WFMU’s Beware of the Blog has seven peppy tunes from a 1960s LP designed to perk up employees. I’m listening to it now, and my fingers are blazing over the keyboard.
Employers came to realize that perks could be as effective as threats in motivating the workplace. Vending machines became a common site in lunchrooms, many of them built by Automatic Canteen, one of the first large-scale producers of cigarette and snack machines. Automatic Canteen began looking to add music to its list of vending machines, and in 1959 it bought William Rowe’s jukebox company, naming the new enterprise AC Rowe. With an established list of corporate clients (Automatic Canteen exists today simply as Canteen), they sought to tap the motivational music business with a product called Customusic. This could be run from a dedicated jukebox in the supervisor’s office and pumped out to the rest of the building.
Customusic was a direct competitor of MUZAK and offered the same variety of sonic atmospheres. Today’s selections come from the “Productivity” portion of the sampler. Year unknown for this one, but the line art and lettering on the cover suggest the early1960s. These are bright, fully orchestrated covers having more in common with the “Beautiful Music” format than the horn-heavy (yet scrupulously recorded and engineered) offerings of MUZAK. Also absent is MUZAK’s trademark Stimulus Progression concept, where tracks are arranged to enhance and heighten the positive effect of the music.
