WEBVTT - Muzak: Easy Listening Goodness 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of I 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:14.120 Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:17.280 and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryan over there, and there's 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:24.360 Dave C. Kustin. I said it right this time that 0:00:24.480 --> 0:00:28.800 it was Couston. No, if you're in France, that's how 0:00:28.880 --> 0:00:31.160 you would say it, but here in the United States 0:00:31.280 --> 0:00:35.200 you say Coustin. Can I start this off by saying something, 0:00:36.640 --> 0:00:39.760 Oh boy, I'm worried about what you're gonna say about Okay, Well, 0:00:39.920 --> 0:00:43.920 this episode is on music, and uh. I started thinking 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:46.960 last night. I was thinking about your love of music, 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:50.600 which is not at all ironic, not in the least, 0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:52.640 but you can't say that kind of thing these days. 0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:55.320 People don't believe you. I know it's true everyone. I 0:00:55.360 --> 0:00:58.640 know Josh very well, and I was thinking of your 0:00:58.800 --> 0:01:00.560 and I like all kinds of music too, but you know, 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:03.240 in my heart I'm a rock and roll guy, and 0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:06.039 I was thinking about your top musical genres that are 0:01:06.560 --> 0:01:10.600 above rock and roll in your picking order. Yeah, not 0:01:10.760 --> 0:01:16.440 in order. I counted easy listening music, disco, art rock, 0:01:16.640 --> 0:01:20.920 krowd rock, and I probably missed a couple. Crowd rock 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:23.800 is below rock and roll. I want to like crowd rock, 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:25.720 it just doesn't quite jibe with me. I like some 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:28.080 but not all of it. And then stuff I think 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:31.000 art rock because it's sort of that avant garde, like 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:33.480 I don't you don't love Yoko, but you certainly are 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:37.880 a bit of a Yoko apologist, Grace Jones, stuff like that. 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:41.280 But I love Grace Jones for sure. What about Talking Heads? 0:01:41.280 --> 0:01:43.800 They go in there too, right, Oh, they'd probably be 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:46.920 I mean they literally went to art school together. Yeah, 0:01:46.959 --> 0:01:49.360 I mean they kind of span from art rock to 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:54.680 new wave to like world music by the time they finished. Yeah, yeah, 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:58.120 but uh yeah, I mean I certainly love the Talking Heads, 0:01:58.120 --> 0:02:00.640 but all of those, for you are of good old 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:03.240 fashioned rock and roll. I think, Yeah, you also left 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:05.720 out nineties techno. I've been listening to a lot of 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:09.920 that to like Alternating, the Prodigy and everything. But you 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:14.480 love music, you really do. I do too. Actually, I 0:02:14.520 --> 0:02:17.960 don't know, I don't know how much I like. I 0:02:18.000 --> 0:02:20.120 will listen to some of that stuff. And we're talking 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:22.239 about we'll talk about you know, and here of course 0:02:22.880 --> 0:02:28.320 old sour Pus Brian Eno. But um, I love listening 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:32.480 to his ambient stuff, which he sort of wrote as 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:35.560 an antidote to music. Again. We'll talk about that more later, 0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:40.280 but I do like in certain circumstances that music thing 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:44.960 is really great to have on in my house as 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:48.239 background music, and it serves that same purpose. One of 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:50.960 the big reasons why too, is because you can get 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:54.560 stuff done with it. Like lyrics can be so distracting, 0:02:54.639 --> 0:02:57.800 they just latch onto your brain and no pay attention 0:02:57.800 --> 0:03:01.959 to me. I'm I'm talking to you now. Music does 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:04.760 the opposite of that. It says, go be free, but 0:03:04.880 --> 0:03:07.600 also enjoy this, Like there's there's like a whole part 0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:10.880 of your brain that music can tap into that doesn't 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:15.040 require your conscious thought, but it's still produces like good 0:03:15.080 --> 0:03:18.639 feelings and you know, like people people just smack music 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:22.160 around like it's just it's so bland and it's so soulless, 0:03:22.200 --> 0:03:25.880 and I totally disagree with that. Like, if you actually 0:03:26.000 --> 0:03:30.760 stop and listen to music, it's really really technically proficient. 