In which Ryuichi Sakamoto crafts a playlist for his favorite restaurant.

August 17, 2018 11:59 AM

“He went home and composed an email to Mr. Odo. “I love your food, I respect you and I love this restaurant, but I hate the music,” he remembered writing. “Who chose this? Whose decision of mixing this terrible roundup? Let me do it. Because your food is as good as the beauty of Katsura Rikyu.” (He meant the thousand-year-old palatial villa in Kyoto, built to some degree on the aesthetic principles of imperfections and natural circumstances known as wabi-sabi.) “But the music in your restaurant is like Trump Tower.””
posted by brokeaspoke (27 comments total)

"But the music in your restaurant is like Trump Tower."

Ouch.

There's a ramen shop not far from my neighborhood with pretty good food (at least by American standards) and basically zero musical taste or consistency. I'm guessing it's either the owner's whim (and he's whimsical) or employee choice. One week they're playing The Cure, the next week it's "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy."
posted by Foosnark at 12:16 PM on August 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

There's a new restaurant in my area that has a great breakfast but I won't go in there because of their music. At 7 a.m., I am very picky restaurant music, it turns out.

This article makes me worried that now the copyright police are going to come crack down on Kajitsu for playing unauthorized music.
posted by tofu_crouton at 12:23 PM on August 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

This is hilarious and reminds me of a super popular ramen shop (Ramen Nagi) nearby which plays Hatsune Miku pretty often.
posted by typify at 12:32 PM on August 17, 2018

Yeeeeeeeeees. I love this article - I also have left restaurants in rage for similar reasons ❤️ this is such an insightful and lovely article.

One of my friends played the Atlas Genius Pandora playlist for the boba shop he used to work at and people always raved. He's also the only musician at the shop, once he left the music just descended into edm pop madness, sadface.
posted by yueliang at 12:53 PM on August 17, 2018

I had a doctor's appointment this morning and waited a long time by myself in the exam room. The lighting was harsh. The music was terrible. I sincerely realized that I would have preferred classic Muzak.
posted by Glomar response at 12:58 PM on August 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

God bless that guy. I frickin' hate being tortured by crappy music and/or too loud music in public places. I am That Woman, who tells the server to turn the music down.

I recall a "fancy" restaurant here in town where they played a muzak version of "Evergreen" SEVEN TIMES in a row while I was there. I asked the waitress to do something about it, to no avail. I could have started singing along, but David would have left me there.

I am also a public TV hater, though, so, you know. You kids get offa my lawn, etc.
posted by corvikate at 1:10 PM on August 17, 2018 [5 favorites]

Reading this article immediately after the Dollar General article just down the front page gave me a nasty case of whiplash. The two articles are about the same country, and they're both about food (at least tangentially), yet the situations and concerns they describe couldn't be more different.
posted by Johnny Assay at 1:12 PM on August 17, 2018 [5 favorites]

Where I live some of the Chinese restaurants play nu-country music.
posted by ardgedee at 1:40 PM on August 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

This is weirdly the second interview with Ryuichi Sakamoto I have read this week, after this Criterion piece on his film work.
posted by Think_Long at 1:41 PM on August 17, 2018 [2 favorites]

This is weirdly the second interview with Ryuichi Sakamoto I have read this week, after this Criterion piece on his film work.

...and if that's not enough, go see his documentary, Coda, which outlines his history alongside a project oriented around a piano rescued from Tohoku tsunami debris. It's traveling around the US right now.

I had an argument with my brother last Christmas about my prediction that there will be a market for freelance playlist compilers, particularly with regard to well-constructed Spotify profiles (like/dislike hints vs playlist). He didn't think there was money there, but I bet Ryuichi (and me) would vote for their existence.
posted by rhizome at 1:59 PM on August 17, 2018 [6 favorites]

Incidentally the playlist is quite good. Roll through it (you don't need spotify to listen to the first 30 seconds of every song) and you may find a few new artists worth listening to.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 2:51 PM on August 17, 2018

I just don't understand why restaurants in general do this with music. They'll spend all this money and time on decor and ambience and presentation and then the music they play is completely random, like blaring techno club music at a place that otherwise strives to be a cute French bistro. It just doesn't make sense: it's never been easier or cheaper to find good, appropriate music to play. That's not even getting to the volume issue, itself the subject of a recent MeFi thread.
posted by Sangermaine at 3:12 PM on August 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

One day I found myself at Loofts Lite-a-Line in Long Beach, playing their unholy combination of pachinko and tic-tac-toe. We settled in to our line-liteing session to the sounds of Vance Joy's Riptide, taken away to the dark side, I wanna be your left hand man.

