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Friday 13 February 2009
Leading article: Soul Muzak
It seems unlikely that, decades from now, people will remember what they were doing on the day the Muzak died. But yesterday's news that the American company that manufactures the piped music has filed for bankruptcy protection has some cultural significance all the same.
Public defenders of Muzak are rare. Call centres must accept much of the blame. Can there be a customer alive who was soothed, rather then driven to a frothing rage, by an interminable Vivaldi loop?
But imagine for a moment how thrilling and modern the sound of music in a department store or a hotel lobby must have seemed in the 1950s. Like new refrigerators and televisions, Muzak helped define the dawning of the age of the consumer: something for our political authorities to consider as they desperately attempt to get us back into the shops and avert a prolonged recession.
If Muzak be the food of shopping, play on?
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Woolwich: The EDL were camped outside my house
Emily Jupp -
Grace Dent: I’m not sure how these people can avoid being called ‘bigots’. And the more ‘civilised’, the worse they are
Grace Dent -
The Daily Cartoon
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Woolwich murder: They killed, then they performed - these men should be starved of our attention
Frank Furedi -
Woolwich attack: The EDL will seek to exploit this evil crime for their own evil ends
Jamie Lewis
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Woolwich murder: They killed, then they performed - these men should be starved of our attention
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Woolwich: The EDL were camped outside my house
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Woolwich is only the latest act of barbarism: Muslims, we must take on this cancer in our midst
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Embrace the e-book, Stephen King. It is not for an author to tell his readers how to read
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What, let gays get married? We must be bonkers
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Debate: Is it right to call the murder in Woolwich a ‘terrorist attack’?
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