Music in the Store

We have Sirius piped into the store and have a constant diet of 60’s, 70’s, Love Songs, The Bridge and Smooth Jazz. Gets quite repetitive after a while, but good for the customers.

What do you play in the store?

Any genres that you avoid? We keep away from heavy stuff as it irritates our elderly clientele.

My GM did his thesis on this and he says all-instrumental is the way to go. We always have some smooth jazz stuff piped in. Drives me nuts.

We play lots of blues and '70s soul in the store. The customers love it and I do too.

What is the deal with ASCAP infringement? I just recently heard about AScap cops busting winery tasting rooms. I figure I’m safe to play Spotify?

Dave,
Spotify is the same as Pandora… it is still rebroadcasting music. Here are the rules:

You must get a BMI license to rebroadcast music in your store if you meet the following criteria:

"Public performances of radio and TV are specifically addressed in Title 17, Section 110(5) of the U.S. copyright law which states that any establishment, other than a food service or drinking establishment, that is 2000 square feet or larger must secure public performance rights for TVs or radios if the following conditions apply:

For TV, if the establishment is using:

  • more than four TVs;
  • more than one TV in any one room; or
  • if any of the TVs used have a diagonal screen size greater than 55 inches.

For radio, if the establishment is using:

  • more than six loudspeakers; or
  • more than four loudspeakers in any one room."

I have had a couple of restaurants and inevitably the ASCAP and BMI dudes would show up to shake us down.

I figured I was safe streaming spotify in the Tasting Room because they have a licensing agreement with ASCAP…


ASCAP Announces U.S. Licensing Agreement With Spotify
New York, NY, July 14, 2011: ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) and Spotify have reached an agreement for the Spotify digital streaming music service, launched today in the US, to license the public performance of over 8.5 million musical works in the ASCAP repertory. Under the Agreement, Spotify is licensed to stream the works of over 415,000 songwriter, composer and music publisher members of ASCAP.

http://www.ascap.com/press/2011/0714_LicensingAgreement-Spotify.aspx

Dave,

Yes - THEY have a licencing agreement with Spotify, but that doesn’t mean YOU have the right to broadcast that music without paying a licencing fee to ASCAP or BMI if you fall under the terms in my post above.

Ok, thanks Poppy.

Back to the original question, we play a wide range of music in the store: classic Jazz, lots of roots Blues, a huge range of Brasilian, African and Caribbean tunes and get a LOT of compliments on it. Our website says “Come for the Music, leave with a Party”.

In the Wine Bar we play 95% instrumental interspersed with alcohol related tunes like “Drinkin’ Wine Spodey Odey”, “Pink Champagne”, “Wino Boogie”, “Don’t come home from drinkin’ with loving’ on your mind” and the original jingle for Thunderbird. If you want people to be able to have a conversation you have to leave a block of frequencies open where most voices fit. This means music with lots of space like Bossa Nova, Dub Reggae, Kind of Blue type Jazz, Ambient Electronic and such and NO screaming distorted guitars or sheets of sound Coltrane type stuff on tenor saxophone (bari or soprano saxes are out of the target frequency range).

I would treat a tasting room like we do our wine bar as you want to create a vibe but leave sonic space for people to talk.

As I customer I don’t mind a little easy listening background music. SO LONG AS the volume is low. I can’t stand walking into places where the workers are playing the music so loud it makes it hard to talk. I’ve literally walked out of places without buying anything, where I intended to buy something, due to this exact issue. It’s irritating.

Pandora depending on the time of day, day of week and mood I tend to favor instrumental such as Joe Pass, Herb Ellis, Jim Hall, Leo Kotke, Pat Metheney for vocals I will set it on Graham Parsons, Van Morrison, The Band, Dub Reggae, David Lindley, Ry Cooder or David Bromberg. Pandora generally does not play things that are off base from the station you select so I rarely have to scramble to change the station when I am in the middle of something. I am here alone a lot so I will stream news/sports talk on my laptop and Pandora on the main system and just mute the laptop when a customer or vendor wanders in. My preference as a customer in other retailers is to have low key instrumental music.

One of my retail clients plays classic rock on a just loud enough to hear it level, which is enough to hear and recognize the song, but nothing louder. I do find he plays a fair amount of Grateful Dead, which somewhat surprisingly, really works. Should the classic rock get a bit too harsh, or the Dead too offbeat, he will change it.

Lucky enough to have a local radio station that plays a great mix of music. Probably 75% of Gelber’s end of year list gets featured here, plus acoustic, bluegrass, international, a Dead show on Saturdays, and lots of in-studio performances.

DISCLAIMER: My store does advertise with them, but we played them even when we weren’t.

Interesting, I JUST opened a wine shop in brooklyn. So far too early to tell, but relying on the iPods for now. Heavy rotation of 60s/70s soul, Studio One/Trojan Reggae comps (particular fondness for the Soul covers comps), some more mellow indie rock (Stereolab, The Clean, Feelies) and jazz of course. I’ve been a DJ on and off for 20 yrs, so the mix is always essential to me. Will work in some more recognizable stuff too, but love the 60s and 70s for consistency…

I always get compliments that our store plays ‘great music.’ Whomever is on duty has the choice, so it varies quite a bit. Heavy on 50-70’s Classic rock/pop/soul, Jazz (mostly Miles & Coltrane), lots of 80’s stuff, indie rock, and a bit of classical.

If I’m working a weekend night, I follow the ‘restaurant rule’ that fast-paced music will get customers out of the store quicker, so between 11pm-midnight it’s punk/hardcore and metal all the way!

“Studio One/Trojan Reggae comps (particular fondness for the Soul covers comps)”

Our CD of the Year a while back. Fantastic fun.

I don’t mind it loud at all as long as it’s not rap or Springsteen. [stirthepothal.gif]

iPod runs in our tasting room. wide variety of stuff, including 60s & 70s rock/pop, 80s pop, and some 90s including less “metallic” Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, and the like.

volume is low to modest at all times during hours of operation.

our neighbors, on the other hand, are prone to blasting their music so loud i literally have to shout to our guests over the thumping and bumping coming through the wall. not sure how they sell any wine in that environment.

I use a basic stereo setup comprising an older Harmon Kardon receiver (great sound quality) infinity bookshelf speakers (4) and a sony 300 disc carousel player full of my cds. Blues of all types, Jazz of all genres (Chet Baker, Mingus, Coleman Hawkins, Ornette Coleman, Gerry Mulligan are currently popular here, but as noted above, though, no freeform; makes the customers uneasy), classic rock, big band, light classical (Vivaldi, Mozart, even some gentler Bach/Telemann/Buxtehude/Saint-Saens), essentially 1650 to 1970-ish with a smattering of later stuff. Just at recognition threshhold, and customers tell us they go out of their way to shop our store just to listen to the music! It helps that we have a pretty good selection of good wine, though…