15 minutes in, I asked my companions: is this... just a long remix?

Yes, they said. Just a long remix.

It was not. Vance Joy's Riptide continued throughout our Lite-a-Line session, over and over, without break, barely a moment between plays in a way that made the song seem endless. At some point, we had heard Riptide repeated for an entire hour. We couldn't dare question it, it just... was.

During the course of that hour, I went through all five stages, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance. Now, I can't hear the damn song without smiling, thinking about this strange experience where nobody cared about the background music, and Riptide just kept playing and playing and playing.
posted by eschatfische at 3:50 PM on August 17, 2018 [7 favorites]

The new documentary on him, Coda, is very good. So happy he recovered.
posted by ACair at 4:19 PM on August 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

... but did he? At the end of the film, he remarks that his hands feel very cold. :(
posted by seawallrunner at 4:51 PM on August 17, 2018

Our favorite mega fancy sushi omakase restaurant in Boston (O Ya, go if you can!) has been playing Snoop for the last eight years at least. And it is a great thing.
posted by lydhre at 5:17 PM on August 17, 2018

"I had a doctor's appointment this morning and waited a long time by myself in the exam room. The lighting was harsh. The music was terrible."

In Peoria I went to a Catholic hospital with TERRIBLE billing so you were constantly having to call to straighten out your bills, and the hold music was (from where the voice comes in), the first THREE AND THREE-EIGHTHS bars of Schubert's Ave Maria, repeated and repeated and repeated and repeated. It was like being punched in the face repeatedly because of the super-bizarre cut and immediate repeat, and you'd have to listen to it for an HOUR.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:40 PM on August 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

This story made me feel hopeful. Recorded music that allows the diner to relax into the flavors and conversation.

Now if only. If only. If only we could get people to stop wearing fragrances in dining rooms...
posted by valannc at 6:46 PM on August 17, 2018 [4 favorites]

While the place was full of tourists, the owner played traditional Chinese music. As soon as the place was empty, except for myself and my companion, he quickly changed the music to what he really wanted to hear: George Jones. General Tso's chicken and sad country music do go together well.

On a visit to Prague, we went to a Serbian restaurant recommended by a friend. Not long after we got there, another English speaking couple arrived and was seated. When the third English speaking couple arrived, they changed the music from something traditional and unknown to us … to George Michael's greatest hits.

The next day we flew home by way of Heathrow, and the music piped in to the jetway as we waited was "Careless Whisper." The British Airways flight attendants were not prepared for me singing the chorus as I boarded (in full voice), but now I can't hear the song without remembering that dinner and that flight the next day.
posted by fedward at 7:48 PM on August 17, 2018

As we move into a world where music (especially long-form) isn't all that profitable, it would be kinda neat to have composers of all stripes collaborate with restaurants. I love doing tasting menus, and it'd be so cool to have one set to music. While that might sound like a nightmare, adhering to jazz rules or just making vamping space would make it pretty doable.

plus, wouldn't it be nice if people applauded at restaurants sometimes? *that's when I get his with a tomato*
posted by es_de_bah at 7:38 AM on August 18, 2018 [2 favorites]

A burger joint I go to is pretty consistent with it's rock soundtrack (classic rock, heavy metal, glam, thrash) but on one occasion I was there and there was a new wave playlist. That felt wrong.
posted by vespabelle at 8:04 AM on August 18, 2018

I just don't understand why restaurants in general do this with music. They'll spend all this money and time on decor and ambience and presentation and then the music they play is completely random, like blaring techno club music at a place that otherwise strives to be a cute French bistro. It just doesn't make sense: it's never been easier or cheaper to find good, appropriate music to play.

