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Starbucks' music is driving employees nuts

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Re: Starbucks' music is driving employees nuts

#91

Post by city41 »

save_ferris wrote: post #10

I experienced this working in retail during the holiday season back when I was in college. The little bell intro to Mariah Carey's "All I want for Christmas is You", will forever haunt my dreams. I rarely listen to Christmas music anymore because of that experience. Nowadays, I get irritated when I've burned through a 2 hour playlist twice at work and need to find something else to listen to, but I totally take the a…

I worked at a toy store for a couple years and had to endure The Goof Troop movie on repeat all day as well as a toy crate at the counter that would vibrate and say “Excuse me!? Can you let me out of here!??” Just thinking about this toy now makes me feel a little sick.

But what I find interesting is back then you just put up with it. Awful repetition was just an accepted part of a minimum wage job then. Nowadays, we question everything. I do think our questioning is a good thing though.

Re: Starbucks' music is driving employees nuts

#93

Post by DrScump »

overthemoon wrote: post #49

I worked at a movie theater and we were supposed to get a new CD every month from corporate to play in theaters before the movie started, but in the year or so I worked there it never changed. I don't remember all of them, but the ones I do remember are a cover of Convoy by Mannheim Steamroller, which is a godawful treacly piece of shit to begin with, and a cover of Girl You'll Be a Woman Soon by Urge Overkill, which…

  cover of Convoy by Mannheim Steamroller
Did MS actually do a cover of Convoy? The original "C.W. McCall" Convoy stems from the same people, but I didn't know they redid Convoy in the MS style.

The 1980s McCall-branded reunion album ("Comin' Back for More"?) is good.

Re: Starbucks' music is driving employees nuts

#94

Post by randcraw »

maxxxxx wrote: post #22

In general I don’t understand why people think that it’s ok to pollute every bit of space with noise of their choice (aka music). I view it as a big nuisance.

I think it's because the alternative is silence, which many merchants see as setting a scene that is low energy and makes people lonely -- the last thing a retailer wants.

Most retailers want to set a mood that attracts their target demographic groups. In some clothing stores that serve women age 30-40, they play pop music that was in vogue 10-15 years ago, when these customers were in their teens or twenties and had more youthful energy, knowing this music was a very big part of their lives.

It wouldn't surprise me if music were also intended by PR/marketing types to put these customers in the same frame of mind they were in when they were most socially vulnerable (their teens?), when fashion was a necessary way to become more popular... or less unpopular, anyway.

Re: Starbucks' music is driving employees nuts

#96

Post by asteli »

grawprog wrote: post #6

I went into a Starbucks the other day early in the morning that didn't have music playing yet, it was really weird. It was actually kind of disconcerting. I think that's the only time i've ever been in one with no music. Everybody's voices echoed really loudly. You could hear every conversation going on and people ordering from the other side of the store. As much as I dislike their music choices usually, I kind of u…

I experienced this in a Target last year sometime. No music over the intercom, and the energy in the place just felt more... nervous, restless. I don't know whether that's an effect inherent to silence in large spaces or whether it was an effect created by the absence of something we took for granted.

Re: Starbucks' music is driving employees nuts

#98

Post by jread »

I spend about 2 hours in Starbucks every morning before taking kids to school. Usually the playlist is tolerable, but every once in a while it's absolutely horrendous, particularly for 5AM. A couple years ago they had a 70s Soul Train playlist including Love Train which drove me nuts. I can only imagine being an employee on an 8 hour shift and not able to put on noise cancelling headphones.

Re: Starbucks' music is driving employees nuts

#99

Post by mgkimsal »

worked at a music store for a couple of years - part time, but the company-provided playlists did grate after a while. upside was it was fairly chart-driven, so you'd generally not get the same things for more than a few weeks in a row. it was mostly just very... popularity driven (of course, they're trying to push new stuff). We did generally have some down time each day which was 'staff choice', but even then they still wanted it to be from their approved list. We mostly followed that rule. It was a big corporate chain store thing, not a hip indie place.

At some point they moved in to promoting video in store, which got worse. The CDs they'd send were samplers, but the "now play this VHS tape"... the Garth Brooks concert VHS... ugh - however much you like him, having to listen to it 2x/day for weeks... (at least it seemed like weeks)

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