An end to elevator dread?

Lifts and lobbies will never be the same again.

Muzak is dead. Technically, the US company that invented the genre is only wounded after applying for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection but with debts of up to $500 million its chances of recovery look slight.

Obviously any job losses are to be regretted but bright sides of the credit crunch are few and far between so bring on the marching band and let’s celebrate.

If you venture on to the Muzak website you’ll be greeted with a sinister slogan that sounds more of a threat than a selling point: “Twenty-four hours a day. Seven days a week. Seventy-five years and counting.”

Well, it’s time to stop counting. No more panpipe re-workings of middle-of-the-road hit records, no more soulless instrumentals while you’re browsing the vegetable aisle and no more “uplifting” tunes dribbled into your open-plan office.

If you think Muzak is just a bit annoying, you have been ignoring its malevolent mind-control aspirations.

In its own mission statement it describes its aural assault thus: “Audio Architecture is emotion by design. . . Its power lies in its subtlety. It bypasses the resistance of the mind and targets the receptiveness of the heart.”

Subconscious social control, if you will. One story, which admittedly may be apocryphal, captures the company’s spirit perfectly. The Illinois National Stockyards abattoir had too many “dark cutters”, a problem which occurs when cattle release adrenalin just before they are killed. It makes their blood congeal and spoils the meat.

So the Muzak company were called in. They prescribed some soothing music for the cows who henceforth, with hooves tapping and udders swinging, wandered happily and vacantly towards death.