Man, I had this same experience at a meidaimae ramen shop down the road that played Aaron Neville & Linda Ronstadts' "I don't know much...but I know I love you" song on loop for the 30 minutes I was there.

Went again last month, but they had conformed to the Tokyo generic BGM standard; Beatles Best-of on repeat.

My looped-music hell was a few months ago at a Don Quijote in Hachimanyama. A man can withstand only so many replays of Duran Duran's "Union of the Snake" before becoming confused and buying an ill-fitting turtleneck that he didn't even want.

My local Freshness Burger is guaranteed to play a nonstop list of songs no one from the US would ever want to hear again. "Smooth" followed by "My Heart Will Go On", with an encore of "Tubthumping" and "Time Of Your Life".

Marxy, the looped repetitiveness that you ethnocentrically see as "audio terrorism" is really just another reflection of the collectivist mentality of the Japanese. I just asked Hisae what she thinks of music in a loop in a restaurant, she replied: "I like it, I find it comforting to hear the same thing over and over again."

Would it prove or disprove that theory if the staff all turned out to be Asian immigrants?

Also, if this was Natural Born Collectivism, wouldn't we hear this at every shop rather than once in three-years or something?

Erm, excuse me, the "Momus" there is not me, could Trevor or Marxy please delete that comment? Discussion is one thing, identity theft is another.

I thought that sounded fake. Can I identify the person as "Not Momus" rather than fully delete it? Because the guy wins points on parody.

For some reason, I no longer get email notifications of new messages, so I can't see people's email addresses without logging in.

Sure, s/he almost had me convinced it was me too. Okay. But please, whoever it is, don't do it again.

My line would have been that this is a problem everywhere, and that the fact that only we musicians notice it suggests that music has a less and less important part in people's lives, precisely because it's everywhere. I have a phrase for this: ubiquity is the abyss. And, inevitably, an accompanying URL:

http://imomus.livejournal.com/183446.html

You know, I almost included a self-trumpeting link back to Click Opera for added authenticity, but in the end I couldn't be bothered.

Still, the fact that I had Marxy fooled and even you doubting for a moment suggests that your work here is done, Momus!

If I'm so eminently self-parodic, surely it suggests that your work here is done, Momus (not really). Then again, I guess Weird Al Yankovic's career has outlasted Michael Jackson's...

So you should thank the restaurant for making 'Livin' La Vida Loca' a less important part of everyone's life.

Refusing to rest on his laurels, the platinum-selling wacky accordionist is taking time out between stops on his sold-out Running With Scissors '99 tour to work on what goofy-music insiders say will be his most incisive satiric salvo yet: the upcoming Ricky Martin/Starbucks Coffee parody "Livin' La Vida Mocha."

Once "Livin' La Vida Loca" was chosen as the song's foundation, Yankovic says, the next step was to sift through various themes until finally coming up with the perfect counterpoint: Starbucks.

"As soon as I came up with the chorus of 'Gulp, gulp, drink it up/Livin' la vida mocha/At four bucks a cup/You're gonna soon go broke-ah,'" Yankovic says, "I realized I'd tapped into something very powerful, something that would resonate deep within the American cultural consciousness."

[...From the onion...]

Momus: Just so you know, I wrote a chatbot a while back that comes very close to your style and tosses in random links to Click Opera, but its no where near as funny as Momus (not really)

Smooth Jazz. Over and over and over

and over

and over again.

"Dressed to Chill", indeed.

I always find Weird Al and Yakov Schmirnov (sp?) parodies funnier than their actual schticks.

ID theft does not float.
"mistuko"...

don't make me sell this site to news corp.

