Is there a more pleasant time of year to shop than Yuletide when heartwarming tunes embrace us in almost every commercial location? It seems we just can’t get enough of seasonal chestnuts like “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” or “Deck the Halls” and that timeless classic “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”
According to a poll commissioned by the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada, a majority of people surveyed said they enjoyed listening to holiday songs while they shopped.
But some respondents said they left a store sooner because of the music being played. Repetitive Christmas melodies tend to irritate a segment of the shopping public who figure the longer they have to listen to the annoying strains of “Jingle Bells,” the closer they will edge to the snug embrace of a straight jacket or possibly consider setting their hair on fire.
Many critics of the seasonal music genre don’t necessarily dislike Christmas. They are not automatically against people gathering to have a few drinks, sharing gifts and generating goodwill. What they resent is the arbitrary imposition of music whose main intent is to lure shoppers into a heightened buying frame of mind.
And it’s not just Christmas-themed music that is causing a stir. Four years ago, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, the queen’s official composer, launched a rant against what he called the “moronic” background music in elevators, shops and call centres in Britain, claiming it was an “invasion of privacy.” According to The Telegraph, Sir Peter supports an activist group called Pipedown, established to challenge “the insidious menace” of piped music in public areas, which he says “is about stupefying you so that you buy lots of stupid things you don’t need.”
Of course, shoppers could always vote with their feet by avoiding establishments whose selection of seasonal boilerplate they find offensive. But at certain times of the year, merchants who believe in the old “silence is golden” adage can be hard to locate. Another option is to just grin and bear the musical effrontery and then as an antidote, visit a website with “Anti-Holiday Songs for Your Grinchy Side.”
Evidently some folks are irrevocably hooked on the lively combination of seasonal genre melodies and the process of foraging for gifts, or just buying a loaf of bread. Thus, in the spirit of compromise, how about 30-minute musical interludes followed by 30 minutes of silence? That way, anybody who wants a carol fix can shop at the appropriate interval and those who don’t can avoid that time slot. Is that fair enough?
