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Where functional music finds its home: a literature review
Written by,
Abigail Robinson
Global Entertainment and Music Business
Berklee College of Music, 2019
Abstract
The 20th century gave rise to and the 21 st century has seen the proliferation of music as a
utilitarian tool that can alter, regulate, and observe mood. Functional music takes on many
definitions—from musique d’ameublement, Muzak, film scores, to MTV and brand sponsored
media. Today, functional music (a mood stabilizer) is the biggest economic driver for user
choice. “When presented with a large array of affordable or free options, consumers can be
mentally paralyzed by the worry that they aren’t making the most efficacious and fulfilling
choice,” (Schwartz, 2005). Spotify and other DSPs help alleviate the strain of choice by
providing preset and often branded playlists fit for any mood or occasion. At the same time,
smart speakers are a fast-growing piece of the music listening market. According to Music Ally,
smart speaker sales grew 169% in 2018 with over 80 million units sold. The global market is
expected to reach 200 million by 2019. Smart speakers are inherently functional given their
hands-off approach. They provide an intimate space for an often-dissociated listener.
“Ethnomusicologists have told us, the functions of music can be described in almost exclusively
social terms,” (Frith, 2012). There are still unknown implications of how smart speakers will
integrate with functional music—especially as it pertains to places of work and social gatherings.
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Research approach: literature review
This research paper will first use historical context to evaluate and more specifically
define what functional music is. Analysis of current economic strategies are you used to uncover
truths about functional music as it stands now. Literature review of smart speakers and
hypothetical future trends will be discussed in tandem with functional music. There is little doubt
that smart speakers will play a substantial role in shaping music consumption, information
sharing, and future online communities. This paper also hopes to link podcasts as a useful and
purposeful tool that will enhance the experiences of functional music.
The purpose of this literature review is to examine functional music as it has changed and
what current implications it has in the entertainment industry. The review of scholarly work
takes precedents of modes of functional music as a “mood stabilizer”. This is not an all-inclusive
review of functional music, rather, a specific overview of its integration in the current landscape.
This literature review will comprise of the current industry contexts, a brief history of functional
music, a market analysis of mood, and discussing smart speakers future effect on functional
must. The structure of this paper will provide thematic narratives to help illuminate its review
and will help demonstrate a creative understanding to the material. The very definition of
functional music is still largely undefined or disagreed on in academic discourse—this paper will
be offering its own insights and unique identifiers for functional music. The literature review will
be limited due to its lack of empirical data, or formal systemic search.
The discourse of functional music as it disseminates in modern tools is growing and will
require more in-depth research in the future. Overall this paper serves as a continuation of the
academic dialogue surrounding functional music.
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Industry context and points of research
Digital streaming has changed the way we find and hold on to music. More and more
people “listen while”, listen while sleeping, while working out, while cooking dinner etc. This is
not a new behavior; however streaming services are shaping these moments like never before.
Further, Spotify has strategized its economic growth around controlling the narrative of users
publicly displayed emotions and activities. Playlists more and more define our musical tastes and
selections. Playlists do this while defining personal moments in users lives. Listen to Spotify’s
“Chill Vibes” after a long day, play “Feel Good Dinner” for a casual and upbeat gathering of
friends. More and more users are also listening to music while commuting or physically at work.
Spotify’s “Workday: Pop” has nearly half a million followers all tuning into the same curated list
presumably during work hours. Functional music delivered as mood/activity driven playlists are
a sound track to our lives. The service economy of the music industry captured the monetary
value of Jacques Attali’s words, “nothing essential happens in the absence of noise,” (Attali, 3,
1985). Spotify and other digital streamers have a vested interest in sonically impacting
essentially every moment of a user’ss day.
In 2018 Spotify surpassed one hundred million paid subscribers and has over two
hundred million users in total. Spotify is replicating business strategies from the Muzak
Corporation, while perfecting new forms of technical delivery (playlists). "Spotify's obsession
with mood and activity-based playlists has contributed to all music becoming more like Muzak, a
brand that created, programmed, and licensed songs for retails stores throughout the twentieth
century," (Pelly, 6, 2017). Spotify acts as an omniscient figurehead able to oversee and control
the musical dialogue between them and their clients. Spotify is in the business of mood, “the
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business of mood aims to abstract, quantify, and monetize mood and psychological capital,”
(Anderson, 832, 2015).
A panel of music industry experts attributed part of the success of the children’s hit,
“Baby Shark”, to the increase of youth access to smart speakers. At their current pace, smart
speakers are the fastest growing piece of tech since the introduction of smartphones. According
to Forbes, smart speakers have a compound annual growth rate of 47.9%. The result of which
will be more smart speakers in use than wearable tech. The biggest drivers of smart speaker
adaptation are younger Gen-X women, parents, and families. Prices are lowering given more
product entry to market, like Apple HomePod, Google’s Home Mini Speaker and more.
Musical products that hinge on mood management can be defined as functional music.
What historical context can we apply to functional music and how does this context help define
functional music as a mood stabilizer? What economic strategies in the music industry are in
place that capitalize off mood management? How can smart (voice activated, connected)
speakers capitalize off functional music listeners at work and at home?
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A brief history of functional music
The historical timeline for functional music is, in many ways, a puzzle. Function serves
many purposes and cannot be boxed into a single category. That being said, the metaphor of
mirrors can illuminate some answers for us, “undoubtedly, music is a play of mirrors in which
every activity is reflected, defined, recorded, and distorted,” (Attali, 5, 1985). It is in the
reflected activity that the traditional footprint for functional music arises. Literally speaking,
Attali may be referencing instruments ability to sonically reflect the movements of its player.
Metaphorically, however, music mirrors the activities it has always accompanied.
“Functional music can be defined as music used principally to support and encourage
some other primary activity, whether the production and consumption of goods and services or
the reproduction of social and symbolic order in public spaces. While recognizing that all music
has cultural and social functions, we use the term “functional” in this context to apply to music
whose primary goals are utilitarian.” (Jones and Schumacher, 1992)
It is under this umbrella that Jones and Schumacher, in Muzak: On Functional Music and Power,
provide a road map for deciphering functional music. Similar to the waves of feminism
functional music evolves and disseminates in waves over time. For example, film scores are
functional music and are a fairly recent musical invention. At first, pianos were placed in theaters
and played live to accompany silent films. Eventually film scores would become pop giants in
their own right. Composers like John Williams elevated the genre into something more than a
lingering force in the background—scores were transformed into powerful narrative elements. In
this light, film scores meet the criteria of ‘functional’. Film scores “support” and “encourage” the
narrative while adding value to consumers. This paper, instead, would like to focus on functional
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music as it relates to real world (not fictional) feelings, moods, and activities.
