Forget muzak, Seattle-based Mad Pizza decided to spice up their hold music by playing N.W.A’s “Fuck Tha Police.” Clint Brownlee over at Seattlest made the discovery on Sunday night while trying to order a pizza.
When the Mad Pizza dude picked up the line again we were conflicted–should we ask if he knew (or cared) what people on hold were hearing? Should we pretend to be offended and hang up? We stammered and, lacking the adventurous nature of our 15-year old self, just ordered a pizza.
We would gladly listen to N.W.A rather than the bland mix of soft jazz or lite rock most companies use to avoid offending anyone’s delicate sensibilities. Do you care what you listen to while on hold? Tell us in the comments. — CAREY GREENBERG-BERGER
Parental Advisory: This Hold Music Contains Explicit Lyrics [Seattlest]
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Uggh, I feel old! My first thought was “What about the children?” Shoot me.
Given the age of that particular song, they really had to try to get it ontheir hold music. Perhaps they were just holding the phone up to a “boom box”, “ghetto blaster”, or whatever the kids are calling it these days.
I don’t care what is playing when I’m on hold for a pizza, but if this was a doctors’ office or somthing like that I would fell differently.
Oh my God… This is Seattle people! Not Hicksville, Mississippi, where the Christian conservatives ban Dungeons and Dragons and don’t allow teen dances.
Seattle is a city where last week we had a festival that features naked bicyclists. We are the birthplace of grunge music. We pride ourselves on being laid-back, not wearing suits, and accepting people for who they are.
I’ve been to Mad Pizza and this completely goes with the attitude they’re trying to project. They’re like a group of 20-something, laid-back dudes who decided to make pizza. I’m sure their hold music is the same music they play in their shop.
So no, I don’t have a problem with this.
I think its cool. One company I used to work for used to use the IT director’s music collection as hold music, which consisted mostly of metal, with the “naughty” songs removed from the list. And we did get a few complaints, so it was changed.
The company I work for now uses classical music in the stores, and I just want to blow my head off some nights. But customers are adamant about it, there have been store managers fired over email complaints that something other classical was playing (usually jazz), *rolleyes*
I’d so much rather listen to NWA than a distilled Kenny G or Chuck Mangione ripoff. I don’t really even like NWA that much.
I don’t suppose I’d have a problem with any type of hold music, as long as I’m not on hold forever, with the music regularly interrupted by “Your call is important to us — please continue to hold.”
@BII: Do you work for Healthy Back? They mandate the CDs that get played in the stores, and when last I checked, it was on the secret shopper’s list of things to check for.
I’d laugh, but I’d probably tell them once I got to a person. Probably some outgoing employee’s idea of a joke.
@XopherMV:
so when did $tarbuck$ lose its way? Maybe some of you locals should go over there and give them a swift kick in the behind and remind them of their roots?
We had the alt rock station on our hold, and one day the song was Sheep go to heaven, but the gaots go to hell, go to hell, go to hell. Well one guy got pout on hold during a call transfer, and when I picked up, he told me, “Your hold music just told me to go to hell.” He was seriously pissed. We all had a good laugh about this one.
I admit…I do care what hold music is played. I’d go for insipid over profane any day. (Hint to tell for profane : Could it be played on the regular airwaves with the FCC having a cow?)
And I’d go for insipid AND profane over advertising on hold. I called up one large corp one day, and got to listen to advertisements for their other services, while I waited for them to get to me.
Or when I call some government offices, and they use the hold music to remind me about proper disposal of grass clippings.
I also prefer actual songs, be it classical, jazz, or mutilated soft rock, to a vague tune that just repeats over and over.
…And my call is not that important to you. If it was, you’d have answered already.
The magnitude of complaint I intend to submit is directly proportional to how sucky their pizza is…
My last company allowed me to program the hold music lineup.
We had: The Blumenschwanz Polka by Die arschgefickten Gummifotzen
Chokotto LOVE by Pucci Moni
Patricia by Joe Bucci Trio
Battery by Metallica
Twelve Days of Christmas by John Denver and the Muppets
And so on…
My whole thought process was that the sales guys KNEW what the hold music was, and they had to answer that call ASAP otherwise, our customers would ASK about the hold music which embarassed the hell out of the sales team. Suffice to say, calls were on hold for about 10-15 seconds tops.
My opinion is that people shouldn’t have to be subjected to a full blown run of all curse words, but being creative in putting some quality hold music out there won’t hurt anyone.
Last time I called my previous company, they had Joe Satriani hold music, I sat on hold for 2 minutes.
