Elevator music (also known as Muzak, piped music, weather music or lift music) refers to instrumental arrangements of popular music designed for playing in shopping malls, grocery stores, department stores, telephone systems (while the caller is on hold), cruise ships, airports, business offices, and elevators. The term is also frequently applied as a generic term for any form of easy listening, smooth jazz, or middle of the road music, or to the type of recordings commonly heard on "beautiful music" radio stations.
The Muzak Holdings Corporation is a major supplier of business background music, and was the best known such supplier for years. Since 1997 Muzak has used original artists for its music source, except on the Environmental channel.
Elevator music is typically set to a very simple melody, so that it can be unobtrusively looped back to the beginning. In a mall or shopping center, elevator music of a specific type has been found to have a psychological effect: slower, more relaxed music tends to make people slow down and browse longer. Elevator music may also be preferred over broadcast radio stations due to the lack of lyrics and commercial interruptions.
This style of music is sometimes used to comedic effect in mass media such as film, where intense or dramatic scenes may be interrupted or interspersed with such anodyne music while characters use an elevator (e.g. The Blues Brothers, Dawn of the Dead, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra and Spider-Man 2).
Also, it is interesting to note that there are various video game titles that utilize elevator music to add comedic effects into the game. One notable example is in Metal Gear Solid 4 where a few elevator music themed tracks are accessible on the in-game iPod. Two of the tracks are named "Sea Breeze" and "Sailor". In the video game GoldenEye 007, calm elevator music plays as the main characters ride an elevator up to the main control center for the GoldenEye satellite. Upon exiting the elevator, the music changes to reflect the fact that several guards and sentry turrets must immediately be gunned down. The game hub in Lego Star Wars III features several elevators which play an easy-listening version of the Imperial March theme.
Famous quotes containing the words elevator and/or music:
“The cigar-box which the European calls a “lift” needs but to be compared with our elevators to be appreciated. The lift stops to reflect between floors. That is all right in a hearse, but not in elevators. The American elevator acts like the man’s patent purge—it works”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“Morning work! By the blushes of Aurora and the music of Memnon, what should be man’s morning work in this world?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)