For many centuries’ music was not a commodity. Throughout the Middle Ages musicians
remained othered in society. Eventually musicians were accepted by the church and were
commissioned to write on the church’s behalf. Commissioned works would later become popular
because of the patron, not composer. According to Attali, Opera became a spectacle for events of
wealthy princes. This is one of the first popular examples of music elevating an event and in
turn legitimizing itself. The 16th century is when the west begins to place value in music for its
ability to emphasize external activity.
Meandering through a couple centuries of musical development we arrive at the piano in
the parlor. For nearly a century the pianoforte would be welcomed as domestic objects in a wide
array of American homes. By 1900 pianos in homes increased at five times the rate of the
American population. Pianos were a centerpiece of the American home. They offered a
domestic, personal, and private space for their owners to share in a social listening experience. It
is when music penetrates domestic life that it finds a more intimate shared space with its
listeners. Functionally, pianos became a gateway to leisure as well as an emotional outlet for
their owners. In this light, functional music relies on a technical device (the piano) as well as a
local source (the parlor) to create intimacy with the listener.
Music is integral to our experience in the home, it has become an emotional vehicle for
leisure. Functional music finds a special home with the avant-garde visionary French composer,
Erik Satie. Erik Satie was born in the Normandy region of France on May 17, 1866. More than
twenty years later Satie is working as a café pianist, working on his first compositions in Paris.
Inspired by Henri Matisse, who envisioned, “art without subject matter, an art similar in
function to a comfortable easy-chair,” (2019) Satie experiment musique d’ameublement or
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“furniture music” comes to fruition in 1920. This work was never performed nor published in
Satie’s lifetime. Tenture de cabinet préfectoral, to be played in the wall lining the office, was
one Satie’s underappreciated ideas. Furniture music is the first taste of integrating music directly
into our sources of physical comfort. Furniture music is not about the piano in the parlor—Satie
imagines a symbiotic relationship between physical space and music. Comfort (physical and
emotional) are correlated to non-musical objects in the home. Here, functional music still relies
on a local source, however, Satie has democratized both the technical device and the home as a
source.
The 20th century is when functional music crosses the barriers of the home and enters the
physical space of the laborer. Introducing the Muzak Corporation, founded in Cleveland, Ohio in
1934. For a monthly fee it offered customers access to three channels ranging from popular
music to news. These customers ranged from factories, hotels, and bars. The industrial revolution
called for innovation in the circulation of sound, therefore, recorded music was publicly
transmitted through speakers. Muzak has the ability to impact the individual in a public space,
“muzak is at once personal and communal,” (456, Radano, 1989). Unlike “furniture music”,
muzak encourages labor and productivity. Muzak was known for its tested and proven ability to
increase production of workers. Tunes produced by Muzak carried many factory workers
through WWII. By the 1950s the Muzak Corporation grew and gained a powerful reputation for
manipulating audience emotion. Their ‘Stimulus Progression Curve” was a programmed playlist
meant to moderate intervals of relaxation and stimuli. Muzak’s concepts became embedded in
American working culture. In factories, muzak’s functional music enhanced labor practices. In
hotels, bars, and retailers muzak blurred the sonic environment for worker and customer. It
signifies “individual” and “collective” experience (456, Radano, 1989). Functional music
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becomes a necessity to our everyday lives. In this way, muzak made functional music glaringly
manipulative and glaringly public.
The Muzak Corporation created an inexorable link between functional music and brands.
“Products are no longer sold to us through homogenous market segments; they are sold with uswe chose the products we want to buy through brands that speak to us,” functional music, “plays
a significant role in how brands are perceived and it has even become a brand in its own right,"
(Margeirsson, 16, 2011). Retail experiences are powerful drivers of emotional release. Often,
customers seek shopping realtors to satisfy social needs as well as a material. Functional music
offers tone to these spaces. Similar to driving up productivity in the factories, brand affiliated
functional music drives up shopper interest. Similar to the operas of the 16th century these
musical tastings can rise in legitimacy due to brand affiliation. "The first retailers to successfully
capitalize the idea of selling their 'soundtrack' to their customer base was the American
underwear store, Victoria Secret... The store's first two volumes went double platinum, selling
more than two million copies,” (Margeirsson, 7, 2011). Victoria Secret was able to sonically
transform the in-store customer experience to the outside listener. We begin to see functional
music co-opted by brands while maintaining a structural grip on manipulating emotion.
Functional music shapes our behaviors and helps define us as individuals. It is here, that brand
identity is linked to functional music.
Public and private life have taken on a new meaning as digital infrastructures continue to
be the most dominant social and economic force of the 21st century. Mood shapes our lives in
public and in private. Over time, functional music has relied more and more on the successful
ability to manage and even produce moods or feelings. Ignacio Siles and a team of researchers
conducted a study in which they find, “music is a fundamental component of the contemporary
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market of moods and emotions,” (Siles, 9, 2019). As functional music cycles through different
reincarnations some features remain the same; there must always be a technical device to share
the music (instrument, speaker, singer) and a local source (a space inhabited by listeners). Take,
for example, the piano and the parlor. With the advance of digital streaming functional music
still requires a technical device (smartphone, computer, smart speaker) but now the source has
changed. The source is the playlist (inhabited by thousands, if not millions of users). Functional
music now is much more reflective or Erik Satie’s vision of “furniture music”—always around in
moments of comfort. Functional music also serves mass audiences unlike before given lack of a
physical space yet maintaining the power of shared experience. At the same time, the
deployment of functional music introduces an emotional dichotomy. Departing the home and
finding sanctuary with the workforce functional music (a mood manager) drives labor just as
much as leisure. Simon Frith talks of popular music and its natural quota to satisfy “never no
sound at all” (Frith, 2012). He goes on to say, “music is matter of brand and lifestyle,” (Frith, 6,
2012). Mood playlists create an outlet for public displays of emotion. They are a visual and sonic
aid for brand acceptance. Mood playlist can show a user happy while also endorsing Nike. Users
of digital streamers like Spotify find comfort in the familiar as it accompanies their life. Brands,
whether insidiously or candidly, join in on this journey. Mood playlists like muzak, “take place
alongside other familiar objects of our private lives,” (Radano, 456, 1989). Mood, and the
brands attached, are ever present for music listeners in private and public moments. The
audiences of playlists create a veil of emotional support and awareness like never before.
Functional music has surpassed individual mood management; it can regulate feelings for mass
audiences regardless of location or the external activity. The playlist, is now as much technical
device as it is a localized source of music.
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Playlists have been described as genres, compilations, dynamic stations, and more. When
purposed for mood stabilizing playlists are a powerful conductor physical location and a device
much on their own. These locations (sources) can travel with the user creating a sound track for
their lives. Playlists are devices that will live separately from traditional tools like smartphones
and computers. Will playlist fill the walls of our homes one day? In 2018 playlists intent on
delivering functional music are the most powerful tool in mapping out emotional well-being of a
mass audience.
