Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for March 09, 2022

Mom and Dad will think your grandparents brainwashed you.

In the future, we will all be complaining about the newest music and comparing it to today’s music. “Back in my day, we had Madonna and Ozzy Osbourne. That was REAL music!” (Trys to insert dentures in mouth)

what is “Muzak” anyway?

Subliminal annoyances

These days most classic rock stars are either over 70 or dead.

These days protest music is just another genre.

It’s also referred to as “elevator music”.

Calvin, you fiend!

PERFECT. Wish I’d thought of that with my kid. Fortunately, we worked hard on being ethical and polite, so “please turn it down” worked pretty well.

PS. NOW they’re seriously old geezer zillionaires… or dying/dead.

My dad is so old he listens to classical music in Morse code

If i may quote Bill the Cat – “Ack!”

This stuff they play today isn’t music. They all sound like dirges. I’ve heard better music at funerals and rap is crap.

I protest muzak as well…it’s worse than the elevator music WKRP used to play. And that was “Having My Baby” by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Oh Lord, get this boy into a music class as soon as possible. Or sooner.

I get Sirius radio in my car, and the two stations I listen to are Siriusly Sinatra and 40’s Junction. But I’m an old guy…..

I was once in Kmart and a familiar tune was playing in Muzak mode. It planted an ear worm in my brain so I’m humming along and then to my shock after adding lyrics to it I realized I’m singing, Pink Floyd’s, ‘Another Brick in the Wall…. (We don’t need no education, we don’t need no thought control)… OMG!!! I didn’t know whether to laugh or scream!!!!!

Love Calvin’s eyes in panel two.

Frenetic music flooded doc’s waiting room yesterday, last place one wants irritating sounds. Silence would have been more tolerable.

In a similar note to ponder, the generation that created the automobile is now 120 years old. Should we protest the invention of the car? Also the generation that invented the telephone (landline) is now 145 years old! Well OK most of you don’t use landlines. And don’t get me started on how old the generation that invented the wheel are. DOWN WITH THE WHEEL!

I don’t know which is worse when put on hold: the “muzak” or the irritating voices advertising the number being called.

I thought he was going to play “Wheels on the bus go round and round….” ALL… DAY

Muzak? Gack!

“Ain’t singin’ for Pepsi, ain’t singin’ for Coke, ain’t singin’ for nobody, makes me look like a joke” – Neil Young

This gives me even more respect for mom and dad!

Given the copyright is 1992, those musicians are around 75 years old now.

Calvin needs to discover ENO’s Ambient music…lol

45? Try 75.

A lot of what the 2020s kids call “music” would offend anyone.

Years ago, I heard a 1001 Strings version of the Doors, Light My Fire. It was horror…

“The hills are alive…with the sound of Muzak!”

My wife, me, and the kids are all 10 years apart in age. We all like the same music. Rock, blues, folk. Nothing from the last 25 years.

I actually used this strip to make an argument in my history class in college. As Calvin points out, at a certain time rock videos became a lot more staid than they used to be.

Muzak, pasteurizing brains for 50 years.

Now those rock stars are in their 70s and selling music libraries for millions

Was listening to the Beatles once. Dad was tuned into his easy listening station. Sure enough, they played their version of the same song I was listening to and he was trying to tell me why his version was better. We agreed to disagree.

No elevators in your house, Calvin. If there were, you could really annoy Mom & Dad.

Yeah, but everyone knows that the revolution will not be televised…

You know how when you were kid in the grocery store and they were playing “old peoples music,” usually a muzak version of some Frank Sinatra or Doris Day song and you’d groan at the cheesiness as your mom smiles?

Muzak was all about making you feel comfortable and opening endorphins so you wanted to buy more stuff. They even figured out folks would linger shopping to hear the end of the song tossing stuff into their cart. To a 60s anti-establishment brain it all sounded positively Orwellian!

Then came the song subscription services like “XM radio” so stores could escape the plague of Muzak programming but still provide age familiar ambience. Still usually light pop, yet by the familiar versions and voices.

So, a month ago, I was in my small town grocery store when Jeans F. Cripe! Suddenly I was humming under my breath to the full album tracks of “Lola!” Then came “Nights in White Satin,” followed by the big edgy Aerosmith song, but can’t remember the name of right now. I was checking out to Van Halen “Running with the Devil” and Judas Priest “Breaking the Law.”

It was sad, and creepily surreal. And yes, I came home with more items than I meant to….

NOOOOOOOOOOO…..!!!