The world is moving toward a uniform material culture, dominated by mostly material American influences: technological innovations, fashion, Hollywood and the celebrity culture it promotes, hip-hop, and rock 'n' roll. But the pervasiveness of the trappings of American culture obscures the central cultural paradox that lies within the globalization process: Although people around the world may wear, eat, and listen to American products, they continue to maintain their deeply ingrained values, beliefs, and underlying assumptions. They may embrace the material products of modernity, but they cling tenaciously to their underlying cultural cores — which remain vibrant and resiliently distinct.

http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=kzx720f7g1njb4jwdzvzmt3g3pp42xdm

duffy, the analytical questions: is duran duran on loop progress or regress from the obligatory multi-lingual versions of the don-don-donki theme-song on loop ? and really what are the dynamics here ? is the staff rebeling against the corporate policy ? that couldn't be the case. have the donki yakuza bigwigs under advice from dentsuu in the wake of last year's saitama arson tragedy decided to somewhat liberalize and westernize their interface with their clientelle ? ???

Now we have a whole new world of meta: was that really alin, or alin (not really)?

Yeah, once, guys, I was in Bic Camera, and they kept looping this fifteen second jingle with this wicked sax solo at the beginning over and over again...

I think Japanese love of jingles is an interesting phenomenon because America was probably the same back in the 50s-60s, but then rock happened and demoded that kind of naive melody. Anyone have the scoop on this? I would be hesitant to cast "jingles" as purely Japanese, but I think there are historical reasons why the Japanese jingles remain and the American jingles died.

The 24 hour convenience store/supermarket "99" (I have no idea if they exist in Tokyo as well, or just Kansai) plays a continuous loop of their jingle all day long.

The electronics store Ninomiya does as well.

The Yakiniku chain Chifaja plays their supremely obnoxious jingle, which actually includes shouting, on a loop OUTSIDE the store, which particularly sucks at the one located right by a bus stop on Kawaramachi.

A couple of months ago I stopped every morning in the same Mister Donuts for one week, at the same time, at the same point in my morning commute and to my horror, I realized that every single time I came in The Bangles "Walk Like an Egyptian" was at the exact same point.

It seems that more often than not, big chain drug stores (Yutaka and Kirindo to name a couple, I dunno if you Kanto boys got those), electronics stores, etc, have the company jingle on an endless loop. Midori Denki rips off "When the Saints Go Marching In" and so on. For us as customers, the madness lasts only as long as we're in the store, but won't someone please think of the workers?!! They're exposed to audio terrorism constantly. That used to drive me crazy when I was working shit jobs back in high school.
I think there's a historical precedent for jingles in Japan going back to the yaki-imo man. I would assume that before it was pre-recorded tape the vendors probably belted it out: "Ishi-yaaaaaaakimooooooo"
Compared to the ice cream man, though I always thought sweet-potato vendor jingles sounded a little morose. "Bring out your dead!"

Isn't there a "historical precident" for jingles in the US too?

Also, Japanese jingles are all based on Western melodic schemes. I mean, they aren't pentatonic and are clearly modeled on American commercial jingles. So, why did they become more entrenched while American ones are seen as a sort of cheesy old ad tactic?

Dentsu Jingle Department?

"Also, Japanese jingles are all based on Western melodic schemes. I mean, they aren't pentatonic and are clearly modeled on American commercial jingles."

Well, except for the mournful calls of the yaki-imo and bamboo-pole men.

Alin said:

"the analytical questions: is duran duran on loop progress or regress from the obligatory multi-lingual versions of the don-don-donki theme-song on loop ? and really what are the dynamics here ? is the staff rebeling against the corporate policy ? that couldn't be the case. have the donki yakuza bigwigs under advice from dentsuu in the wake of last year's saitama arson tragedy decided to somewhat liberalize and westernize their interface with their clientelle ? ???"

Alin, me and you have to get together and make t-shirts. It's as simple as that.

The looping jingle is an aural kanban and a precursor (and survivor) of brian eno's ambient music.

Did you know there is just one guy who is constantly singing the "yaaaaaaakkiiiiimooooooooOOOOoooo" song on KMOE 101.3 the yakimo-man radio station? All the Tokyo area sellers just tune-in their radios and bump that shit all day.

Maybe... the owner just really... really... -really- likes the song.