Given this brief history we learn that functional music must always serve am emotional
driven purpose. As music transformed into recorded music functionality required at least one
technical device as well as one localized source. Again, thinking of the piano and the parlor.
Functional music found roots in the domestic leisurely activities of millions of Americans. The
industrial revolution provided functional music with mass appeal and created a symbiotic
relationship between labor and relaxation. The introduction of brands gives functional music
God-like, or at the very least Instagram influencer levels, of confidence when approaching users
in what can appear to be intimate spaces. Happy and sad, chill or concentrating, major label or
indie-- functional music does not differentiate, instead it omnipotently assigns emotional value
for its listeners and welcomes audiences regardless of location.
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The market of mood
"Spotify loves 'chill' playlists: they're the purest distillation of its ambition to turn all
music into emotional wallpaper," (Pelly, 5, 2017). Liz Pelly came at as a pessimistic critic of
Spotify’s business strategies—strategies that are eerily familiar to the Muzak Corporation. Pelly
is adopting Paul Allen Anderson’s analysis of the state and strategy of music streamers like
Spotify and Pandora. Anderson’s work Neo-Muzak and the business of mood remains relevant
when discussing the economic strategies of digital service providers. "While Muzak reigned (and
operates still) as a workplace tool rather than a personal care product, neo-Muzak successors
like Pandora, Spotify, and other digital streaming services have arrived to close the gap as
personal care products for affect management and mood elevation,” (Anderson, 811, 2015).
Oddly enough, the Muzak Corporation was acquired to the tune of three hundred and five million
by Mood Media Corporation in 2011. At the same time, Spotify adopted and innovated proven
strategies from Muzak Corp. Spotify curates’ playlists that encourage production/labor as well as
mental well-being. Spotify and other digital streamers are able to capture large audiences based
on perceived shared experience. Users of digital streamers must submit to public observance of
mood and feeling. This public knowledge is an advantage to advertisers, “Spotify offered
advertisers the possibility of reaching users according to at least eight different activities and
moods that are found in playlists..." (Eriksson and Johansson, 77, 2017). Advertisers are able to
target users based on their consumption patterns. Before these consumption patterns may have
indicated strict musical evidence (genre, artists, albums etc)—consumption patterns of music,
today, indicate a person’s happiness more than their favorite sub-genre. This has led to strategic
audio/visual overlays for advertisers and brands. More than half of Spotify’s client base are
freemium users, these mood/occasion playlists are powerful drivers of brand curiosity.
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Functional music works in tandem for brands directly.
Functional music, mood and occasion specific playlists are also a brand on their own. In
the upper left-hand corner of playlist cover art Spotify made playlists features its logo. “Mood
Booster” has drawn one of the platforms largest online communities with over three million
followers. Hidden among the soft orange, the palm trees, the happily floating balloons Spotify
marks its territory—they are responsible for clients boosted mood. Spotify and other digitals
streamers now rely on the given expectation that users are constantly willing to share their
emotional states. “Mood Booster” on Spotify can be played at work as much as the home. The
experience leading a person to press play is different but the results remain the same. According
to a 2018 report from Nielsen, adults in the United States spend 70% of their day interacting with
audio/visual media and further, “nearly one-third of non-home listening also occurs at work,
where consumers can multitask while they carry out their jobs,” (Nielsen, 2019). Whether it is at
work or at home adults are swiftly filling the moments of their day with audio/visuals.
Playlist culture offers music listeners the chance to “soundtrack their lives”. Deezer goes
as far as incorporating “flow” onto their platform. A personalized, algorithmic based playlist that
is coined as “your personal soundtrack”. A Deezer employee described this playlist as perfect for
their lean back listener. “Flow” is meant to fill time that otherwise would have remained silent,
or at least, music free. Of course, Deezer has all the popular mood and occasion specific playlists
music listeners have come to adore across streaming platforms. “Flow” is a distinct feature
separating Deezer from Spotify. “Flow” continuously adapts to the user, unlike Spotify’s
“Discover Weekly” playlist. Furthermore, Deezer features “Flow” ahead of all other content on
the homepage. Spotify’s homepage has up to five Spotify branded playlists listed before the
“made for user” section. Spotify deploys its playlists as the cure for your mood, bad day at work,
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first dinner with the in-laws; at the same time, Spotify pushes its own brand as essential to the
music. In this way, Spotify has created the framework for the culture industry of music. “The
culture industry is responsible for the production of work for reproduction and mass
consumption. It aims to influence our free time and control the way in which we perceive music
and other cultural commodities,” (Margeirsson, 7, 2011). Digital streaming providers success
has been conditional to their ability to influence their users free time. Meanwhile, functional
music is able to manipulate the moods of massive audiences. “The culture industry arouses a
feeling of well-being that the world is precisely in that order suggested by the culture industry,
the substitute gratification which it prepares for human beings cheats them out of the same
happiness which it deceitfully projects,” (Adorno, 8, 1975). Knowingly or not, streaming
services have created musical strongholds for their clients to complacently address emotional
well-being. At the same time, functional music provides a shared space for listeners to openly
address themselves. It is here that playlists find their true power. “The ability to convincingly
perform a normative positive mood at work and in social interactions is the baseline measure of
high psychological capital. In this context, mood management is the quintessence of affective
labor in the ever-expanding service economy,"(Anderson, 815, 2015). On the commute to work,
sitting within the confines of a cubicle, dinner with friends or family—each moment requires
emotionally sourced musical accompaniment. Streaming services are concurrently sound
tracking their clients lives while broadcasting it. Spotify upholds an image of being constantly up
to date because it has successfully immersed itself into the life of its user.
The market of mood mirrors digitally collected spaces where all points of life deserve
musical backing. Functional music redefines client experience as life experience. Digital
streaming services will find continued success the more they invest in understanding user
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intention. Functional music creates a sonically familiar atmosphere, “it's aim is precisely to make
one ‘feel at home’ whether in the office, factory, or airplane, " (Jones and Schumacher, 162,
1992). Functional music, mood and occasion driven playlists, serve as a point of location
uniquely familiar to each music listener. Playlists achieve this while also being the device of
delivery. Functional music now serves as piano and parlor, always available and conveniently a
touch away. Streaming users currently access music largely through touch; via computer,
smartphone or tablet for example. As smart speakers rise in popularity functional music must
integrate voice activation as more seamless than touch. Smart speakers are bound for
domestication; therefore, integration into labor specific locations can follow with ease.
Functional music will again find sonic awareness and its home in speakers.
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Intimate voice and smart speakers
Smart speakers are largely a household device. According to Nielsen, twenty four
percent of United States households are residence to smart speakers. Ninety percent of smart
speaker use is music streaming. Leading the way in the American market is the Amazon Echo,
assisted by Alexa of course. Amazon has current control of the market but is expected to decline
given more product entries to market. As a result, prices will lower. In this context, digital
streaming providers have had to adjust and will continue to adapt to voice activated systems.
