Last year, I went with two friends to a tiny bar on Chicago's north side. The trip had been a long time coming, a culmination of sorts of our collective college experience, though we had all graduated a few months before. A favorite professor of ours had, throughout each class he taught, teased his students with the knowledge that he worked at a local bar every Thursday night. However, this was as much information as he would divulge, not wanting his shift to be dominated by inebriated undergrads looking for free drinks, or possibly recommendations, from their grizzled mentor.
It was considered a significant accomplishment to obtain the details of his employment upon graduation; thanks to some savvy detective work and a little six-month-long thesis project by my friend, we now knew the name and location of the place. Actually, we had known this for some time, but being lazy and poor planners, it had taken us a while to get our collective shit together. Somehow, discovering the information was much more tantalizing than actually using it.
So it was on this Thursday night in the summer that we crept through the doors of the bar. I'm not sure what my friends were expecting, but I walked into the place with all sorts of preconceived notions, based on what I knew of Bill, our professor. A Chicago native, he was passionate about the city and its artists; as long as I had known him, he operated on one simple principle: no bullshit. So I was expecting the bar to be a no-frills affair, the kind of place where one could sit and discuss everything from Mayor Daley to Nelson Algren to Corey Patterson over several Old Styles.
As it turned out, I was not far off. It was a cramped, dark place, full of authentic Chicago memorabilia, the only real amenities being a pool table in the back (with the requisite chalkboard denoting who would be next to play) and a couple of bathrooms. The bar, behind which Bill paced back and forth delivering drinks, took up almost one entire wall. In lieu of the sound of blaring TVs one finds in the majority of bars, music erupted from a small stereo located behind the bar, upon which were stacked dozens of CDs. While I might have expected some blues guitar to be emanating from the speakers, the mumbling voice of Bruce Springsteen seemed to fit the atmosphere of the place just as well (I recall Bill saying something about Darkness on the Edge of Town being a gothic masterpiece or something).
When Bill noticed us, he motioned that we sit down by the end of the bar where there were a few open stools. For the first half-hour or so that we were there, he was alternately chatting with us and shuffling down to the other end of the bar to tend to his customers, as he was the only person on duty. After one such trip, he returned shaking his head, clearly agitated. He turned to the stereo and replaced the CD currently playing with a new one. I could not have predicted what I heard next — a healthy dose of Rage Against the Machine's "Bulls on Parade". After a few minutes of confusion on our parts, we inquired about Bill's curious choice, wondering if perhaps his preference for hardcore political rap-rock was the reason for his strained relationship with several other faculty members in the English department. While he acknowledged a vague appreciation for Zack de la Rocha and company, Bill admitted that his main reason for choosing the CD was that he knew the group of people down at the other end of the bar would leave upon hearing it.
I glanced over: sure enough, within a few minutes, the group of rowdy intellectuals (who may or may not have been wearing horn-rimmed glasses) began to pack up their belongings and vacate the premises. Clearly, the pounding guitar and enthusiastic rants did not jibe with their expectations of this small, low-key bar on a Thursday night. By creating a certain musical atmosphere, Bill had succeeded in maintaining the sort of clientele he appreciated in what was, indeed, his bar for this night: namely, the type of people who didn't give a fuck and couldn't be intimidated by a bit of noisy blasphemy. For Bill, there was no aesthetic that the bar had to adhere to. The place would not and could not be defined by any particular characteristic or expectation, and anyone who didn't like that could just as easily go elsewhere.
This experience made me question the extent of music's impact on public spaces in general. Would the turning of the musical tables, in, say, a retail store, have the same effect on customers as it did in the bar? Do people venture into various public spaces armed with expectations of what sounds they will and will not hear? How are these expectations engendered, and are they necessary?
This same issue arose again a few weeks ago when, sitting in the dentist's chair, I felt extremely pained by the music I was forced to endure: Dave Mathews Band's "Stay" to Sixpence None the Richer's "Kiss Me". As if the sharp jabbing in the gums and the constant barbs from Cecilia, my dental hygienist, towards my inadequate flossing regimen were not enough. I can't say I was surprised, as in all my years going to the dentist I have heard nothing but the most mundane, non-threatening sounds possible. I had almost gotten used to aural blandness as a general rule in places where people of all ages and all walks of life are temporarily co-existing. But for some reason, when Cecilia began to sing along to Train's "Drops of Jupiter" through her surgical mask, I nearly spit up on my bib. Alright, I did.
Why must music in such places be so monumentally uninteresting? Are the powers-that-be afraid that anything outside the most ordinary will send customers running for the exits? I'm not suggesting that blatantly offensive music be pumped over P.A. systems at all major malls and retail stores . . . there are bound to be children around that don't need to hear such sounds. But there must be — somewhere — some music that has the ability to both provoke the listener while still adhering to some standard of decency.
If you were to ask the store manager of the DSW Shoe Warehouse in Framingham, MA about six years ago, he would surely tell you that such music does exist: it was all released between the years 1960 and 1977. For one summer, I was a dedicated "associate" there, roaming the aisles picking up debris from shoe boxes left on the floor of the massive store. Now, picking up trash wasn't all I did; that would be preposterous. I also spent a good amount of time in the back room, processing shipments and getting them ready for display, all the while conversing with my supervisor Creighton (whom my dad, clearly amused at my humble employment status, referred to as Crate N Barrel), a simultaneously balding and long-haired man in his 30s who had experienced everything in life from the Army to USC cheerleaders.
