't dance in the mother****ing street. Save it for the sidewalk.

I don't think I'd be able to listen to music of any sort, music is too important to me for that.

I worked in varying dishrooms as a dishwasher for about three and a half years. None of them allowed music to be played (of course when the managers left said **** THE MAN and put on my goddamn headphones) even though it's a goddamn noisy environment. Dishes, glasses, pots and pans clanking everywhere, the endless, angry drone of the dish machine spewing it's detergent vomit to cleanse the plates, drains draining and mop water being dumped...on and on and on.

I dunno, it might just be because I'm a fan of 'noise' (as a genre), that the workplace sounds never really bothered me.

Except for when the machine beeped to let me know it was out of detergent. I ****ing HATE THAT SOUND.

Is this some sort of implication that because I enjoy multitasking to music, I can't appreciate it while I'm doing so, or appreciate it on the same level as someone who only commits their full attention to listening?

And replacing one type of noise with what might be another for someone isn't an improvement. It's like people who spray around air 'freshener' (doesn't freshen anything) to cover up other smells, all of it is still in the air it doesn't get rid of anything. All it does is add to the smell (or noise in the case of sound).

I have absolutely no idea about your listening habits. I am speaking about myself only and that I wouldn't like some things even as background music. Everyone is an individual and will respond in their own way, which is part of my point. Take what I say at face value without adding implications or suppositions.

Background noises actually help mask disturbing sounds. In a very quiet environment, we get very alert. In an otherwise quiet environment, sounds stand out. If you have some kind of background sound going on, other sounds seem less loud.

By background sound, I mean a sound that you are not interested in. It's just present. It could be the hum of a refrigerator, rain, the wind in the trees outside your window, the sound from a fan in the room or even white noise. When the sound is labeled as insignificant, it is ignored by your brain by the same process that makes it so you don't notice every place on your body where your clothes touch you. To some degree, we focus on sensory input which is regarded as important and ignore that which is not.

So, sleeping with a noisy fan on can be a better way to get some quiet than sleeping in a quiet room. Any sudden noise will seem very loud in the quiet room, but next to the sound of the fan (which you will learn to ignore in no time), it will be much more quiet.

Fair enough, it wasn't clear whether it was a response to me or a general statement.

On that note, I'm guilty of using air freshener for the same reason; to give my senses a focal point other than that which I find unpleasant.

Ultimately what it comes down to is I am usually alone in my working environment, and I listen to whatever I want regardless of customer preference, because I'm the person who has to spend eight hours of their day there. A customer is not typically present for longer than 5 minutes at a time, and as such, their preferences are moot. If that's something others consider rude, so be it, but I will not decrease my enjoyment of my job for the sake of an opinionated individual who is experiencing a minor inconvenience for merely a minute out of their day.

That said, amusingly enough, I've had the most compliments with Rachmaninoff on the radio, and the most complaints about Sufjan Stevens. :laughing:

I'm completely missing the point of this thread, but doesn't the first post seem incredibly similar to what that idiot who claims to work at NASA goes on about in his blog? You know, about music being generally ****e because he's astoundingly clever and bla bla bla?

^ I can't help but read your posts in Bernards voice, it's...odd.

Ive been sleeping with a fan running through the night now for I don't know how long. But it has to be a very smooth running fan in order for it to work for me. If a piece of paper gets sucked against the screen or into the blades, thats it! I'm up outta bed right away. Or sometimes it will vibrate across the floor and get against the wall and start making a tapping sound, I'm up and awake. And when I travel somewhere and have to stay over night, I either have to bring along my own personal fan or go strait to wallmart and buy one. And in the winter time it can be very hard finding one in the northern states. Fairly easy in the southern states. I have left fans all over the east coast, motel rooms, friends places, Geesh!

I think you're a clever irish unicorn.

I find the sound of a blow drier or one of those little portable heaters infinitely relaxing. I could literally spend an afternoon sitting in front of one of those. Sleeping with that kind of background noise would be terrific.

How relaxing something is may depend on the pitch and volume.

i have very small speakers, yo

no complaints thus far

anybody who doesn't like what I listen to can bite my ass

I realize that very few people like the music I love the most, even among friends, so (imo) thinking that people are idiots for not liking what I love would be stupid of me ;)