Given today’s understanding of functional music playlists operationally will have to be just as, if
not more, intuitive to voice activation than to touch. This will challenge some streamers effective
visual branding efforts. Spotify’s visual branding, for example, is smartly present on all of their
curated playlists. Will functional music result in a default listening experience doomed to circle
powerful brands? Or will voice activation circumvent digital streamers efforts to homogenous
user experience.
Do digital streaming providers evoke intimate voice through podcasts? So far, yes. While
adopting mood management as a means to establish user loyalty (reflecting the Muzak
Corporation) Spotify, as well as other streamers, are positioning podcasts as trustworthy intimate
voices. Mirroring the social experience of radio, podcasts allow streaming users suspended
moments in time free from musical accompaniment. Free from music but not sound. Instead, the
listener is connected to induvial voices. We live in “a world of circulation in which music in
daily life was inseparable from lived time,” (Attali, 15, 1985). The modern digital landscape
offers people an abundance of choice for any given moment. Podcasts, dispersed between
functional music, promises for trusted entryway into the mind of the listener. Given the power of
playlists, podcasts could be susceptible to mood manipulation much like music. At the same
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time, voice activation calls for more intimate approaches for music distribution. Podcasters will
offer valuable voice interactions to smart speaker experiences. For example, Michelle and
Barack Obama’s exclusive deal with Spotify can result in exclusive spoken interactions with
clients. Streaming services voice-controlled brand will first take shape by their exclusive
affiliations.
Groups interact with smart speakers just as much as the individual. Nielsen lists families
among the early adopters of connected speakers. It has long been understood that music listening
is often an indicator of a social experience. Again, functional music moves to manipulate the
singular person as much as the group. In this light, mood/occasion specific playlists should adopt
more social cues in order to work effectively with smart speakers. As a method of mood
management, functional music temporarily delocalizes the listeners emotional awareness and
substitutes it with its own sonic rhythm. “As a technology of self, music has become crucial to
the ways in which people organize memory, identity, their autonomy," (Frith, 7, 2012), functional
music aims to subvert self-organization through mood manipulation. Streaming functional music
through smart speakers, rather than other traditional web-connected devices, will result in more
ubiquitous emotional experiences.
Podcasting, aforementioned as the biggest proponent of intimate voice, will help drive
engagement of streaming audiences. Nielsen reports that fifty-one percent of US adults search
related content while listening to audio. Digital streaming providers will be smart to integrate
voice activated queries into to their playlists. Voice interaction has limitless potential to keep
clients actively engaged longer. Cherie Hu recognizes this pivot for “Netflix of audio” in which,
“Spotify arguably demonstrates that it prioritizes cultural control and organizational efficiency
as much as it professes wider artist empowerment,” (Hu, Medium, 2019). This cultural control
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provides Spotify with an effective means to develop and sponsor content in new and unknowing
ways. Spotify’s success is thanks in large part to their functional music engine. The exploitive
nature of which makes music listening a much more complacent exercise. With this in mind,
situating podcasts with functional music will make for smoother delivery of information. Smart
speakers will continue to proliferate the household market, inevitably making them the most
valuable resource for intimate interactions. Functional playlists, will no longer live absent of
physical location, connected speakers will bring functional music back to its domestic roots. As
Paul Allen Anderson puts it, "welcome to the age of neo-Muzak. Whether at work, home, the
mall, the gym, on the bus or in the car, web-connected subjects live and weave among an array
of streaming platforms for algorithmic or curated musical moodscapes and affective
atmospheres," (Anderson, 811, 2015). The transmission of radio blurred the realities of public
and private life. Further, the transmission of muzak sonically and emotionally blurred the
experience of labor and leisure. The introduction of intimate voice will result in functional
music’s improved ability to identify user intention. Given new social listening procedures
functional playlists will have greater impact on geographic targets. As soon as voice recognition
catches up to voice command functional music will also have significant potential habituating to
groups. In sum, related voice driven content adjoining powerful mood driven playlists will be the
marker for success as the streaming era booms.
The smart speaker market will grow according to where its obvious functionality lies—the
home. What implications are in store for smart speakers if they were to break into the labor
sphere? To successfully integrate smart speakers in non-domestic spaces voice activation will
have to learn more intuitive cues than it currently possesses. Functional playlists transpose, “a
sonic image of a familiar domestic world into a public space,” (Radano, 453, 1989). Smart
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speakers will likely be domestically familiar with the working class. There will be a natural
integration of these listening devices in corporate spaces. One day, smart speakers may transform
the retail experience for shopper and employee. A panelist at MIDEM in 2019 scoffed at the
usability and approachability of smart speakers in work spaces. Perhaps, he envisioned a
cacophony of sounds, of childlike “I wants”, of inconsistent mood; nothing conducive to
productive labor. Instead, smart speakers will have close domestic ties which will have result in
close emotional bonds. As smart speakers begin to burgeon in the market their implementation in
spaces beyond the home should be considered.
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Future contexts and results
Functional music has a complex history, only briefly overviewed in this paper. For the
purposes of mood/occasion driven playlists functional music takes on the role of mood stabilizer.
Its purposes are constantly adjusting the needs of the culture industry. Digital streaming
providers have adopted mood stabilization as a source of capital from companies like the Muzak
Corporation. These practices were publicly criticized due to sonic release through speakers in
highly public spaces. Spotify and others remain unscathed by their practices due to headphone
use. It is with the domestication of smart speakers that functional music will make a successful
return to public observance.
It is clear that economic strategies laid out in 20th century will remain relevant as
technology companies continue to waiver in their battle to be profitable. There is a clear need for
digital streaming providers to seamlessly integrate multi-functional voice activated systems.
Functional playlists will strongly rely on intimate voice to create lasting relationships with its
listeners. Podcasters will serve as acoustic brands for streaming providers.
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Conclusion
Imagine a solitary piano. It is located at the center of small, albeit busy, train station.
Light filters through the windows, birds lightly pounce on the tiled floors, a homogenous wave
of wheeled bags seems to surround you. The piano remains static in its location, at first glance, a
visual homage to the past. Unsurprisingly, someone begins to play. The melodies and harmonies
of Mozart and Bach begin to fill the air. Most people take little notice of when the player ends
and the next beings. One piano, two players, and countless anonymous listeners. Sitting in the
small, albeit busy, train station one may take little notice of the performers but the presence of
the music cannot be masked. It emits ambience and an intrinsically calming tone into the air. As
a traveler in pursuit of the next location the music can act as a reprieve from the dense pulsating
of everyday noises. In this moment of travelling, the train station is a substitute for something
much more comfortable and familiar. Smart speakers will one day offer us a similar experience
to the piano, emitting functional music that will all once be comfortable. Familiar.