Creighton spent much time imparting his wisdom to me, the core of which can be boiled down to two major points: Joe Louis was the greatest boxer of all time, and Doc Martens will get you laid (I can only confirm one of these to be patently untrue). This time in my life would have had the makings of a great coming-of-age movie, were it not for the consistently annoying soundtrack that would have accompanied it. A never-ending loop of soft rock hits from the '60s and '70s followed me wherever I went in the store; perennial favorites including Chicago, Traffic, Jim Croce, and the Eagles. You might be thinking, "'Hotel California' ain't that bad". True, it's not . . . the first two or three times you hear it. But when there's a total rotation of about 20 songs, and you work a seven-hour shift every day, you begin to feel like the Dude might have had a point.
As I seethed my way through the hot days, I created in my mind a playlist of all the songs I would rather be listening to. A lot of the songs running through my head probably wouldn't be appropriate for mass consumption. For instance, I was a big Sublime fan in those days, but I probably wouldn't suggest "Smoke Two Joints" as the best move for a corporation attempting to maintain some semblance of legitimacy. Though the woman who made me touch her feet because she was suffering from glaucoma probably would have benefited from the advice in that tune. Choosing appropriate songs is a difficult endeavor, because so many forms of music now come prepackaged with associations that prevent many people from seeing them as fitting in a major shoe store.
Hip-hop, for example, would probably not be a valid choice according to the current assumptions of society. While it certainly dominates the advertising world, from luxury cars to diamonds, hip-hop's presence in other areas of the retail industry are rather limited. How many public spaces actually count hip-hop as an appropriate aspect of their atmosphere? Ironically, shoe stores — retailers that cater more to the basketball market, like Foot Locker, Finish Line, and Foot Action — are likely one of the most prominent. Clothing stores, also, are big supporters of the music, but it's usually the stores that have articles most associated with hip-hop fashion or, at the least, stores that assume they're catering to younger shoppers. In fact, the only large-scale, non-specialized public spaces that highlight hip-hop as acceptable music for the masses are sports arenas — basketball in particular.
Go to any professional basketball game, and you're likely to hear a mix of the latest hip-hop during timeouts and, often, each time a team dribbles the ball down the court (a trend reflective of the belief that fans can no longer stand to not be entertained for two seconds). Increasingly, one can hear snippets of 50 Cent, Paul Wall and, in one memorable occasion with Manny Ramirez, Afroman at the ballpark, but baseball is still a sport dominated by the old rather than the new. Until someone comes up with a hip-hop version of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame", it's likely to stay that way, perhaps for good reason. The audiences for the two sports are, for the most part, dissimilar; basketball simply has many more black fans than baseball does, whether due to the number of black players in each sport (currently, there are only three black starting pitchers in all of Major League Baseball) or to the athletic upbringings of the fans. So these arenas are just catering to what they feel is the majority of their audiences; playing it safe, just as retail corporations play it safe on a broad scale.
So what does this mean? It's representative of a larger set of associations that people have about hip-hop, and of all music. If hip-hop is associated (in a pre-NBA dress code era, at least) with baggy clothes and garish shoes, then corporations interested in marketing these products will understandably cater to what they think are their consumers' interests. These interests then become tied so tightly with the products themselves that, in many ways, they are inseparable. The prevailing view: if you wear a certain type of shoe, it is expected that you're into hip-hop, and vice versa. This may not be true, but for the purposes of buying and selling, it is assumed as fact. So the public spaces in which certain commodities are bought and sold, or presented for enjoyment, respond accordingly.
It becomes a difficult process to avoid, this assumption of associations, and it's certainly not just limited to hip-hop. The same factors come into play when, for instance, you walk into a gym and expect to hear hard rock pumping through the speakers, or anticipate jazz when entering a pretentious café. (How conditioned have we become? During a recent trip to the gym, a weightlifter went to the front to complain that the music on the speakers — Chicago's Love FM — was affecting his strength. Apparently Peaches and Herb don't mix with barbells.) It comes to the point that we're at now, where places with no discernable specialization attempt to cut their losses and, instead of trying to appeal to some people and risk alienating others, simply seek not to offend by appearing to favor one "association" over another.
Increasingly, people in the most congested public spaces in the world are taking steps to avoid the association game. They're creating their own soundtracks on iPods or other mp3 devices, thus avoiding whatever those who control public sounds are thrusting upon them. More and more people can now be buying decorative plates at genteel boutiques while nodding their heads to Immortal Technique. It's not even easy anymore to pigeonhole people by what they wear, or what activities they enjoy, in an effort to determine what music they like.
Of course, this tactic can certainly backfire. By pre-determining the sounds you will hear throughout any given day, you also rule out the possibility of interacting with interesting, unexpected sounds. Even in a society where sounds are regimented as much as they are to fit with what is considered appropriate, there are still moments when music can surprise; and of course, this is its main strength, and one which you can't fully appreciate without taking off the headphones from time to time. Some of my most valuable musical experiences have been unintended; from an impromptu classical violin performance on a subway platform, to a British kid jumping on stage at a local club and beatboxing until a blown fuse was fixed, even when everyone was telling him to sit down.
It is in moments when art fails to adjust for its audience that it most fully asserts itself as art, and makes people stand up to notice it. I'll try explaining that to the woman next to me at the dentist's office next time when, instead of the soft rock she's used to, she hears the dentist whispering "Rally round the family / With a pocket full of shells" as he completes her new crown.
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