Probably because there's way more agreement among people about décor and what looks nice than there is about what kind of music is good music.
posted by straight at 8:05 AM on August 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

I love a Japanese restaurant called Gombei, which has a location in Menlo Park. Eating there at prime time became a torture for me, however, because the of the music -- actually, the sound system. It has very effective bass reproduction -- which, due to the masking sound of diners' chatter, is all you can hear once the place fills up. Doesn't seem to bother anybody else, but it makes me crazy.

And regarding restaurant background music in general, Brian Eno once said something to the effect of

If the music's good, nobody listens,
but if the music's bad, nobody talks.

posted by Rash at 9:08 AM on August 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

Probably because there's way more agreement among people about décor and what looks nice than there is about what kind of music is good music.

back in the day, I programmed music for a two sort of cafe-restaurants. One of them was a success. The owner loved my stuff (he'd specifically tracked me down after hearing a mixtape I'd made for a mutual friend) and as he was pretty much always on location, he made sure it got played. Or more to the point (because he didn't just play my stuff), he made sure the right music played. He had a vision for his establishment (which included how it sounded) and he saw it through, which led to a very successful joint. The other situation was a failure. I made them a bunch of tapes which the owners loved and insisted was was what they wanted, but they too often weren't there, and their staff just played whatever they wanted, which was usually just some awful Top 40 radio station. It may have been fine if you were working in the kitchen but had the effect of a bad smell up front. Needless to say, that place (which to this day had the best veggie burgers I've ever tasted) failed.
posted by philip-random at 10:11 AM on August 18, 2018

that there will be a market for freelance playlist compilers

There already is, I'd say. I know at least three Swedish freelance playlist compilers - they put together boutique Spotify playlists for restaurants, fashion shows, clothes stores ... Sure, they can't live off it (yet), but nice work if you can get it. Then there are playlist businesses like Soundtrack Your Brand that take playlist compiling to the next level. University courses are a year away, I reckon.
posted by soundofsuburbia at 12:10 PM on August 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

I listened to a podcast recently about the history of Muzak (I think it was on Twenty Thousand Hertz), and some of the original people involved were very quick to point out that Muzak was never meant to be played loud, and the musical selections were very consciously chosen to not be obnoxious or grating. "Muzak" as a genre is almost a slur, but there is a lot to recommend it over just blasting pop or whatever, when you're going for ambient background music or trying to lower people's stress levels or whatever.

There's a local taco shop that I love, but they play music there so loudly I can't imagine that they aren't at risk of an OSHA citation for their employees' safety. You literally can't have a conversation inside the place without shouting. It's insane, and I don't know why they do it. It absolutely detracts from the food, which they clearly care about and spend much time on. It's like bringing your finest dish out to your customers in an unwashed dogfood bowl covered in dried slobber.
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:27 PM on August 18, 2018 [2 favorites]

I know at least three Swedish freelance playlist compilers - they put together boutique Spotify playlists for restaurants, fashion shows, clothes stores ... Sure, they can't live off it (yet), but nice work if you can get it.

Good to know. I loved reading this story. Sakamoto sounds like a man after my own heart, and this story inspires me in my own long-term project of using music to shape Pagan religious spaces in subtle ways. Kind of like a very small-scale DIY version of Ambient Church, but with dark ambient music.

For years I've been providing a dark ambient music playlist compilation service for yoga classes, meditation retreats, rituals, small events, etc. I compile custom playlists centered around a theme, and I craft them with great care, discernment, and personalized attention to the needs of the event organizer. I consider it a form of community service to promote music-based contemplative practices. I do this work on a pay-what-you-want basis. I don't use Spotify, though, since very little money from Spotify goes to the artists. I direct half of all donations I receive for my music consultation service to the musicians whose tracks I recommend.

The demand for it has grown in recent years, and if it keeps growing I'll probably reach a point where I'll need to formalize it a little more. I doubt it'll ever become my way to earn a living, if only because the listening audience for dark ambient music remains very small, but it is definitely nice work. Especially when I get enthusiastic feedback from the listeners. A couple of my favorites:

"This music is amazing! Why haven't I ever heard this kind of music before? Where can I get more of it?"
"I started exploring some of the dark ambient music in your playlists, and was surprised by how much I liked it. I'm going to dig deeper in the near future."
posted by velvet winter at 11:48 AM on August 21, 2018 [1 favorite]