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Muzak filter: Ernesto Cortazar (1940–2004) was a composer and pianist who was born in Mexico City. According to his wiki page (which reads like it was written by a friend), he composed background music for more than 500 motion pictures. His music is the type you receive in inspirational emails full of kittens & sunsets. So, it is suitable only as background wall of music for those willing to forgo their cultured sophistication. The only time he was mentioned on the blue, was on a pre-Askme Q&A from 2001 about ‘Cool Christmas Songs’
posted by growabrain on Jul 25, 2011 - 4 comments

Are you man enough? Man enough for D'URBAN, Japanese men's wear commercials from the seventies, and eighties, 2::3::4::5::6::7::8... 11::12:: with easy listening soundtracks to die for. Think Paul Mauriat and Francis Lai. And while we are on the subject of things awesome, and things Japanese, please do look at 00000piopio's criminally good youtube channel of a-ma-zing Japanese first pressings of such songs as -- Do You Know The Way To San Jose by Bossa Rio::Sugar Sugar from The Archies::Que Sera Sera by Mary Hopkin::Another Day／Paul McCartney::Sealed With A Kiss／Lettermen::Love Me Tonight ／Tom Jones::In the Ghetto／Elvis Presley::An Old Fashioned Love Song／Three Dog Night::In The Year 2525／Zager & Evans::Knock Three Times／Dawn::and I've barely scratched the surface.
posted by puny human on Jun 11, 2010 - 8 comments

Miles Davis? Kanye West? The Beatles? Oh... you mean Muzak? Ike played it in the West Wing, NASA used it to soothe astronauts' anxiety. But it's not just your daddy's elevator music anymore.
posted by digaman on Apr 6, 2006 - 44 comments

Pipedown: The campaign for freedom from piped music (aka elevator music or Muzak). A noble cause if ever there was one.
posted by dchase on Apr 26, 2002 - 8 comments

No more Muzak™ and classic rock? "The [IBM] interns collaborated on something called Hold Freedom, a way to ease the tedium of being on hold while waiting to talk to a human. The program enables callers placed on hold to listen to news, music of their choice, enter a chat group with other customers or even make another phone call without losing their place in the queue. The choices would be based on personal profiles that the customers had previously completed on the call center to phone company's Web site." (Also cool that the idea comes from summer interns.)
posted by tippiedog on Aug 27, 2001 - 9 comments

Buying muzak is cool with busy boomers. "Oh I listen to Victoria's Secret brand muzik." This is creepy if you generally self-identify with music, but in another sense perhaps just marks another way music is increasingly just a design choice for many people. After all, I see a lot of brand logos on t-shirts, so? Somehow this ties in with digital music and the equalizing of the artist/audience relationship, too. (Music is rarely foreground for me, but I'll mix my own sets, thank you very much.)
posted by aflakete on Jul 4, 2001 - 11 comments

I pulled up to a McDonald's today and saw a sattelite dish on top for Muzak. Their web site looks hip and cool, completely belying that their output is the work of Demon Spawn. One disturbing thing - doesn't the guy in the lower right look a little too much like Pat McKenna from the Red Green Show?
posted by plinth on Jun 20, 2000 - 7 comments