@DeeJayQueue:
no, but it is a similar situation, every retail establishment is going to have rules dictating the music, to varying degrees.
although, when i did work for starbucks, we hacked the music player,it didn’t play standard CDs, the music had a different encoding, i took a disk home, reversed engineered it, figured out the codec, ripped a bunch of CDs. (I don’t remember now the codec, this was years ago)
Of course, later, when the music player got all statically, and my manager asked if I could look at it, i saw a much easier hack, there were RCA inputs in the back, all I had to do was get an RCA-3.5mm jack adapter male-male wire and then I could plug in my ipod, co-worker’s CD player, etc. (turned out the left speaker wire was loose)
@catskyfire:
the FCC gets its panties in a bunch over the most harmless of things nowadays, I wouldn’t use that as my standard personally.
I ordered the Mad Scientist from them and when it arrived I took a picture of it because the presentation was the best I’ve ever seen on a pizza. It was also delicious.
What time did he call for the pizza? I can understand people flipping out if it was like 10 AM and a Kindergarten teacher was ordering a pie for the monthly pizza party, but if it was a couple of Iron Maiden-loving stoners ordering a pizza at like midnight, who gives a crap?
We got a complaint once from a little old lady about Mambo Number 5 playing on the radio at BR back in the late 90s. She felt it promoted promiscuity.
What’s the big whoop? I believe NWA is considered “oldies” now.
I find it insulting to have to listen to degrading, obscene and violent music. If its on the radio, I can turn it off, if its coming out of the car next to me, I roll up my windows and drive faster; but being forced to listen to that stuff while I am on hold is asking a little much.
Before I get flamed, remember, tolerance is a two way street.
Soft Jazz is not music. It’s hot garbage. There has not been any jazz created in the last 40 years that doesn’t sound like noisy, too-cool-for-the-room dreck. I’m glad they used NWA.
My first thought was, “No! No profanity..”, blah, blah, blah.
But then my (not so) common sense kicked in and I figured that if someone is that offended by the music, simply hang up and don’t give them your money. Done and done.
@Peeved Guy:
that’s what I’m thinking, then again, maybe their clientèle isn’t really going to be offended by NWA.
@Peeved Guy:
Oh, I forgot… That also goes for all you youngsters that are complaining about the jazz, too. If you get that tweaked about the tunes, hang up.
My dad used to control the hold music at his company, which was whatever he had on his CD player at the moment. Usually it was nothing offensive – Stevie Ray Vaughan or Miles Davis, etc. But, he learned how to burn CDs and burned that (as he called it) ‘song with a good beat from Office Space’ (aka Damn It Feels Good to be a Gangsta). Then one day he finally listened to the lyrics and realized it wasn’t the best song playing when the people from the bank called.
@Papercutninja: Seriously? Miles would kick you in the face with his fusion boots.
@justatwork:
Forced? Nobody is forced to order from Mad Pizza. Just as you can choose to change the radio station, you can choose to order from another pizza place. And the chances of Domino’s or Papa John’s having N.W.A for their hold music is pretty much zero.
Given what XopherMV said I’d say it’s ok for them to do it. (Even the person who sent this in wasn’t really offended.)
I might feel different if I was a parent with kids old enough to watch themselves at home and order dinner…but I’m not.
@justatwork: Blah blah. You’re insulted by the music, I’m insulted that you think we should all be forced to listen to __________.
It doesn’t end. So long as being insulted is subjective, you’ll never find anything that appeals to everyone. So in light of that, you appeal to your demographic, which, it seems they are quite well.
@Islingtonian: For a second I thought you meant that your dad worked for the bank and the bank’s customers were hearing “Damn It Feels Good to be a Gangsta” which would have been much funnier (yet appropo).
A few months ago I had dinner at a very fancy, but very iconoclastic (for lack of a better term) restaurant run by a few young chefs. Rather than the usual ambient/techno/jazzy kind of music that just fades into the background, they were playing Dr. Dre. I found it refreshing.
As for hold music, if you’re so terrified you might hear something profane, don’t pay attention. Pull the phone away from your ear so you can tell the difference between music and “hello? hello?” and do something else. Nobody is forcing your brain to pay attention to the lyrics.
I vote for Akinele’s “put in your mouth” as hold music..LOL
Theres a reason there’s parental advisory labels on cds/games.. there are some things kids should not be exposed to.
