ABSTRACT
The store owners originally intended to use classical music to drive away the kids, but they couldn't find any canned Beethoven. So they turned to easy listening as what one of them called a 'nonaggressive music deterrent' and blasted them with stringed versions of Rolling Stones hits and other rock songs. The music seems to be an effective deterrent so far, though cold weather may be helping the re-recorded Barry Manilow drive the loiterers elsewhere. Programmed music is a distant cousin of another medium that administers recordings and social space: radio. This chapter examines the use of programmed music to chase people away. It explores that the 'non-aggressive music deterrent' examines it in the schematic context of the political economy of culture and the wider field of programmed music. Many writers, ranging from theorists of the public to critical geographers, have criticized this class-polarization of public space.
