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CVS Hold Music Divides the Nation: "Enraging" or "Hypnotizing"
jennifer levitz Retweeted:
One of the most polarizing pieces of music in America isn’t being performed at any of the nation’s concert halls. Anyone can hear it by calling CVS. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-on-hold-music-dividing-the-nation-enraging-or-hypnotizing-1532444286 … via @WSJ @jon_kamp & @rddysum
Link to tweet
You can listen to an excerpt from the tune at a link in the article.
A-HED
CVS Hold Music Divides the Nation: ‘Enraging’ or ‘Hypnotizing’?
On-hold music played by the pharmacy is divisive, driving some batty and sending others in search of its origins; ‘a mystical quality’
By Jon Kamp and Sumathi Reddy
https://twitter.com/jon_kamp
Jon.Kamp@wsj.com
https://twitter.com/rddysum
Sumathi.Reddy@wsj.com
July 24, 2018 10:58 a.m. ET
One of the most polarizing pieces of music in America isn’t being performed at any of the nation’s concert halls. Anyone can hear it by calling CVS. ... The on-hold tune drives Harvard psychiatrist Steven Schlozman out of his mind. “What they’re playing is supposed to soothe you, but after the three-billionth time it’s particularly unsoothing,” Dr. Schlozman said. Adding up a career’s worth of pharmacy calls, he estimates he has spent nearly 600 hours listening to the same song.
By contrast, Mark Montcalm, a Michigan pharmacist who frequently called CVS for matters such as prescription transfers while working for a competitor, posted his version of the on-hold song on YouTube. Sitting at a piano in a white pharmacist’s coat, he rattles off a phone-tree script—“to refill a prescription, press one”—and tickles the ivories.
“It had a good melody,” he said. “For someone who’s musical, it’s definitely one of the less annoying tunes that gets stuck in your head.” ... One commenter to his post said they would like to arrange the song for acoustic guitar. Another called it “hypnotizing, deeply moving and somewhat existentialist.” ... The composition is a keyboard song that flows through gentle valleys and builds to dramatic peaks, and has been played by thousands of CVS stores for almost two decades. Admirers have fueled questions about its origins reaching back a century.
“Personally, I’m a fan,” said Cristina Stacy, marketing director at Houston-based On Hold Marketing Works, a company that provides such music. “It’s beautiful in its simplicity; it’s sort of the quintessential ‘on-hold’ tune.” ... She said CVS sticking with the same song for some two decades is “either lazy or genius. The song does seem to have a cultlike following and has taken on a mystical quality.”
Mark Montcalm’s version of the CVS hold music.
....
Write to Jon Kamp at jon.kamp@wsj.com and Sumathi Reddy at sumathi.reddy@wsj.com
CVS Hold Music Divides the Nation: ‘Enraging’ or ‘Hypnotizing’?
On-hold music played by the pharmacy is divisive, driving some batty and sending others in search of its origins; ‘a mystical quality’
By Jon Kamp and Sumathi Reddy
https://twitter.com/jon_kamp
Jon.Kamp@wsj.com
https://twitter.com/rddysum
Sumathi.Reddy@wsj.com
July 24, 2018 10:58 a.m. ET
One of the most polarizing pieces of music in America isn’t being performed at any of the nation’s concert halls. Anyone can hear it by calling CVS. ... The on-hold tune drives Harvard psychiatrist Steven Schlozman out of his mind. “What they’re playing is supposed to soothe you, but after the three-billionth time it’s particularly unsoothing,” Dr. Schlozman said. Adding up a career’s worth of pharmacy calls, he estimates he has spent nearly 600 hours listening to the same song.
By contrast, Mark Montcalm, a Michigan pharmacist who frequently called CVS for matters such as prescription transfers while working for a competitor, posted his version of the on-hold song on YouTube. Sitting at a piano in a white pharmacist’s coat, he rattles off a phone-tree script—“to refill a prescription, press one”—and tickles the ivories.
“It had a good melody,” he said. “For someone who’s musical, it’s definitely one of the less annoying tunes that gets stuck in your head.” ... One commenter to his post said they would like to arrange the song for acoustic guitar. Another called it “hypnotizing, deeply moving and somewhat existentialist.” ... The composition is a keyboard song that flows through gentle valleys and builds to dramatic peaks, and has been played by thousands of CVS stores for almost two decades. Admirers have fueled questions about its origins reaching back a century.
“Personally, I’m a fan,” said Cristina Stacy, marketing director at Houston-based On Hold Marketing Works, a company that provides such music. “It’s beautiful in its simplicity; it’s sort of the quintessential ‘on-hold’ tune.” ... She said CVS sticking with the same song for some two decades is “either lazy or genius. The song does seem to have a cultlike following and has taken on a mystical quality.”
Mark Montcalm’s version of the CVS hold music.
....
Write to Jon Kamp at jon.kamp@wsj.com and Sumathi Reddy at sumathi.reddy@wsj.com
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