0:03:31.160 --> 0:03:35.360 It's frequently well done. It's often very clever and creative 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:39.720 and inventive. Um, which is really saying something because you're 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:42.440 doing this when they in the confines of covering an 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:45.360 existing song in a way that makes it familiar and 0:03:45.440 --> 0:03:49.200 easy to recognize, but also takes away any intrusiveness that 0:03:49.320 --> 0:03:51.840 it might have. It's tough to do. And I really, 0:03:52.080 --> 0:03:54.800 I just I love music. You're absolutely right. Like I 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:57.760 listened to music this whole time, not just when we 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:01.400 were when we were researching music today, but also when 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:04.560 I was researching the Havana syndrome, and I realized, like, 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:06.720 this is my normal thing, this is the same stuff 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:10.560 I listened to. And yeah, and uh, we can go 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:13.240 ahead and to spell a couple of or not myths, 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:15.400 but clear up a couple of things right off the bat. Um. 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:19.880 First of all, music is a name brand UM. And 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:22.800 people can kind of collectively use the term music or 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:27.039 have collectively use that term for what's called like potted 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:30.839 plant music or elevator music or shopping music. UM. But 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:33.840 it is actually actually a brand name, which will get 0:04:33.880 --> 0:04:36.800 to the history of And then the second thing is 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:41.719 it gets the name elevator music. UM. Part of the 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:43.800 myth is that people said, well, they put it on 0:04:43.839 --> 0:04:46.920 elevators because people were afraid to death of elevators early on, 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:49.159 and it calmed people down or it covered up the 0:04:49.200 --> 0:04:52.920 noise of the clanking elevators. I've never heard that before you. Yeah, 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:56.200 neither one of those things are true total myth. My 0:04:57.240 --> 0:05:01.920 uh guesses that it was played on elevators, and because 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:05.480 you're in such a closed little box that's usually quiet, 0:05:06.400 --> 0:05:08.919 it just was way more noticeable than like in a 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:11.400 big office full of people working. So people called the 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:14.520 elevator music. That's my guess, right, Yeah, I mean yeah, 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:17.520 there wasn't music on elevators before, but for several decades 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:20.880 in the twentieth century, like there, there weren't many elevators 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:23.599 you could get on because people didn't have elevators in 0:05:23.640 --> 0:05:25.600 their house, so it was a public building you're in 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:31.159 where they weren't playing music to two of some form 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:39.080 very frequently music blues scene, Yeah, yeah, because they're they're 0:05:39.120 --> 0:05:42.800 going up to the the Cook County Assessor's office and 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:46.760 they like there there's the entire Chicago Police Department is 0:05:46.839 --> 0:05:49.880 after them, but they're forced to get on this elevator 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:53.400 and the girl from Ipanema is playing. I think my 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:56.599 favorite part of that scene is there's just dozens and 0:05:56.680 --> 0:05:59.520 hundreds of cops and swat guys just you know, hut hut, hut, 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:01.880 hut hut, and they're repelling and doing all this stuff. 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:05.440 And then there's the one shot of the loan guy 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:08.239 repelling down the side of the building and he's by himself, 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:14.000 just going hut hut. Yeah, that's a good one, so funny. 0:06:14.360 --> 0:06:17.200 There's another scene too from around the era few years 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:23.000 later from airplane to where um how it's like ripped torn. 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:27.080 I believe it's ripped torn the party from the Larry 0:06:27.080 --> 0:06:29.960 Sanders Show. And I don't know the other guy he's 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:32.440 talking to, but anyway, they're walking and talking and they 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:34.920 have to get on an elevator and the elevator door 0:06:34.960 --> 0:06:39.359 opens and it's just blaring like like ear drums shattering 0:06:39.440 --> 0:06:43.080 decibel um MacArthur Park and they have to get on. 