Rants Blog

Musak rant

The musak/sensory pollution problem seems to have gone up a notch. On a recent trip involving plane, hotel, an interview and Eurostar, I had
a. TV while you wait at the plane gate, pushing ads at you.
b. Shite drivel music the entire plane journey not just the taxiing bit (Alitalia).
c. Shite drivel music in Brussels airport (even the toilets)
d. Shite drivel music in the hotel corridors. Actually it wasn't so bad but it was so quiet you couldn't hear it enough to enjoy it. (Marriot)
e. Shite french tv in the waiting room for the interview while trying to prepare for an interview in English and Italian.
f. THE shitest drivel music imaginable in the Eurostar waiting room, bathroom and platform. I went to the information desk to find out where I could complain and the guy at the desk said he was going through hell with it too and said "please please complain as soon as possible."
This thing is getting wall to wall.
I want a choice about what I put in my ears. What if you want silence or even to listen to your own walkman. Not possible...
Usually they try to find a music that is not going to offend anyone with the result that it is completely insipid and doesn't please anyone either.
Is this stuff really customer driven? Does putting elevator music on really sell more Eurostar music? Am I just over fussy or snobbish about music? If so, it's depressing. If not, why do they do it?

I suggest a new venture in human rights. Sensory rights. We already require an opt-in for spam or junk snail mail (it is now law that you can't send someone unsolicited spam or junk mail). I propose a law/a clause in the universal declaration of human rights that says that I am not allowed to show you ads or musak against your will. If I am going to advertise to you, there must be a choice to turn away, to switch off, etc... So often now I find myself being forcefed media. My mother was recently in hospital in the UK and she told me that there was TV at the end of her bed, with hospital TV including adverts, which she could not turn off. I thought that was the stuff of science fiction, but this kind of orwellian invasion of civil liberties in the name of commerce is already here, and no-one is complaining about it. A milder version of the same basic infringement are the radio and ads in the supermarket voiceover. I need to buy food so I have no choice. Waiting for a plane at the airport you now commonly cannot avoid being forcefed CNN from every possible angle. There is no pillar to hide behind where you cannot see it. I've seen similar at the UK post office and in petrol stations - they put multiple screens so there is no way out - no position in which to avoid the mind control. What kind of a free society is that?

Obviously you can't go too far in controlling your sensory input. You can't expect to go on a long journey without hearing people saying things you might not want to hear, loud and unpleasant noises and sights you might not want to see. But I am not suggesting we give the people a sort of virtual private residence in the realm of their senses. I'm just suggesting that we extend the same principle we already apply to spam and junk mail, to non-mail media that is the right to opt out of advertising and perhaps media content in general. In a sense it follows from the right to personal privacy which is already enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.