Inoffensive audio
On the Kmart in-store audio tapes and Spotify
Over the last week I noticed several people in my social media networks liking this Internet Archive post about the nostalgic holiday shopping soundtrack of Kmart, the late American department store that some of us grew up with in the 70s and 80s. For those interested, I wanted to recommend further listening: an episode of the For Keeps podcast featuring Mark Davis, a collector of Kmart in-store music tapes. You’ll learn why Mark starting collecting the Kmart tapes, how the tapes made their way to the Internet, and the subsequent viral flare ups and reincarnation of the audio via vaporwave.
I got sucked into the nostalgia for a moment too, but later came around to Spotify and a more sour note. More on that below. If you’re not interested in Kmart in-store audio or Spotify, I recommend the For Keeps podcast for its archive of stories about collections and collectors of all sorts of things. The podcast is produced by David Peterkofsky, whom I had as a guest on my own podcast, MetaPod, back in 2022. One of my favorite episodes of For Keeps features sound engineer Susan Rogers talking about her work with Prince.
But back to Kmart…
I have fond memories of Kmart as a destination that usually involved my grandparents. It was a destination that was leisurely, starting with the car ride to get there, but also exciting for its sensory stimulation. The scent of buttery popcorn and the swirling blue and red ICEE machine at the store’s snack bar - a destination within a destination! The rows of stacked televisions in the electronics department. The yellow and brown colored cafeteria restaurant at the back of the store where one could sit at the counter to drink coffee or get a plate of macaroni and cheese. And of course, the blue light special. The blue light special was an urgent calling for the attention of all Kmart shoppers in the store at that moment. The importance of the blue light special was enhanced by the fact that it interrupted an otherwise pleasantly numbing sonic retail ambiance of elevator music and warbly, instrumentalized pop hits. “Is this The Beatles I’m hearing, but with different instruments?” The blue light special was a live announcement that always started off, “Attention Kmart shoppers”. Lucky you, being in the right place at the right time to hear about a price deal for a specific product somewhere in the store! Just look up from where you’re currently spaced out at, Kmart zombie, spot the blue light, walk towards it and put it in your shopping cart.1
Kmart music is described as “inoffensive audio,” by David Peterkofsky, creator of the For Keeps podcast mentioned above. This simple description got me to thinking about the recent conversation around Spotify and Liz Pelly’s book Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist, as well as Pelly’s revealing of “Perfect Fit Content”.
Pelly’s book is summarized and considered by Hua Hsu in a recent New Yorker review “Is There Any Escape from the Spotify Syndrome?” What Hsu points out is that Pelly expresses concern about changes in listening behavior brought about by Spotify. This quote of Hsu’s in particular hit me:
“What we have now is a perverse, frictionless vision for art, where a song stays on repeat not because it’s our new favorite but because it’s just pleasant enough to ignore.”
Spotify’s Perfect Fit Content is “inoffensive audio” “pleasant enough to ignore” much like Muzak and other mood music that has been used in retail, restaurants and other consumptive spaces.
I’m not a Spotify subscriber and never really liked the experience that the platform had to offer - interuptive ads, an abundance of live versions of songs that I had no idea existed nor wanted to hear, and live updates on what friend’s kids were listening to. It’s just not what I want when listening to music. Even so, I create a monthly playlist that replicates the songs included on each blank mood episode because I know that’s where people listen to music… apologies if you’ve been forced to listen to a live version of some song that I didn’t know existed (and certainly didn’t add to the playlist) or an ad for the Joe Rogan podcast.
I guess the Joe Rogan podcast is kinda like the blue light special of Spotify. Why did I ever want the popcorn and cherry-flavored slushy drink while shopping with my grandparents at Kmart?!
It’s been interesting to see an occasional defector of Spotify say on social media why they’ve left and where they’re going to in order to improve their music listening and discovery experience.2 Unfortunately, radio and mixtape podcasts don’t seem to be discovery channels that listeners consider, most likely because they require a bit of effort on the part of the listener. There’s tons of stuff to discover on Mixcloud, but yeah, there’s tons of stuff to weed through with only the power of hashtags and (questionable) genre charts.
I have enjoyed making a mixtape podcast ‘radio’ show like blank mood for the last two years because it has reconnected me with positive memories of college radio and investing effort into finding things I really like to listen to. I also enjoy podcasting and it’s allowed me to connect with creators, doers and makers that I admire and appreciate. However, nobody listens to radio anymore and podcasts seem to have suffered since the end of the pandemic. And damn, people really don’t like to read or leave their flickin’ Insta feeds, do they? This makes creating the show feel pointless at moments, but I do hope that someone somewhere out there discovered something that they liked through blank mood.
I always wondered where the announcement came from. The service desk? Out back? And how did the person know when to make the announcement? I guess these are questions for another episode of a podcast!
And no, it’s not Apple Music.
I enjoy QoBuz, a French-based version of Spotify with a deep catalog and cool UI for customers. Just a thought!