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:45.560 People are coming off the elevator like with their hands 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:48.640 and their ears like with splitting headaches from this. But 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:52.520 it's just completely the opposite elevator music is supposed to 0:06:52.520 --> 0:06:54.920 be like. But it's a good little scene too as 0:06:54.920 --> 0:06:57.360 far as elevator music goes well. I mean that's kind 0:06:57.360 --> 0:06:59.400 of one of the points too, is music has long 0:06:59.520 --> 0:07:02.320 been a movie trope and a TV trope and then 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:05.560 ben lampooned and scenes just like the Blues Brother scene 0:07:06.040 --> 0:07:08.480 where there's something chaotic going on and then you cut 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:11.600 back to the sound of music playing wherever the other 0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:14.960 scene is setting. Right, very very fun stuff. But but 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:17.760 that started, I guess it started with The Blues Brothers, 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:20.840 which came out in nineteen eighty. But before that that 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:24.960 was like music was not really lampoon. I mean, not 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:28.040 everybody liked it. It really kind of started to get 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:31.160 a little backlash in the late sixties early seventies, as 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:34.360 we'll see, but there was a very significant chunk of 0:07:34.360 --> 0:07:39.160 the twentieth century again, from maybe nineteen fifty to nineteen eighty. 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:43.640 Will say, where everywhere you went in public, including if 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:46.640 you took a Greyhound bus, or if you were on 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:49.880 a plane, or you happened to be an Air Force 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:52.880 one um, or you were at the mall, in an 0:07:52.880 --> 0:07:57.520 elevator at your office, everywhere music was was playing. There 0:07:57.560 --> 0:08:00.080 was music playing everywhere. It was just a part of 0:08:00.520 --> 0:08:04.840 life that you was inescapable. Actually. Yeah, so let's go 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:09.240 back in time and talk about the inventor of musaic uh, 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:11.880 And this is sort of a fun fact of music. 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:17.200 The man's name is George Square. It is spelled Squire, 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:20.680 but he swears it's pronounced square. I'm really impressed. Man, 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:22.240 I had not come up with that one, or he 0:08:22.280 --> 0:08:24.200 swore it was pronounced Square. Yeah, that's kind of one 0:08:24.240 --> 0:08:26.400 of the funny jokes, like the guy who invented musics 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:32.160 was Square. UM. But Major General George Square was born 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:35.800 in eighteen sixty five if you believe that, and he 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:39.640 has a just a laundry list of accomplishments as a 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:43.880 human being. He was hearing a doctorate from JOHNS. Hopkins 0:08:43.920 --> 0:08:47.720 in electrical science. He was UH an Army engineer with 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:51.520 a pH d. I think the first one. And he 0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:54.840 was I believe the lead Signal Corps officer for the 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:59.120 Army as well. He was UM. He also was inducted 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:02.360 into the National Academy of Sciences, which connects this episode 0:09:02.360 --> 0:09:05.360 to the other one today UM because he came up 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:07.520 with something called a tree telephone. He figured out how 0:09:07.559 --> 0:09:12.000 to use any tree, but preferably one UM with UH 0:09:12.679 --> 0:09:15.200 fully leaved. I guess I don't know what you'd call that. 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:20.040 UM as a as a receiver and transmitter for radio signals. 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:21.560 He figured out how to use a tree, a living 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:24.880 tree for that. He was Here's another fun fact. He 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:28.600 was one of the first airplane passengers ever because he 0:09:28.679 --> 0:09:32.959 was way into human flight and got together with the 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:38.640 Wright brothers in a consulted with them and they said, hey, 0:09:38.640 --> 0:09:41.040 why don't you take a ride on our new little biplane. 