The Sound of Music

Audio Ambiance from Burbank to New Zealand to Soho

If you have ever flown into Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, California, you might have noticed the music that is pouring from invisible speakers: It’s all from the 1980’s – from Hall & Oates to Paul Young to Cyndi Lauper and “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” Someone in charge of the audio wallpaper must really be in love with this era. But is that really an appropriate aural red carpet for the Valley, that is, the gateway to Hollywood?

In a related blog, Kathy Sierra swears that “New Zealand must have chosen (along with an anthem, bird, and flower) a National Audio Ambience. And it's currently ambient/electronica. In the US, you expect the airport to play elevator/grocery-store music (Barry Manilow covers, anyone?). In Wellington's airport, you get Portishead, Banco de Gaia, Delerium. In restaurants, shops, and train stations. Nearly everywhere you go, you feel like you just stepped into the W, or some ultra-cool lounge.”

There are exceptions to the rule: Recently, I had coffee at Dean and Deluca, the iconic grocery store in Soho, and it was like seeing, no, hearing the light! Underscored by Italian opera tunes, the dozen ventilators hanging down from the ceiling spun their wings in a masterfully choreographed unisono. An invisible hand was pulling the strings in an ethereal, not-from-this-earth moment that transcended the industrial interior of the store into some sort of style heaven: vegetables, coffee, and Italian opera interwoven into a godly design. Saint-Exupery’s ‘Little Prince’ said that some things you can’t see, hear, touch or smell – you can only feel them with your heart. But there are also things you can’t feel – you have to hear and see them.