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Written by,
Abigail Robinson
Global Entertainment and Music Business
Berklee College of Music, 2019
Abstract
The 20th century gave rise to and the 21 st century has seen the proliferation of music as a
utilitarian tool that can alter, regulate, and observe mood. Functional music takes on many
definitions—from musique d’ameublement, Muzak, film scores, to MTV and brand sponsored
media. Today, functional music (a mood stabilizer) is the biggest economic driver for user
choice. “When presented with a large array of affordable or free options, consumers can be
mentally paralyzed by the worry that they aren’t making the most efficacious and fulfilling
choice,” (Schwartz, 2005). Spotify and other DSPs help alleviate the strain of choice by
providing preset and often branded playlists fit for any mood or occasion. At the same time,
smart speakers are a fast-growing piece of the music listening market. According to Music Ally,
smart speaker sales grew 169% in 2018 with over 80 million units sold. The global market is
expected to reach 200 million by 2019. Smart speakers are inherently functional given their
hands-off approach. They provide an intimate space for an often-dissociated listener.
“Ethnomusicologists have told us, the functions of music can be described in almost exclusively
social terms,” (Frith, 2012). There are still unknown implications of how smart speakers will
integrate with functional music—especially as it pertains to places of work and social gatherings.
2
Research approach: literature review
This research paper will first use historical context to evaluate and more specifically
define what functional music is. Analysis of current economic strategies are you used to uncover
truths about functional music as it stands now. Literature review of smart speakers and
hypothetical future trends will be discussed in tandem with functional music. There is little doubt
that smart speakers will play a substantial role in shaping music consumption, information
sharing, and future online communities. This paper also hopes to link podcasts as a useful and
purposeful tool that will enhance the experiences of functional music.
The purpose of this literature review is to examine functional music as it has changed and
what current implications it has in the entertainment industry. The review of scholarly work
takes precedents of modes of functional music as a “mood stabilizer”. This is not an all-inclusive
review of functional music, rather, a specific overview of its integration in the current landscape.
This literature review will comprise of the current industry contexts, a brief history of functional
music, a market analysis of mood, and discussing smart speakers future effect on functional
must. The structure of this paper will provide thematic narratives to help illuminate its review
and will help demonstrate a creative understanding to the material. The very definition of
functional music is still largely undefined or disagreed on in academic discourse—this paper will
be offering its own insights and unique identifiers for functional music. The literature review will
be limited due to its lack of empirical data, or formal systemic search.
The discourse of functional music as it disseminates in modern tools is growing and will
require more in-depth research in the future. Overall this paper serves as a continuation of the
academic dialogue surrounding functional music.
3
Industry context and points of research
Digital streaming has changed the way we find and hold on to music. More and more
people “listen while”, listen while sleeping, while working out, while cooking dinner etc. This is
not a new behavior; however streaming services are shaping these moments like never before.
Further, Spotify has strategized its economic growth around controlling the narrative of users
publicly displayed emotions and activities. Playlists more and more define our musical tastes and
selections. Playlists do this while defining personal moments in users lives. Listen to Spotify’s
“Chill Vibes” after a long day, play “Feel Good Dinner” for a casual and upbeat gathering of
friends. More and more users are also listening to music while commuting or physically at work.
Spotify’s “Workday: Pop” has nearly half a million followers all tuning into the same curated list
presumably during work hours. Functional music delivered as mood/activity driven playlists are
a sound track to our lives. The service economy of the music industry captured the monetary
value of Jacques Attali’s words, “nothing essential happens in the absence of noise,” (Attali, 3,
1985). Spotify and other digital streamers have a vested interest in sonically impacting
essentially every moment of a user’ss day.
In 2018 Spotify surpassed one hundred million paid subscribers and has over two
hundred million users in total. Spotify is replicating business strategies from the Muzak
Corporation, while perfecting new forms of technical delivery (playlists). "Spotify's obsession
with mood and activity-based playlists has contributed to all music becoming more like Muzak, a
brand that created, programmed, and licensed songs for retails stores throughout the twentieth
century," (Pelly, 6, 2017). Spotify acts as an omniscient figurehead able to oversee and control
the musical dialogue between them and their clients. Spotify is in the business of mood, “the
4
business of mood aims to abstract, quantify, and monetize mood and psychological capital,”
(Anderson, 832, 2015).
A panel of music industry experts attributed part of the success of the children’s hit,
“Baby Shark”, to the increase of youth access to smart speakers. At their current pace, smart
speakers are the fastest growing piece of tech since the introduction of smartphones. According
to Forbes, smart speakers have a compound annual growth rate of 47.9%. The result of which
will be more smart speakers in use than wearable tech. The biggest drivers of smart speaker
adaptation are younger Gen-X women, parents, and families. Prices are lowering given more
product entry to market, like Apple HomePod, Google’s Home Mini Speaker and more.
Musical products that hinge on mood management can be defined as functional music.
What historical context can we apply to functional music and how does this context help define
functional music as a mood stabilizer? What economic strategies in the music industry are in
place that capitalize off mood management? How can smart (voice activated, connected)
speakers capitalize off functional music listeners at work and at home?
5
A brief history of functional music
The historical timeline for functional music is, in many ways, a puzzle. Function serves
many purposes and cannot be boxed into a single category. That being said, the metaphor of
mirrors can illuminate some answers for us, “undoubtedly, music is a play of mirrors in which
every activity is reflected, defined, recorded, and distorted,” (Attali, 5, 1985). It is in the
reflected activity that the traditional footprint for functional music arises. Literally speaking,
Attali may be referencing instruments ability to sonically reflect the movements of its player.
Metaphorically, however, music mirrors the activities it has always accompanied.
“Functional music can be defined as music used principally to support and encourage
some other primary activity, whether the production and consumption of goods and services or
the reproduction of social and symbolic order in public spaces. While recognizing that all music
has cultural and social functions, we use the term “functional” in this context to apply to music
whose primary goals are utilitarian.” (Jones and Schumacher, 1992)
It is under this umbrella that Jones and Schumacher, in Muzak: On Functional Music and Power,
provide a road map for deciphering functional music. Similar to the waves of feminism
functional music evolves and disseminates in waves over time. For example, film scores are
functional music and are a fairly recent musical invention. At first, pianos were placed in theaters
and played live to accompany silent films. Eventually film scores would become pop giants in
their own right. Composers like John Williams elevated the genre into something more than a
lingering force in the background—scores were transformed into powerful narrative elements. In
this light, film scores meet the criteria of ‘functional’. Film scores “support” and “encourage” the
narrative while adding value to consumers. This paper, instead, would like to focus on functional
6
music as it relates to real world (not fictional) feelings, moods, and activities.
