For the last decade or so, teens and young adults have been playing a somewhat dangerous game. They crawl out of the elevator's escape hatch and "surf" the speeding elevator, either up or down. The truth is can you blame them? They are trying to escape one of the U.S.'s biggest horrors... muzak.
If God exists, then he created muzak as some sort of hell for music lovers and all its patrons.
The Muzak Corporation of America is not something made up by Aldous Huxley nor George Orwell, but a real company. There even happens to be a branch located about a mile down from my house, which frightens me more than the crack neighborhood that is only HALF a mile away!
We hear muzak in elevators, shopping malls, business offices and in 43 of the world's top 50 corporations. An estimated 150 million people hear muzak at least once a day.
In case you do not know what muzak is... well, think of real music first; artful, emotional, beautiful and soulful. Now strip it clean of all that and just play the same notes clean, mean, functional and sterile. That is muzak.
When you read the Muzak Corporation of America's handbook, which is for employees eyes only(!), you kind of get the feeling there is an evil presence you just might not know about.
First off, we have the company's motto, "Muzak-- A Concept In Human Engineering". Yep, human engineering. They are fiddling with your mind. The handbook goes on to say that there are three types of muzak: one for Heavy Industrial settings, one for Light Industrial settings and one for Office settings. In each of these programs the music is played for 15 minutes and then there is 15 minutes of silence. This is so as to lose yourself in time, this way one tends not to notice the way in which they are being manipulated by work and the working environment. To quote directly from the book, "Boring work is made less boring by boring music." So, in theory, muzak increases a workers productivity. Now I think corporations should strive to evolutionize working conditions, working hours, better pay and greater technology to complete this boring work rather than play boring music. I guess they simply work faster to leave the office quicker, so they don't have to hear that damn music!
In the handbook we read an article by Dr. William Wokoun which I believe is some scary shit, "A muzak transmission studio is a dream of 1984 (Orwellian) automation," and "The ironic thing about muzak is we have no trouble at all in totalitarian countries." Scary shit, indeed!
Now to follow those quotes is hard, but the finale is a big one. Towards the end of the handbook we begin to read chapters on subliminal messages. Coded messages to increase sales and decrease shoplifting. Messages like, "we are watching you", "do not take what you did not pay for" and, as the handbook says, "please buy (Muzak sponsor name here) ".
The Muzak Corporation of America does not want you to react, they just want you to act. They know that rhythm, sound pulses and lyrics can stir up emotion and nervous responses, so now you know why they took music... and stripped it clean.

From Issue 7.