Twenty Thousand Hertz
Muzak: How background music took over the world
This episode isn’t summarized yet
Create a free account and summarize it. In a few minutes you’ll have the key takeaways and a section-by-section summary.
Show notes
“Elevator music” was once the sound of restaurants, offices, and elevators in mid-20th century America. But ironically these bland, string-driven instrumental tracks are never heard in elevators anymore. In this episode, we speak with Joseph Lanza, the author of “Elevator Music,” and Julian Treasure, chairman of The Sound Agency, about the sound of Muzak -- the company that changed the way we think public spaces should sound.
Twenty Thousand Hertz is produced by Defacto Sound.
Subscribe on YouTube to see our video series.
If you know what this week's mystery sound is, tell us at mystery.20k.org.
Support the show and get ad-free episodes at 20k.org/plus.
Follow Dallas on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
Join our community on Reddit.
Episode transcript, music, and credits can be found here: https://www.20k.org/episodes/muzak
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices