elevator music

Elevator music (piped music or lift music in the Commonwealth) refers to the gentle instrumental arrangements of popular music designed for playing in shopping malls, grocery stores, department stores, telephone systems (while the caller is on hold), cruise ships, airports, doctors' and dentists' offices, and elevators. The term is also frequently applied as a generic (and often derogatory) term for any form of Easy Listening, smooth jazz, or Middle of the road music, or to the type of recordings once commonly heard on "beautiful music" radio stations.

The Muzak corporation is a supplier of business background music. In fact, the term muzak has become a generic epithet for excessively bland music. Muzak, however, moved away from this type of music, for the most part, in 1997^[1] and now uses only "original artists" for its music source, except on the Environmental channel.^[2]

Elevator music is typically set to a very simple melody, so that it can be unobtrusively looped back to the beginning.^{[citation needed]} In a mall or shopping center, elevator music of a specific type has been found to have a psychological effect: slower, more relaxed music tends to make people slow down and browse longer.^{[citation needed]} Elevator music may also be preferred over broadcast radio stations due to the lack of lyrics and commercial interruptions.^{[citation needed]}

In popular culture

• In Star Wars video game, Republic Commando, bossa nova-style variation of Imperial March is played in one of the elevators as an Easter egg.
• In video game F.E.A.R., in one elevator in Armacham Technology Corporation (ATC) headquarters there is a cheery, looped tune radically contrasting with the heavy shootouts occurring on every floor the platform stops.

References

See also

• Ambient music
• Background music
• Beautiful music
• Furniture music
• Light music
• Space music
• Seeburg Background Music System

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Elevator music

• Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Muzak, by Joseph Lanza
• Complain About Elevator MusicA comprehensive site about elevator music
• The King has Just Left the Building: an art project related to elevator music
• Muzak Article about elevator music
• The Soundtrack of Your Life New Yorker Article
• Music, Muzak, Noise, Silence and Thought
• That Kind of Elevator Music Don't Soothe the Soul