0:09:41.280 --> 0:09:45.440 You'll probably live right. I looked at our um, I 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:48.440 looked at the document for our Right Brothers episode, and 0:09:48.880 --> 0:09:51.200 he did not appear. I don't think we mentioned him, 0:09:51.240 --> 0:09:53.680 but he might. He might have been the first airline 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:57.439 passenger from what I saw. Yeah, where he really made 0:09:58.080 --> 0:10:01.720 a big name for himself pre music was this uh 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:06.120 invention which is what we call multiplexing, which is he 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:10.360 figured out or maybe wire wireless communications, which is something 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:12.600 he worked on with the army. He basically figured out 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:18.320 how to get multiple uses out of single telephone lines. UH. 0:10:18.400 --> 0:10:21.320 Telephone wires were you know, there are only so many, 0:10:21.440 --> 0:10:23.400 so you were really limited as to what you could 0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:26.080 do with them and how many people could use them. 0:10:26.120 --> 0:10:29.199 So he basically figured out a way to increase their 0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:34.920 output and efficiency by multiplexing and by sending uh superimposing 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:39.320 high frequency radio signals over those low frequency telegraph signals, 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:41.960 basically just allowing you to use the wire at the 0:10:41.960 --> 0:10:44.960 same time the same wire. Yeah. Yeah, I mean it's 0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:46.920 like if you think of like a wave if it's 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:49.839 low frequency, there's big wide gaps in between. You can 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:53.000 fit a higher frequency that's tighter and squitched together in 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:56.200 those gaps, and but you're still using the same line. 0:10:56.840 --> 0:10:59.680 And you know, this was the guy who came up 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:04.640 with that. That's an enormous advancement in telecommunications that we're 0:11:04.720 --> 0:11:08.400 still putting use today in some applications, but definitely helped 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:11.960 like the early Internet along UM. It was a just 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:16.720 a huge contribution to humanity. Like forget even just music, 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:19.880 like just that alone would would probably warrant like an 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:23.200 episode for for George Square. Yeah, and I think he 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:25.920 was like everyone should be able to use this, So 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:29.000 I'm gonna open source it and everyone can use this 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:32.200 new multiplexing technology. A T and T came along and said, 0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:34.760 we'll use it, and then you know what, you've stole 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:38.600 it from us. Actually right, he he came up with it, 0:11:38.640 --> 0:11:40.960 but since he left it open, they decided to just 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:43.400 take it from him and sue him for it. I 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:46.360 think he sued them, but it didn't work, that's right, 0:11:46.400 --> 0:11:50.199 you're right, so um he but he still was able 0:11:50.240 --> 0:11:55.559 to use this wire wireless technology with multiplexing and UM 0:11:55.600 --> 0:11:59.040 at the time, people were starting to get into radio broadcasts, 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:02.760 but radio wireless radio like that you would just have 0:12:02.840 --> 0:12:05.120 in your house. It's picking up radio waves at a 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:08.520 station that was not widespread at the time. So George 0:12:08.559 --> 0:12:11.160 Square said, you know what, I understand people want music 0:12:11.200 --> 0:12:13.080 in their house. I'm gonna give it to them. I'm 0:12:13.120 --> 0:12:17.040 gonna use that multiplexing technology and I'm going to um 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:21.520 run sound waves over the electrical wires that go into 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:24.120 the house. And I'm gonna sell this. It is brilliant. 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:26.600 I'm gonna sell this service to people's homes for a 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:30.760 dollar fifty a month about twenty dollars today. UM. And 0:12:30.800 --> 0:12:33.400 it's just part of your utility bill because it's coming 0:12:33.440 --> 0:12:36.840 in through your electrical company. And there's actually a section 0:12:36.880 --> 0:12:41.000 of Cleveland called the Lakewood I believe Lakewood area. UM. 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:47.760 That was the pilot for this wired wireless radio UM 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:51.560 that that George Square invented. Uh. The problem was, by 0:12:51.600 --> 0:12:55.720 the time they deployed it, wireless radio was already a thing. 0:12:56.480 --> 0:12:59.199 And so we had this really great idea that just 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:03.840 little longer had an application. Yeah he was. He basically 0:13:03.840 --> 0:13:07.160 invented the first music subscription service exactly. Yeah, and he 0:13:07.200 --> 0:13:11.800 had multiple channels to like when you subscribed, you got news, 0:13:12.320 --> 0:13:15.080 you got dance music. There was like I think three 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:20.000 different channels you could choose from Howard Stern. Yea, Howard 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:24.720 Stern was back then Baba booie. So he had that 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:27.480 technology though, and he said, you know what, this is 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:30.600 a good idea. Though, maybe I can think of how 0:13:30.600 --> 0:13:35.920 to use this in offices and stores. And he looked 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:39.959 up at Kodak, very successful corporation, and said, I love 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:42.480 that name, and I love music. Let's just call it music. 0:13:43.640 --> 0:13:47.560 And history changed and maybe we should take a break. Okay, 0:13:47.640 --> 0:14:17.760 let's do it all right, we'll be right back. So, 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:21.600 in the parlance of today, Chuck Um, George Square and 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:29.640 his Musaic Corporation pivoted from home consumer markets to business markets. 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:33.080 And that just knocked it out of the park because 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:35.359 it turned out that there were a lot of companies 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:39.720 UM hotels, restaurants, clubs. I think the store club was 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:43.600 an early UM customer that said, you know what, it's 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:45.880 really going to make our place seem fancy if we've 0:14:45.880 --> 0:14:50.200 got music piping in UM all the time. So yes, 0:14:50.280 --> 0:14:52.800 we would like to sign up for your service. And 0:14:52.800 --> 0:14:55.720 that's really where music kind of started to take off. Yeah, 0:14:55.840 --> 0:15:00.600 so music, Um, I mean we have and even said 0:15:00.600 --> 0:15:05.120 what it is. Surely people know. But music are instrumental tracks. 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:08.200 And you did mention that there were no vocals, so 0:15:08.240 --> 0:15:10.520 we kind of hinted that big one. But there are 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:15.640 instrumental tracks that are cover songs of kind of anything 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:17.720 you can think of. I mean that I've heard some 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:20.920 some music of some heavy rock. Um. It can be 0:15:21.120 --> 0:15:24.160 classical music, it can be old standards. But the point 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:26.560 is they are instrumental versions that are re recorded. They 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:31.040 don't just take the vocals out. It's not karaoke style. UM. 0:15:31.080 --> 0:15:35.960 It is rerecord arranged and recorded by professional, really good 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:41.400 musicians orchestras sometimes and it is, uh, that's what it is, 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:45.440 and it's great the end, and very very frequently, um, 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:49.120 it's it's made into a much more mellow version of itself. 0:15:49.240 --> 0:15:53.440 Like any rough edges are taken off the Since they 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:55.800 take the vocals out, it's not like there's not there, 0:15:55.840 --> 0:15:58.600 that vocal melody is non existent any longer. They just 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:01.080 replace it with something else. So if they're trying to 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:04.120 go for something like a little more upbeat or up tempo, 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:08.080 they'll replace the vocals, would say, like a saxophone if 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:10.200 they're trying to do something a little more mellow, they'll 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:14.640 replace the vocals with a string section or harp perhaps. Yeah, 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:16.960 that's one of the things that that music is very 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:20.320 famous for, is, like matt what's called masses of strings, 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:23.560 just strings upon strings. In fact, one of the early 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:29.360 um I guess big name groups that produced music was 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:33.520 called A hundred and one strings. They probably were absolutely 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:36.600 accurate in that, like, there's just a lot tons of 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:41.640 strings everywhere. Um violence Cello's viola is every every string 0:16:41.680 --> 0:16:44.240 instrument you can throw at it. They just layer upon 0:16:44.360 --> 0:16:49.160 layer in these songs. It's one of the hallmarks of music. Yeah. 0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:52.680 The and there are there are many versions of Antonio 0:16:52.760 --> 0:16:55.760 Carlos Showbim's Girl from Ipanema, but the music version and 0:16:56.360 --> 0:16:59.120 one of the most popular, and that one one strings 0:16:59.480 --> 0:17:04.080 version is the most ubiquitous from that lot. Um I 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:06.240 do encourage people to go watch the YouTube though, of 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:10.440 Frank Sinatra and Joe Beam singing that song live on TV, 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:14.640 because it's great in every way. They're just sitting next 0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:17.160 to each other and the shot isn't wide at first, 0:17:17.160 --> 0:17:18.800 and they're just sort of singing back and forth to 0:17:18.800 --> 0:17:20.840 each other, and Frank Stone is saying, and then it 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:24.840 cuts to the wide and Frank is like totally kicked 0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:27.280 back with his legs crossed with a cigarette in his hand, 0:17:28.320 --> 0:17:30.959 exactly like you would hope. But he looks like, I mean, 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:32.760 he looks like he just not rolled out of bed 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:35.560 because he's put together, but he looks like he rolled 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:39.480 from his wicker bag to his wicker chair for this performance. 0:17:39.960 --> 0:17:44.080 Can I get some cocaine in here? Baby? It's Joe 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:47.040 Piscopo is Frank Sinatra? Um? Do you ever listen to 0:17:47.119 --> 0:17:50.960 Joe Beam's stuff? Oh? Yeah, I love that old lounge stuff. 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:54.760 It's really great Brazilian stuff. Yeah, his record Stone Flower 0:17:54.880 --> 0:17:58.480 is just a masterpiece from beginning to end. But that's 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:01.720 a good party music. That's another thing though too. It's 0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:06.320 like it's so mellow, um that to take that kind 0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:09.840 of music and then make it into music is like 0:18:10.680 --> 0:18:13.520 it's almost like it takes a certain amount of audacity, 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:17.080 you know, Like I was listening to I found so 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:19.080 there's I want to I want to point people to 0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:23.480 two different music um records that are on YouTube. UM. 0:18:23.600 --> 0:18:27.800 One is called More Than Music Period and Environment. It's 0:18:27.840 --> 0:18:32.600 a music record and it has a version of sailing 0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:40.440 Christopher Crosses sailing exactly. They figured out how to basically 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:46.200 make you lose control of your bladder listening to this. Yeah, um, 0:18:46.240 --> 0:18:48.000 that's a good one. And then the other one is 0:18:48.080 --> 0:18:53.240 called the Blue Album. Uh, and it is from nineteen 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:56.760 seventy four, I believe. And it's just both of them 0:18:56.760 --> 0:19:00.760 are really great. That's good, good introductions to music if 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:03.480 you're not into it already. All right, So music is 0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:06.159 trucking along in the thirties. Uh, they get to the 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:09.480 forties and they think, you know what, we need a 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:12.000 better way to sell this stuff and to pitch this 0:19:12.680 --> 0:19:18.040 two businesses and corporations. So why don't we hire some 0:19:18.119 --> 0:19:22.000 people to research music and to figure out what kinds 0:19:22.000 --> 0:19:25.920 of music keep people happy and working? And because people, 0:19:26.080 --> 0:19:27.959 you know, they work hard in the morning and then 0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:30.320 they sort of lag a bit before lunch, and then 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:33.399 they really lag sort of a couple of hours after lunch. 0:19:34.160 --> 0:19:35.760 So why don't we do this? So why don't we 0:19:35.800 --> 0:19:40.159 study it? Let's call it stimulus progression. It's a bit pseudoscience. 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:45.480 It makes sense it is in that it's not been proven. 0:19:45.960 --> 0:19:49.560 It makes sense to everyone who I feel like knows 0:19:49.600 --> 0:19:52.600 about it. Like sure, music can pick you up and 0:19:52.640 --> 0:19:56.320 make you work harder. But it's pseudoscience in that it's 0:19:56.320 --> 0:20:00.400 I don't think it's ever been scientifically proven, okay, because 0:20:00.400 --> 0:20:03.119 I keep seeing it just like dismissed as pseudoscience. But 0:20:03.160 --> 0:20:05.800 then there were plenty of early studies that were done 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:09.840 by legitimate industrial psychologists and other like efficiency experts that 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:12.840 kind of thing that showed that there there really was 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:19.040 a significant um like improvement and productivity or