For many centuries’ music was not a commodity. Throughout the Middle Ages musicians
remained othered in society. Eventually musicians were accepted by the church and were
commissioned to write on the church’s behalf. Commissioned works would later become popular
because of the patron, not composer. According to Attali, Opera became a spectacle for events of
wealthy princes. This is one of the first popular examples of music elevating an event and in
turn legitimizing itself. The 16th century is when the west begins to place value in music for its
ability to emphasize external activity.
Meandering through a couple centuries of musical development we arrive at the piano in
the parlor. For nearly a century the pianoforte would be welcomed as domestic objects in a wide
array of American homes. By 1900 pianos in homes increased at five times the rate of the
American population. Pianos were a centerpiece of the American home. They offered a
domestic, personal, and private space for their owners to share in a social listening experience. It
is when music penetrates domestic life that it finds a more intimate shared space with its
listeners. Functionally, pianos became a gateway to leisure as well as an emotional outlet for
their owners. In this light, functional music relies on a technical device (the piano) as well as a
local source (the parlor) to create intimacy with the listener.
Music is integral to our experience in the home, it has become an emotional vehicle for
leisure. Functional music finds a special home with the avant-garde visionary French composer,
Erik Satie. Erik Satie was born in the Normandy region of France on May 17, 1866. More than
twenty years later Satie is working as a café pianist, working on his first compositions in Paris.
Inspired by Henri Matisse, who envisioned, “art without subject matter, an art similar in
function to a comfortable easy-chair,” (2019) Satie experiment musique d’ameublement or
7
“furniture music” comes to fruition in 1920. This work was never performed nor published in
Satie’s lifetime. Tenture de cabinet préfectoral, to be played in the wall lining the office, was
one Satie’s underappreciated ideas. Furniture music is the first taste of integrating music directly
into our sources of physical comfort. Furniture music is not about the piano in the parlor—Satie
imagines a symbiotic relationship between physical space and music. Comfort (physical and
emotional) are correlated to non-musical objects in the home. Here, functional music still relies
on a local source, however, Satie has democratized both the technical device and the home as a
source.
The 20th century is when functional music crosses the barriers of the home and enters the
physical space of the laborer. Introducing the Muzak Corporation, founded in Cleveland, Ohio in
1934. For a monthly fee it offered customers access to three channels ranging from popular
music to news. These customers ranged from factories, hotels, and bars. The industrial revolution
called for innovation in the circulation of sound, therefore, recorded music was publicly
transmitted through speakers. Muzak has the ability to impact the individual in a public space,
“muzak is at once personal and communal,” (456, Radano, 1989). Unlike “furniture music”,
muzak encourages labor and productivity. Muzak was known for its tested and proven ability to
increase production of workers. Tunes produced by Muzak carried many factory workers
through WWII. By the 1950s the Muzak Corporation grew and gained a powerful reputation for
manipulating audience emotion. Their ‘Stimulus Progression Curve” was a programmed playlist
meant to moderate intervals of relaxation and stimuli. Muzak’s concepts became embedded in
American working culture. In factories, muzak’s functional music enhanced labor practices. In
hotels, bars, and retailers muzak blurred the sonic environment for worker and customer. It
signifies “individual” and “collective” experience (456, Radano, 1989). Functional music
8
becomes a necessity to our everyday lives. In this way, muzak made functional music glaringly
manipulative and glaringly public.
The Muzak Corporation created an inexorable link between functional music and brands.
“Products are no longer sold to us through homogenous market segments; they are sold with uswe chose the products we want to buy through brands that speak to us,” functional music, “plays
a significant role in how brands are perceived and it has even become a brand in its own right,"
(Margeirsson, 16, 2011). Retail experiences are powerful drivers of emotional release. Often,
customers seek shopping realtors to satisfy social needs as well as a material. Functional music
offers tone to these spaces. Similar to driving up productivity in the factories, brand affiliated
functional music drives up shopper interest. Similar to the operas of the 16th century these
musical tastings can rise in legitimacy due to brand affiliation. "The first retailers to successfully
capitalize the idea of selling their 'soundtrack' to their customer base was the American
underwear store, Victoria Secret... The store's first two volumes went double platinum, selling
more than two million copies,” (Margeirsson, 7, 2011). Victoria Secret was able to sonically
transform the in-store customer experience to the outside listener. We begin to see functional
music co-opted by brands while maintaining a structural grip on manipulating emotion.
Functional music shapes our behaviors and helps define us as individuals. It is here, that brand
identity is linked to functional music.
Public and private life have taken on a new meaning as digital infrastructures continue to
be the most dominant social and economic force of the 21st century. Mood shapes our lives in
public and in private. Over time, functional music has relied more and more on the successful
ability to manage and even produce moods or feelings. Ignacio Siles and a team of researchers
conducted a study in which they find, “music is a fundamental component of the contemporary
9
market of moods and emotions,” (Siles, 9, 2019). As functional music cycles through different
reincarnations some features remain the same; there must always be a technical device to share
the music (instrument, speaker, singer) and a local source (a space inhabited by listeners). Take,
for example, the piano and the parlor. With the advance of digital streaming functional music
still requires a technical device (smartphone, computer, smart speaker) but now the source has
changed. The source is the playlist (inhabited by thousands, if not millions of users). Functional
music now is much more reflective or Erik Satie’s vision of “furniture music”—always around in
moments of comfort. Functional music also serves mass audiences unlike before given lack of a
physical space yet maintaining the power of shared experience. At the same time, the
deployment of functional music introduces an emotional dichotomy. Departing the home and
finding sanctuary with the workforce functional music (a mood manager) drives labor just as
much as leisure. Simon Frith talks of popular music and its natural quota to satisfy “never no
sound at all” (Frith, 2012). He goes on to say, “music is matter of brand and lifestyle,” (Frith, 6,
2012). Mood playlists create an outlet for public displays of emotion. They are a visual and sonic
aid for brand acceptance. Mood playlist can show a user happy while also endorsing Nike. Users
of digital streamers like Spotify find comfort in the familiar as it accompanies their life. Brands,
whether insidiously or candidly, join in on this journey. Mood playlists like muzak, “take place
alongside other familiar objects of our private lives,” (Radano, 456, 1989). Mood, and the
brands attached, are ever present for music listeners in private and public moments. The
audiences of playlists create a veil of emotional support and awareness like never before.
Functional music has surpassed individual mood management; it can regulate feelings for mass
audiences regardless of location or the external activity. The playlist, is now as much technical
device as it is a localized source of music.
10
Playlists have been described as genres, compilations, dynamic stations, and more. When
purposed for mood stabilizing playlists are a powerful conductor physical location and a device
much on their own. These locations (sources) can travel with the user creating a sound track for
their lives. Playlists are devices that will live separately from traditional tools like smartphones
and computers. Will playlist fill the walls of our homes one day? In 2018 playlists intent on
delivering functional music are the most powerful tool in mapping out emotional well-being of a
mass audience.