From the movie “10”:

George Webber : If you were dancing with your wife, or girlfriend you knew in high school, and you said to her, Darling, they’re playing our song, do you know what they’d be playing?

Don : What?

George Webber : Why Don’t We Do It In The Road. F****n’ hell kind of era is that?

Muzak makes me hurry up and finish the grocery shopping so I can get the heck away from the Muzak!

I LOVE Muzak! Also called Easy Listening.

The best Muzak was Brain Eno’s ambient music series, starting with Music for Airports

Top ten tunes for March 9, 1992, all rightly forgettable:

1. To Be With You – Mr. Big

2. I’m Too Sexy – Right Said Fred

3. Remember The Time – Michael Jackson

4. I Love Your Smile – Shanice

5. Save The Best For Last – Vanessa Williams

6. Tears In Heaven – Eric Clapton

7. Diamonds And Pearls – Prince And The N.P.G.

8. Masterpiece – Atlantic Starr

9. Tell Me What You Want Me To Do- Tevin Campbell

10. Good For Me – Amy Grant

Now the rock and roll stars are 75-80 years old.

I was still listening to Phish’s ‘A Picture of Nectar’ released a few weeks before.

It’s 30 years since this strip first ran. To update it all you have to do is scratch out “rock” and write in “rap.” It’s another genre that started out as protest music and has now gone corporate.

Rock, meanwhile, has died. RIP.

In my car, Aerosmith never goes out of style. People who do not like it can walk.

When this cartoon was first drawn, the Stones were doing a “Farewell Tour”…

My grand pups call the Big Bands old people music

Techmoan has done good Youtube videos on Muzak machines.

most don’t realize that Musak got very sophisticated near the end of it’s use..

it would design music to have subliminal messages for the customers of the store…think of The Beetles ‘Hey Jude’ played by a Mantovoni type ‘orchestra’ just above the sub-conscience level, with the subliminal message of….. ( sing the song along with me)…

‘’hey you….don’t steal our stuff…. eat your meal…and please get out…..remember…to tell all of your friends…we are the best…now spend your money….’’

I would like to congratulate a number of commenters here on successfully becoming just like their parents. It was always a matter of time.

I love Muzak. It used to be played everywhere. That’s when commerce was great. Today, “nobody” goes anywhere and there are way too many empty buildings. I miss my youth.

Who knew Calvin was such a quiet rebel?

For a change of pace…

https://youtu.be/nqeCZMy5GUE

You can always listen to videogame music. It’s much more fun than people think.

Heh, I picture the “Easy-Listening Muzak” as being this KPM stock music track from 1970 (and I will admit it’s a guilty pleasure of mine)… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKxznIbc4D8

So true. We have equated all of what would once have been virtue to a value of coinage. The years when we are truly altruistic are fewer and fewer.

Oh Calvin, you truly are born to be wild…

Muzak? Calvin is a true fiend, evil to the core. ;D

It’s funny to read these old comic strips and watch the generations cycle. I remember thinking the same thing about rock at about the same time this would have run.

But now all the rock giants are well into their 70s and it’s no longer possible to pretend the revolution is anything other than long over. Kids today have either forgotten their music altogether, or else lump them in with Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman. Even if they do appreciate it, they see its historical significance but struggle to enjoy it without some sort of artistic update, like that Elton John/Dua Lipa duet. And youngsters who like to take rock and roll in its pure form are seen as having a retro, antiquarian bent. But any pretense that the golden age of rock is still cutting edge is by now utterly impossible to maintain.

I had to have hard laugh on this one for the second time.

At least he plays it quietly

Diabolical!!

A couple years ago Blue Oyster Cult was performing at Summerfest. We watched & listened, then I observed how all the fans watching looked so elderly!

Great comic, brings back memories of when I was a kid and read these comics. And now I have an account so I can talk about it.

Imagine my surprise at getting into an elevator about ten years ago and listening to “Hey Jude” in muzak. Man did I feel old.

Montovani, the Melachrino Strings,..

Elevator Music. However, once I heard “God Save the Queen” by the Sex Pistols in an elevator.

Calvin zigs rather than zags. Still, Muzak is carp.

Henry Mancini played some Muzak. There was also themes to movies and TV shows.

There goes the chance for parents to think of increasing the family.

Ringo is a grandfather and Mick is a great-grandfather.

The 45 year olds are now 75 years old.

1001 Strings play the Beatles! Yuk!

Elevator music.

Everyone’s a Revolutionary until they win, then they are just the “man”.