XKCD on “The Case of the Retail Sector”
“What, then, of situations - so common in late-modern societies - where the circumstances of music’s deployment are beyond actors’ control?”
When reading Chapter 5 of DeNora’s book, my mind went straight to an old XKCD webcomic. It’s a perfect example of all the issues she addresses in her section on retail and music for consumers. Here it is: http://xkcd.com/389/
1. Store managers (especially of places like large grocery stores) often plan music that is lively and up-tempo to encourage shoppers (which DeNora labeled “actors”) to move quickly through the aisles and, in their haste, maybe even purchase more than they really need. “Music … is deployed as a device of social ordering, an aesthetic means through which consumer agency may be articulated, changed and sustained.” (132)
2. It’s natural that any person with a musical background would - at least subliminally - “tune in” to that music, having some kind of awareness that the store is presenting a specific attitude through the choice of background sound. DeNora writes, “As a phenomenon, it highlights the capacity, perhaps even the tendency, on the part of human beings, to adopt and adapt, not necessarily consciously to resources within an environment.” (124)
3. The musical shopper would automatically relate this auditory stimulus to their past experience; in this case, the associational jump to marching as if back in a high school band is a natural one for what is probably quick and bold music.
4.Then, suddenly and seemingly inexplicably, the (rather sadistic) store manager deliberately confuses the musical signals she was receiving, but “the actor may wish to override music’s perceived implications, to resist or reappropriate music’s force” (124). Unable to do so, the actor falls flat on her face, and illustrates DeNora’s point beautifully.