Given this brief history we learn that functional music must always serve am emotional
driven purpose. As music transformed into recorded music functionality required at least one
technical device as well as one localized source. Again, thinking of the piano and the parlor.
Functional music found roots in the domestic leisurely activities of millions of Americans. The
industrial revolution provided functional music with mass appeal and created a symbiotic
relationship between labor and relaxation. The introduction of brands gives functional music
God-like, or at the very least Instagram influencer levels, of confidence when approaching users
in what can appear to be intimate spaces. Happy and sad, chill or concentrating, major label or
indie-- functional music does not differentiate, instead it omnipotently assigns emotional value
for its listeners and welcomes audiences regardless of location.
11
The market of mood
"Spotify loves 'chill' playlists: they're the purest distillation of its ambition to turn all
music into emotional wallpaper," (Pelly, 5, 2017). Liz Pelly came at as a pessimistic critic of
Spotify’s business strategies—strategies that are eerily familiar to the Muzak Corporation. Pelly
is adopting Paul Allen Anderson’s analysis of the state and strategy of music streamers like
Spotify and Pandora. Anderson’s work Neo-Muzak and the business of mood remains relevant
when discussing the economic strategies of digital service providers. "While Muzak reigned (and
operates still) as a workplace tool rather than a personal care product, neo-Muzak successors
like Pandora, Spotify, and other digital streaming services have arrived to close the gap as
personal care products for affect management and mood elevation,” (Anderson, 811, 2015).
Oddly enough, the Muzak Corporation was acquired to the tune of three hundred and five million
by Mood Media Corporation in 2011. At the same time, Spotify adopted and innovated proven
strategies from Muzak Corp. Spotify curates’ playlists that encourage production/labor as well as
mental well-being. Spotify and other digital streamers are able to capture large audiences based
on perceived shared experience. Users of digital streamers must submit to public observance of
mood and feeling. This public knowledge is an advantage to advertisers, “Spotify offered
advertisers the possibility of reaching users according to at least eight different activities and
moods that are found in playlists..." (Eriksson and Johansson, 77, 2017). Advertisers are able to
target users based on their consumption patterns. Before these consumption patterns may have
indicated strict musical evidence (genre, artists, albums etc)—consumption patterns of music,
today, indicate a person’s happiness more than their favorite sub-genre. This has led to strategic
audio/visual overlays for advertisers and brands. More than half of Spotify’s client base are
freemium users, these mood/occasion playlists are powerful drivers of brand curiosity.
12
Functional music works in tandem for brands directly.
Functional music, mood and occasion specific playlists are also a brand on their own. In
the upper left-hand corner of playlist cover art Spotify made playlists features its logo. “Mood
Booster” has drawn one of the platforms largest online communities with over three million
followers. Hidden among the soft orange, the palm trees, the happily floating balloons Spotify
marks its territory—they are responsible for clients boosted mood. Spotify and other digitals
streamers now rely on the given expectation that users are constantly willing to share their
emotional states. “Mood Booster” on Spotify can be played at work as much as the home. The
experience leading a person to press play is different but the results remain the same. According
to a 2018 report from Nielsen, adults in the United States spend 70% of their day interacting with
audio/visual media and further, “nearly one-third of non-home listening also occurs at work,
where consumers can multitask while they carry out their jobs,” (Nielsen, 2019). Whether it is at
work or at home adults are swiftly filling the moments of their day with audio/visuals.
Playlist culture offers music listeners the chance to “soundtrack their lives”. Deezer goes
as far as incorporating “flow” onto their platform. A personalized, algorithmic based playlist that
is coined as “your personal soundtrack”. A Deezer employee described this playlist as perfect for
their lean back listener. “Flow” is meant to fill time that otherwise would have remained silent,
or at least, music free. Of course, Deezer has all the popular mood and occasion specific playlists
music listeners have come to adore across streaming platforms. “Flow” is a distinct feature
separating Deezer from Spotify. “Flow” continuously adapts to the user, unlike Spotify’s
“Discover Weekly” playlist. Furthermore, Deezer features “Flow” ahead of all other content on
the homepage. Spotify’s homepage has up to five Spotify branded playlists listed before the
“made for user” section. Spotify deploys its playlists as the cure for your mood, bad day at work,
13
first dinner with the in-laws; at the same time, Spotify pushes its own brand as essential to the
music. In this way, Spotify has created the framework for the culture industry of music. “The
culture industry is responsible for the production of work for reproduction and mass
consumption. It aims to influence our free time and control the way in which we perceive music
and other cultural commodities,” (Margeirsson, 7, 2011). Digital streaming providers success
has been conditional to their ability to influence their users free time. Meanwhile, functional
music is able to manipulate the moods of massive audiences. “The culture industry arouses a
feeling of well-being that the world is precisely in that order suggested by the culture industry,
the substitute gratification which it prepares for human beings cheats them out of the same
happiness which it deceitfully projects,” (Adorno, 8, 1975). Knowingly or not, streaming
services have created musical strongholds for their clients to complacently address emotional
well-being. At the same time, functional music provides a shared space for listeners to openly
address themselves. It is here that playlists find their true power. “The ability to convincingly
perform a normative positive mood at work and in social interactions is the baseline measure of
high psychological capital. In this context, mood management is the quintessence of affective
labor in the ever-expanding service economy,"(Anderson, 815, 2015). On the commute to work,
sitting within the confines of a cubicle, dinner with friends or family—each moment requires
emotionally sourced musical accompaniment. Streaming services are concurrently sound
tracking their clients lives while broadcasting it. Spotify upholds an image of being constantly up
to date because it has successfully immersed itself into the life of its user.
The market of mood mirrors digitally collected spaces where all points of life deserve
musical backing. Functional music redefines client experience as life experience. Digital
streaming services will find continued success the more they invest in understanding user
14
intention. Functional music creates a sonically familiar atmosphere, “it's aim is precisely to make
one ‘feel at home’ whether in the office, factory, or airplane, " (Jones and Schumacher, 162,
1992). Functional music, mood and occasion driven playlists, serve as a point of location
uniquely familiar to each music listener. Playlists achieve this while also being the device of
delivery. Functional music now serves as piano and parlor, always available and conveniently a
touch away. Streaming users currently access music largely through touch; via computer,
smartphone or tablet for example. As smart speakers rise in popularity functional music must
integrate voice activation as more seamless than touch. Smart speakers are bound for
domestication; therefore, integration into labor specific locations can follow with ease.
Functional music will again find sonic awareness and its home in speakers.
15
Intimate voice and smart speakers
Smart speakers are largely a household device. According to Nielsen, twenty four
percent of United States households are residence to smart speakers. Ninety percent of smart
speaker use is music streaming. Leading the way in the American market is the Amazon Echo,
assisted by Alexa of course. Amazon has current control of the market but is expected to decline
given more product entries to market. As a result, prices will lower. In this context, digital
streaming providers have had to adjust and will continue to adapt to voice activated systems.
