"WBRW" wrote in message
...
Muzak and similar providers of ambient music continue to program
Beautiful
Music for controlled environments.

There's a fast food restaurant in my area that plays Muzak as the
background music. It is all instrumental versions (absolutely no
vocals) of pop music hits, with somewhat of a "rocky" feel, with
guitars, keyboards, and drums -- unlike what I consider to be
traditional Beautiful Music, which predominantly features lush
orchestral arrangements, heavy on the strings.

Anyway, Muzak has conquered and instrumentalized all sorts of pop
music -- I've even heard them do songs like No Doubt's "Don't Speak",
and they're probably done most of the Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync
hits.

The market share for Muzak has to be dropping, though; it used to be
commonplace in supermarkets, department stores, and restaurants, but
now all but the most "snooty" establishments (where vocal music would
be seen as "inappropriate") have replaced it with a generic AC-type
format -- which in itself is a whole other discussion, because I've
heard this background-music form of AC play a *much* wider variety of
songs than what you hear on the radio, including many songs which
didn't even make the Top 40 chart, as well as many album tracks which
were never released for radio airplay.

Muzak, now delivered mostly by satellite, has many, many choices, ranging
form oldies to thematic (Spanish, Mexican, etc.).