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It is everywhere. Music. Piped at us, played at us, played for us. Given whether we like it or not, given whether we want it or not. Why? What is it for? Why do some people start to panic if they don't have the sound of music in their ears? Why do they insist on playing it at me all the day long? In shops, in malls, behind the action in films, behind the news on talk radio. It is everywhere. We cannot escape. Silence is not an option. If we don't have music to listen to perhaps we will be in danger of thinking? But what is the big deal about music? It is quite simple, it is medicine. People choose to play music for themselves or go to where music is being played because it has an effect on them. An effect. Like a drug. They want a stimulant or a relaxant. OK, fine by me, each to his own. But then that reveals the horror of public music. People play music for the drug effect, but that makes public music a form of public medicine, a public drug, aural fluoride. We would not stand for drugs being added to our food or water so why do we stand for mood manipulation being fed through our ears? If you have a headache you take a tablet, don't get me to take one too. If you want to speed yourself up with a stimulant such as caffeine or drum and bass then keep it to yourself. The same goes for Prozac and Muzak. I don't want your medicine dribbled into my ears for just the same reason I don't want your smoke blown in my face, your drug is my poison. Any undesired drug is a pollutant at best, more likely a poison. Either music has an effect on people or there is no point in playing it, and if it has an effect on people it is an intrusion, an assault on the senses. Playing music in a public place is the moral equivalent of dropping LSD into the punchbowl or putting speed in the canapés. (The second tactic was apparently used to the advantage of a certain advertising agency to help secure the account of the Conservative Party, yes it's funny, but we know it's also wrong.) Public music? Just say no. |
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