Momus idea that music is becoming less important because it is everywhere is intresting though. Think of all the kids with ipods listening to their favourite song on loop or shuffeling their 100 "favourite" songs while they're talking to friends, doing homework, comuting and what not. Not a very Japanese phenomena but a phenomena non the less.

the Sato Musen jingle, the Sofmap Jingle, the Yodobashi Camera Jingle, the Matsumoto Kiyoshi jingle... its no wonder the suicide rate is so high here.

I thought today that jingles are probably never thrown away because of lifetime employment or its current day watered-down equivalent. If you had people coming in and out of the company, going to business school, they'd probably be more open to chucking it or changing it. Having it a part of the company, like the charter or company song, and having the staff stay at the company forever, who would move to get rid of it?

There's gotta be a good academic paper out there about Japanese jingles. Anyone?

2 jingle nightmares haunt me to this day:

Bic Camera playing Ayu jingles on repeat...

The local Korean supermarket (stateside) looping Britney Spears' Crazy for 1 hour straight to let us know about a sale on shrimp.

Surely the worst offender is Tsutaya Waaaaaaaaaaaaaave C3.

My local grocery looped this "gyu-chan mambo" song - only in the meat section. I literally stop shopping there because of it.

I have turned off the tape players in supermarkets that play those jingles. There was a tofu one that drilled into my skull.
The funny thing about 99 is they sell a CD of the jingle... for Y99. Thanks, Mutantfrog, now that's in my head.

My KEIO store fish section still plays:
♪sakana, sakana, sakanaaaaaaaaa♪

That's gotta be the worst.

"Surely the worst offender is Tsutaya Waaaaaaaaaaaaaave C3."

But it's so fun to parody!

One of the creepiest moments of my life was walking down an empty street somewhere in Tokyo, hearing the call of the yakiimo man echoing off the buildings around me, neither his location nor direction apparent. It could have been a scene from a horror movie.

"The funny thing about 99 is they sell a CD of the jingle... for Y99. Thanks, Mutantfrog, now that's in my head."
Much obliged. I almost bought it as a "gift" for a friend once, but I didn't want to get murdered. I hope just that one item still sells for exactly \99, even with the mandatory sales tax inclusion we have now.

OK, can anyone think of jingles/looping ambient branding sounds in the US or other countries. Off the top of my head, the Mr Softee ice cream truck song. It's actually copyrighted or trademarked or something, and competing ice cream trucks have been sued for using it.

In Taipei, the garbage trucks would play a loop of a few seconds of some famous piece of classical music whose name escapes me to tell you when it was time to bring the trash out (it's illegal to leave it for collection-but they come 3 times a day), and the individuals who would drive around picking up recyclables (i.e. not the govt. recycling truck) play "bring out yer dead" style recordings that reminded me of the yakiimo song, but without being so creepy.

In the US I think catchphrases have pretty much unseated jingles, going back to "Tastes Great, Less Filling" and further.
"Isn't there a "historical precident" for jingles in the US too?"
What I meant is that the yakiimo jingle feels like it probably dates back to the Meiji era, although I could be wrong. I personally prefer the laundry pole man who plays "Tentoumushi no Samba" and the kerosene trucks with the "Yuki a kon kon" song. (Again, maybe a local thing...)
Somebody apparently named an asteroid "Yakiimo".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meanings_of_asteroid_names_%288501-9000%29

The Saturday electronic garbage guys play "It's a Small World After All" over and over again. They learned that from Disney.

I feel like I have repressed my knowledge of over-used jingles in Tokyo and it's all coming out.

oh god, supermarket food jingles...
Anyone else remember "kinoko ko ko"?

MF: It was either "Fur Elise" or "A Maiden's Prayer" in Taipei. Now I've got the latter in my head ;)
I heard that down in southern Taiwan somewhere they switched from music on the trash trucks to English lessons.

Amida: I just did a quick listen online, and it is Fur Elise. It's haunting strains are not one of the things I look forward to when I return to Taipei.

I heard the thing about the English lessons too, but I thought they gave up on that silly plan. I spent about a week in Tainan and I never heard any.