Three people walk into a bar. They order drinks, talking about nothing in particular. Above them, an acoustic guitar version of “Birds of a Feather” by Billie Eilish plays. No one says anything about it—why would they? They already heard it at breakfast, at the coffee shop, at lunch. Maybe not Eilish this time—maybe Taylor Swift, maybe Phoebe Bridgers. Doesn’t matter. It’s the same oh–so–familiar song, dressed down with a guitar or piano track that fades into the next, equally ordinary tune. Come to think of it, that same soundtrack probably playing right now as I write this at Stommons.
Yes, dear reader, this is a joke as old as time: three people walking into a bar, setup, punchline, no laugh—which, fittingly, is my point. The music never lands, either. In restaurants, cafes, bars, whatever corner of public life you pick, the sound just hums along. Today, what we call “ambience” is etiquette disguised as sound. It tells you how loud to laugh, how long to linger, and how much space to take up.
When you hear the background music at these spaces, you’re not hearing playlists made by the staff themselves. The spaces can’t—streaming music off someone’s Spotify account in public places is illegal. So they subscribe to companies like Mood Media and Soundtrack, which sell licensed playlists made to “match the music to the brand’s identity, encourage customers to stay longer and buy more, and make employees happier and more productive.” Ah, capitalism with a bassline.
Rather than shuffling Today’s Top Hits, these companies design what they call an acoustic scenography: a playlist designed to shape your behavior without you even realizing it. Restaurants today treat sound the same way they treat lighting or furniture. It’s part of the blueprint. Songs are tagged by mood, tempo, and energy level. After all, it makes sense—you wouldn’t want to eat pancakes over Metallica or sip your 8 a.m. latte to Travis Scott, right? (If you do, well, that’s between you and your barista.)
That blueprint has the science to back it up. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, researchers figured out that people really do move to the music. Faster songs made diners eat and leave quicker; slower ones made them stay. French music led to more French wine sales, and classical music made the same meal somehow seem more expensive. Companies like Muzak (now Mood Media) turned those findings into business models—and the rest of us have been eating to a rhythm ever since. It works for everyone, which is exactly why no one notices it happening.
When you think about it, it’s kind of symbiotic. The companies get what they want: longer visits, higher tabs, even better reviews. You’re … well, you’re fine. You get decent coffee and listen to ever–so–hummable songs for the fifth time this week. You don’t necessarily complain about it, and everyone walks away satisfied. But in a broader sense, music dictates the politics of civility.
It tells you—without saying anything—to keep your voice down and your energy level in check. You don’t raise your voice while smooth jazz plays at dinner, and you definitely don’t pick an argument with your date while Vance Joy croons about being scared of dentists and the dark. Without a server having to come over to tell you how to behave, the sound instead reminds you to match its tone. It’s what civility looks like when it’s set to a beat, keeping people pleasant enough to spend and calm enough to stay.
Civility is a slippery word. It implies respect, but here, it screams silence. The music decides what kind of person you’ll be for the next hour—nice, reasonable, and, hopefully, quiet enough to keep the Google review ratings high. That’s what this version of civility does. You’re not quiet because you’ve suddenly become polite. You’re quiet because no one wants to be the guy that’s obnoxiously loud over the soft music. The sound pulls everyone into line, doing what a “please be respectful” sign could never do.
Our problem is that we don’t know how to exist without music publicly. Sit in a cafe that forgets to turn the speakers on, and you’ll see what I mean. People start fidgeting with their phones. Someone types too loudly, and the keyboard clicks sound jarring. A blender goes off in the back, and suddenly it’s the only sound in the world. The silence makes everyone weird. For some reason, we need the playlist to tell us how to act.
We could try getting a little worse at this whole performance. Leave the air unfilled, the silence hanging, even if it feels off. Let the room sound like people again instead of something picture–perfect. It’ll turn out that public life just needs us to stop being so scared of the noise. The world won’t fall apart if the cafe rings with awkward laughter instead of “Yellow” by Coldplay.
Now, back at the bar, the music’s still playing. Maybe Eilish still, maybe Lorde—no one notices. Someone laughs politely, and someone just stares into their drink. Everything feels fine, which is sort of the problem. The sound keeps everyone comfortable enough not to think about why they’re there in the first place. And if the music ever stopped—God forbid—we might actually have to listen to each other.
