To the editor:

Listen up, St. Louis.

Are you tired of being a captive audience for crappy music?  Are you annoyed by the background music you hear in retail establishments you work in or visit when purchasing goods and services?

For heaven’s sake, why would retailers want to upset you when their objective is to put you in a good mood and to linger awhile to buy more?  Few realize that the last-place TV news channel, CNN, rents all the video screens in airport waiting areas in order to promote their brand of “news.”

Could it be that your awareness is being monetized in captive environments by allowing purveyors of musical crap to do the same?

American song tradition, the envy of the world, has defined itself with memorable, singable melodies and clever, poetic lyrics.  Today’s music doesn’t even come up to these standards by half.

So there must be something “in it” for the retailer in order to go against their better instincts.  Think about it, they could just play a mix of the top 10 hits from every year from 1945 to 2000, yielding them a playlist of 550 songs that would appeal to all the employees and shoppers at some point during the day rather than the continuous crappy music they now play that satisfies no one.

Don’t they have a corporate responsibility to positively influence our communities rather than inflame them?  I guarantee they don’t play this musical crap in their corporate offices either.

It’s time we contact the offending retailers and demand they offer something more nourishing for our souls and recognize that in the angry times we live in “What The World Needs Now Is Love Sweet Love,” not “(Expletive) The Police” or “I can’t wait to get you in between the sheets.”

Milton Rudi

Oakville