subject: The Music They Play When You Land Is Terrible [print this page] If there's one thing I hate about air travel and wish to change in a second it's the music that the airline plays when you land. It's that muzak type of sounds that doesn't really sound anything like music, something that the ad-men sent to a musician and said that they wanted to create something that "sounded like the brand."
It's the way that they try to convey the sound of progress that annoys me most. They make it sound like it's a massive achievement that flights from Dallas to Vancouver are able to make it up in the air and back down again without crashing. But the fact is that I made for the service and I have come to seriously expect that the service will perform up to my expectations and that anything less would be fatal. So I apologize if I don't share the idea that we should applaud an airline's ability to do its job properly, even if their flights from Delhi to Kathmandu are somehow able to be on schedule 99% of the time.
The worst offenders on the airport landing music are British Airways. Despite attempting to severe their complete connection with the British government by removing the flags on the tail, they continue to play something that sounds kind of like a corporate national anthems, and it slightly disturbs me every time I travel. It does however succeed in getting me to leave the airplane as quickly as possible so perhaps in that way it works.
Much better is on domestic flights from Toronto to Los Angeles where they will actually play something that is a little more interesting. The last time I flew a similar route it was Radiohead's latest album "In Rainbows." This is the sort of thing I want to hear not corporate tunes, but something that is actually interesting and shows that the people running the airline are real people.