less sick days, 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:22.560 that kind of stuff in places that have musaic compared 0:20:22.600 --> 0:20:25.760 to places that didn't have music pumped into the office. Yeah, 0:20:25.800 --> 0:20:29.600 I think maybe they're specific claims about a work day, Okay, 0:20:29.960 --> 0:20:32.800 might have been a little and I mean everywhere I 0:20:32.800 --> 0:20:35.919 read said it was basically not a marketing scam but 0:20:36.040 --> 0:20:39.879 a marketing tool that they kind of invented. I got you. 0:20:40.119 --> 0:20:42.959 But but so one thing to say about this we're 0:20:42.960 --> 0:20:45.240 going to talk about it in a second stimulus progression, 0:20:45.680 --> 0:20:49.879 is that they did kind of plow money that they 0:20:49.880 --> 0:20:52.360 were making. They were making a lot of money starting 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:55.919 in the late forties early fifties, Um, they plowed it 0:20:56.000 --> 0:21:00.119 back into research to basically come up with scientific it 0:21:00.160 --> 0:21:03.160 ince to back up their claims, which you can really 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:06.680 kind of see the ghost of George Square still looming 0:21:06.680 --> 0:21:09.120 over the company. You know, this this decade or so 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:13.240 after he died. UM that it's always been this kind 0:21:13.280 --> 0:21:20.000 of uh, science interested, if not science based company. UM 0:21:20.040 --> 0:21:23.680 that's also been an early adopter of technology, as we'll see. Yeah, 0:21:24.080 --> 0:21:26.560 I mean that is certainly fair. It was never just like, hey, 0:21:26.600 --> 0:21:29.280 we're just gonna play a bunch of what people might 0:21:29.280 --> 0:21:33.480 consider droll background music, like they really did. I think 0:21:33.640 --> 0:21:35.000 I don't think it was a scam. I think they 0:21:35.000 --> 0:21:40.480 really did try to study UM working environments, and what 0:21:40.560 --> 0:21:43.040 they did with his stimulus progression was they divided the 0:21:43.040 --> 0:21:48.479 work day into fifteen minute increments and basically set a 0:21:48.640 --> 0:21:53.040 DJ playlist every fifteen minutes two and they assigned a 0:21:53.080 --> 0:21:55.879 stimulus value from one to six, one being really really mellow, 0:21:56.240 --> 0:21:59.760 six being you know, super up. And they basically went 0:21:59.800 --> 0:22:04.640 through and almost like a Pandora sort of curated playlist 0:22:04.680 --> 0:22:08.280 type of thing to get people to work hard and 0:22:08.280 --> 0:22:14.680 efficiently throughout a day, and companies bought in, including the U. S. Army. Yeah. 0:22:14.760 --> 0:22:17.320 I think World War two is basically cited as the 0:22:18.359 --> 0:22:21.600 moment when music kind of proved itself enough at least 0:22:21.680 --> 0:22:24.880 to start being adopted by very large companies, and then 0:22:25.080 --> 0:22:26.879 within a few years after the war, by like the 0:22:27.000 --> 0:22:29.920 very early fifties, they started to spread more and more 0:22:29.960 --> 0:22:33.080 to even smaller and smaller companies. Uh. And it was 0:22:33.119 --> 0:22:37.119 this idea that if you played music and music you know, 0:22:37.560 --> 0:22:42.520 patented stimulus progression model, um, you know you're going to 0:22:42.560 --> 0:22:47.800 avoid that mid morning slump that like every worker goes through, 0:22:48.040 --> 0:22:51.040 you know, in productivity, and then the mid afternoon slump. 0:22:51.080 --> 0:22:53.360 You could avoid that too, And think about how many 0:22:53.359 --> 0:22:56.560 more widgets you could make if your employees don't you know, 0:22:56.720 --> 0:22:59.960 slack off productivity wise at ten thirty, from ten thirty 0:23:00.040 --> 0:23:03.240 to lunch, and then from like to thirty until they 0:23:03.240 --> 0:23:06.680 go home. Like imagine if this this very pleasant music 0:23:06.840 --> 0:23:09.480 is just kind of keeping them humming along what what 0:23:09.560 --> 0:23:15.320 people call a forward us just unconscious sense of forward momentum. 0:23:15.359 --> 0:23:20.959 The tempo in your environment is moving subtly faster and 0:23:21.040 --> 0:23:25.440 faster and so um to keep people from going insane. 0:23:25.520 --> 0:23:28.919 Part of the stimulus progression was that the songs in 0:23:28.960 --> 0:23:31.800 a fifteen minute increment would kind of go up in tempo, 0:23:31.880 --> 0:23:34.240 and then you'd have a fifteen minute break of silence 0:23:34.640 --> 0:23:37.000 and then the music would come back on again. But 0:23:37.040 --> 0:23:41.679 then this fifteen minutes there their first song, the tempo 0:23:41.720 --> 0:23:44.280 of their first song would probably start a little faster 0:23:44.680 --> 0:23:46.840 than the tempo of the first song of the last 0:23:46.840 --> 0:23:49.240 fifteen minutes, And so all of a sudden, next thing 0:23:49.280 --> 0:23:52.719 you know you're making which it's like a maniac because 0:23:53.160 --> 0:23:57.720 you're being manipulated by this stimulus progression model, at least 0:23:57.720 --> 0:24:01.199 again according to music. I I get what you're saying, Like, 0:24:01.480 --> 0:24:04.600 it's not like, you know, Harvard came along and said, yes, 0:24:04.680 --> 0:24:07.520 we've studied this thoroughly, and this is exactly what happens. 0:24:07.800 --> 0:24:11.480 This is you know, company claims. But it is intuitively 0:24:11.600 --> 0:24:15.080 sensible at least. Well, yeah, I mean you need only 0:24:15.160 --> 0:24:19.880 to host house party and play and play music yourself 0:24:20.400 --> 0:24:23.159