Given today’s understanding of functional music playlists operationally will have to be just as, if
not more, intuitive to voice activation than to touch. This will challenge some streamers effective
visual branding efforts. Spotify’s visual branding, for example, is smartly present on all of their
curated playlists. Will functional music result in a default listening experience doomed to circle
powerful brands? Or will voice activation circumvent digital streamers efforts to homogenous
user experience.
Do digital streaming providers evoke intimate voice through podcasts? So far, yes. While
adopting mood management as a means to establish user loyalty (reflecting the Muzak
Corporation) Spotify, as well as other streamers, are positioning podcasts as trustworthy intimate
voices. Mirroring the social experience of radio, podcasts allow streaming users suspended
moments in time free from musical accompaniment. Free from music but not sound. Instead, the
listener is connected to induvial voices. We live in “a world of circulation in which music in
daily life was inseparable from lived time,” (Attali, 15, 1985). The modern digital landscape
offers people an abundance of choice for any given moment. Podcasts, dispersed between
functional music, promises for trusted entryway into the mind of the listener. Given the power of
playlists, podcasts could be susceptible to mood manipulation much like music. At the same
16
time, voice activation calls for more intimate approaches for music distribution. Podcasters will
offer valuable voice interactions to smart speaker experiences. For example, Michelle and
Barack Obama’s exclusive deal with Spotify can result in exclusive spoken interactions with
clients. Streaming services voice-controlled brand will first take shape by their exclusive
affiliations.
Groups interact with smart speakers just as much as the individual. Nielsen lists families
among the early adopters of connected speakers. It has long been understood that music listening
is often an indicator of a social experience. Again, functional music moves to manipulate the
singular person as much as the group. In this light, mood/occasion specific playlists should adopt
more social cues in order to work effectively with smart speakers. As a method of mood
management, functional music temporarily delocalizes the listeners emotional awareness and
substitutes it with its own sonic rhythm. “As a technology of self, music has become crucial to
the ways in which people organize memory, identity, their autonomy," (Frith, 7, 2012), functional
music aims to subvert self-organization through mood manipulation. Streaming functional music
through smart speakers, rather than other traditional web-connected devices, will result in more
ubiquitous emotional experiences.
Podcasting, aforementioned as the biggest proponent of intimate voice, will help drive
engagement of streaming audiences. Nielsen reports that fifty-one percent of US adults search
related content while listening to audio. Digital streaming providers will be smart to integrate
voice activated queries into to their playlists. Voice interaction has limitless potential to keep
clients actively engaged longer. Cherie Hu recognizes this pivot for “Netflix of audio” in which,
“Spotify arguably demonstrates that it prioritizes cultural control and organizational efficiency
as much as it professes wider artist empowerment,” (Hu, Medium, 2019). This cultural control
17
provides Spotify with an effective means to develop and sponsor content in new and unknowing
ways. Spotify’s success is thanks in large part to their functional music engine. The exploitive
nature of which makes music listening a much more complacent exercise. With this in mind,
situating podcasts with functional music will make for smoother delivery of information. Smart
speakers will continue to proliferate the household market, inevitably making them the most
valuable resource for intimate interactions. Functional playlists, will no longer live absent of
physical location, connected speakers will bring functional music back to its domestic roots. As
Paul Allen Anderson puts it, "welcome to the age of neo-Muzak. Whether at work, home, the
mall, the gym, on the bus or in the car, web-connected subjects live and weave among an array
of streaming platforms for algorithmic or curated musical moodscapes and affective
atmospheres," (Anderson, 811, 2015). The transmission of radio blurred the realities of public
and private life. Further, the transmission of muzak sonically and emotionally blurred the
experience of labor and leisure. The introduction of intimate voice will result in functional
music’s improved ability to identify user intention. Given new social listening procedures
functional playlists will have greater impact on geographic targets. As soon as voice recognition
catches up to voice command functional music will also have significant potential habituating to
groups. In sum, related voice driven content adjoining powerful mood driven playlists will be the
marker for success as the streaming era booms.
The smart speaker market will grow according to where its obvious functionality lies—the
home. What implications are in store for smart speakers if they were to break into the labor
sphere? To successfully integrate smart speakers in non-domestic spaces voice activation will
have to learn more intuitive cues than it currently possesses. Functional playlists transpose, “a
sonic image of a familiar domestic world into a public space,” (Radano, 453, 1989). Smart
18
speakers will likely be domestically familiar with the working class. There will be a natural
integration of these listening devices in corporate spaces. One day, smart speakers may transform
the retail experience for shopper and employee. A panelist at MIDEM in 2019 scoffed at the
usability and approachability of smart speakers in work spaces. Perhaps, he envisioned a
cacophony of sounds, of childlike “I wants”, of inconsistent mood; nothing conducive to
productive labor. Instead, smart speakers will have close domestic ties which will have result in
close emotional bonds. As smart speakers begin to burgeon in the market their implementation in
spaces beyond the home should be considered.
19
Future contexts and results
Functional music has a complex history, only briefly overviewed in this paper. For the
purposes of mood/occasion driven playlists functional music takes on the role of mood stabilizer.
Its purposes are constantly adjusting the needs of the culture industry. Digital streaming
providers have adopted mood stabilization as a source of capital from companies like the Muzak
Corporation. These practices were publicly criticized due to sonic release through speakers in
highly public spaces. Spotify and others remain unscathed by their practices due to headphone
use. It is with the domestication of smart speakers that functional music will make a successful
return to public observance.
It is clear that economic strategies laid out in 20th century will remain relevant as
technology companies continue to waiver in their battle to be profitable. There is a clear need for
digital streaming providers to seamlessly integrate multi-functional voice activated systems.
Functional playlists will strongly rely on intimate voice to create lasting relationships with its
listeners. Podcasters will serve as acoustic brands for streaming providers.
20
Conclusion
Imagine a solitary piano. It is located at the center of small, albeit busy, train station.
Light filters through the windows, birds lightly pounce on the tiled floors, a homogenous wave
of wheeled bags seems to surround you. The piano remains static in its location, at first glance, a
visual homage to the past. Unsurprisingly, someone begins to play. The melodies and harmonies
of Mozart and Bach begin to fill the air. Most people take little notice of when the player ends
and the next beings. One piano, two players, and countless anonymous listeners. Sitting in the
small, albeit busy, train station one may take little notice of the performers but the presence of
the music cannot be masked. It emits ambience and an intrinsically calming tone into the air. As
a traveler in pursuit of the next location the music can act as a reprieve from the dense pulsating
of everyday noises. In this moment of travelling, the train station is a substitute for something
much more comfortable and familiar. Smart speakers will one day offer us a similar experience
to the piano, emitting functional music that will all once be comfortable. Familiar.
21
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Media of