Well you could go with a compromise… about ten years ago my cousin worked in Ingram Park Mall in San Antonio and heard a Muzak cover of “Smoking In The Boys Room”. Hey, maybe you can get one for N.W.A.
Mostly, it takes more work to think of in appropriate hold music than it does what might be acceptable. And to be really offensive, it would have to be highly contextualized. (using Nirvana’s Rape Me” at a women’s crisis line, or “Don’t Fear the Reaper” for a suicide-prevention hotline)
What if it was a police officer (or family member) having to hear that when trying to order pizza? Sure, they’ve heard that song before, but does Mad Pizza think that playing it will want to make them stay on the line and give the restaurant money? It’s not like there aren’t many other pizza places to order from. “Fuck (you and your profession)” is not the message to send to any group of potential customers.
Guess they won’t be catering the next FOP meeting.
I don’t mind most hold music, but I work for a wholesale distributor of knives and some of our vendors music drives me crazy because it’s the same over and over and usually it’s an ad for the company I’m calling. I usually want to scream after hearing the same ad for the 5th time in a row after having heard it the previous 4 days as well.
I had a really funny one the other day though. One company I called had their ad playing and since it was only 8 and I wasn’t too bored yet, I listened. I was at first slightly annoyed that I was listening to their Christmas/Holiday music, until I heard them say that they planned on making 2005 and beyond just as great. Then I just cracked up and once I was finished with my business let them know so they could change it.
Hey anything to keep my attention while I’m holding. How many times has everyone drifted away only to have the person on the other line have to wake you up yelling hello 3 or 4 times.
Personally I think I’d laugh my butt off, and if I liked the pizza (ok even if I didn’t) I’d call back just to see what they played next.
@timmus:
At the office building I work at in Houston I’ve heard “Paint It Black” muzak-style in the elevator area on my floor a few times lately. It always makes me chuckle.
This makes me think of a wonderful article about Muzakâ„¢ from the New Yorker. It’s absolutely worth the read.
I have heard a Muxak version of ‘Like A Virgin’ more than once in my local grocery store.
It, too, cracks me up.
@Peeved Guy: “My first thought was, “No! No profanity..”, blah, blah, blah.”
Honestly, that was my first reacton, too. But then I realized that, if I called a pizza place and this was their hold music, I’d probably call them back the next time I wanted pizza, too.
But then, I’m a 25 year old male.
Also, I’m trying to convince my boss that we need some Tiny Tim tracks for our hold music where I work.
I detest *all* hold music. Cell phone networks never dedicate enough bandwidth for their digitized hold music signal, so it always breaks up and sounds horrible. I don’t mean bandpass, either, but the actual amount of digital data to transmit most music just doesn’t fit.
@justatwork:
So they are forcing you to listen to that music on hold? With a gun? Or maybe a knife? Pencil Point? If you “need” to talk to them, then hang up and go talk to them in person then.
@Rectilinear Propagation: How do you do the quote thing?
I don’t want to hear ANYTHING on hold. That way, I can put the phone on speaker and the first time I hear something, I can pick up.
Most hold music seems to feature sounds and insturments that sound awful through a telephone speaker, such has high-pitched tones and flutes. I’ve had to hold the phone away from my ear and wince with more than a few calls. Some NWA would be a welcome change.
For the “What if _____ calls” people, is it really that big a deal? Children usually don’t order pizzas (Many delivery drivers won’t allow minors to pay for it anyways). And if a cop calls, oh well. I would hope that the men and women charged with protecting our communities aren’t going to get all butt-hurt every time some old song tells them something they don’t agree with.
If I didn’t mind cold pizza (I live in LA), I’d order a pie from these folks just for their hold music.
I’m fairly eclectic, but demand authentic music. Most of which doesn’t make it to radio, let alone hold music stations.
I stopped ordering from Papa John’s because their pizza stank after they lost their lawsuit, and – equally – their hold music was a HORRIBLE blaring of infomercials urging callers to upsell to more Papa John’s stuff. Grrr. So no more $$, Papa John.
BFD!
I personally think it would awesome to hear NWA as hold music. I might actually enjoy being on hold for a change. As the generations change, tastes change. Surely my generation (I’m 28), is going to want hear music of it’s era in restaurants, elevators, on hold etc.
As far as kids … well, fuck the kids. Kids have heard that kind of language before, most likely from their parents. Deal with it. They are only words. If words hurt you, you must be awfully fragile.
And to add to that … Don’t get upset about words. Don’t hate words. You know what you should hate? Weakness, racism, terrorism, abusive spouses, child molesters etc.
Don’t hate language!