Switched on Pop - LCD Soundsystem and the Unbearable Sameness of Restaurant Playlists

Episode Date: July 30, 2019

Why is it that every hip restaurant plays the same music? When Eater restaurant editor Hillary Dixler Canavan kept hearing similar songs while dining for work assignments, she compiled a playlist of what she heard. It included songs by LCD Soundsystem, M83, Grimes, Biggie, Beck and the like. Her subsequent article about this music, “This Is Every Generically Cool Restaurant’s Playlist,” went viral. She’d captured the elusive sound of small plate dining. But what left her guessing was why this sound? And how did it reach so many restaurants in cities across the U.S.? She brought this question to Switched On Pop to understand why this 00s mostly indie sound was the ideal background for post-industrial chic establishments. Investigating the issue, she discovered a small bubble of music selectors who curate these lists for businesses. She spoke with Yvette Bailhache, a D.C. based music selector for restaurants and bars about how these lists are made. And she asked Jonathan Shecter, founder of the Las Vegas based background music service Playback Prodigy, about what makes an ideal background sound. What she discovered is surprising. The sounds in the background may dictate more of our foreground than you’d expect. Music DiscussedLCD Soundsystem - I Can ChangeM83 - Midnight City Grimes - GenesisIce Cube - It Was A Good DayWu-Tang Clean - CREAMThis Will Destroy You - KitchenListen to Hillary’s Every Restaurant Playlist and for more stories and news on food, subscribe to Eater's podcast Upsell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you're tired of endless scrolling to figure out where to eat, same. I'm Stephanie Wu, editor-in-chief of Eater. We've just launched the new-ish and way better Eater app. It has all the restaurants we love, gives you personalized picks wherever you are, and serves up smarter search results just for you. You can find my list of the best places for martinis and fries in New York City. And save your favorite spots, share lists, follow editors, and book right in the app. the eater app at eater app.com. It's free for iOS users. So Hillary, where are we? We are at

Costa Bona in Echo Park. And what are we doing here? We are eating pizza and listening to oldies. What did we think was going to happen? Well, I thought we were going to be listening to like indie rock from around 2012 because that's what happened when I came here for dinner. How do you feel like these oldies are working as a background music for our pizza? lunch. Well, they're inconvenient in terms of our plans for our podcast, but I think as a vibe for lunch, I think oldies are nice. It works for me. So why did you take me here? I took you here because I had started tracking songs that I was hearing over and over again in my phone, and it was dinner with my husband at Costa Buona, where I was like, maybe this is actually a story because it keeps

happening. What keeps happening? That I keep hearing the same songs over and over and over again. Welcome to Switched on Pop. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. And I'm Hilary Dixler-Kanavan, the restaurant editor of Eater. Today we're doing something a bit different. We're going into the world of upscale dining to understand how background music is often an intentional soundtrack that's designed to evoke an emotional state or even unconsciously signal who is and who isn't welcome in a space. And Hillary, you've been doing some reporting on just this that you wanted to share. back on the show. Yeah, a few months ago, I made a Spotify playlist and I wrote an article about it called This Is Every Generically Cool Restaurants Playlist. The playlist includes songs like LCD Sound Systems I Can Change, M83's Midnight City, Genesis by Grimes, as well as the requisite Biggie song, Ratatat, Santa Gold, and of course, Beck. And what was the reaction when you posted this online? People liked it. Yeah. There was an interesting online responsive, I feel so seen, and there was some, I feel attacked. Attached by a playlist. Attacked by a playlist.

Because in the way that I felt the playlist was a giant self-owned, I think a lot of people felt that way where you're like, oh, I do just listen to this music a lot. So why this playlist? Does this really represent what's happening when we eat food? I think more than what's happening when we eat food, it represents the type of vibe of the places we go to eat food, if that makes sense. Sure. So what is the vibe of this playlist? Ideally, when you're experiencing the playlist in the wild, you're feeling like you're in a cool hit place that's current that's speaking to you. I think the thing about seeing the list written out is that perhaps you feel that you're being pandered to. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Okay.

And you compiled this list how? Like, how did these songs come into your life? I obviously go out to eat a lot for work. That's like literally my job. And some songs, they just sort of like, wormed their way into my experience where whenever some of these songs would come on, I'd be like, oh, we're listening to M83. M83 is like chasing you from dining experience to dining experience as your job as an editor. Cut copy. And I started keeping track in the notes app on my phone. And then whenever a song would come on that I felt was sort of part of the list, I would just write it down in my notes app. And then I started. And eventually I felt that my list was getting sufficiently long enough that maybe I should just do a story about it. So, yeah, I got back to work on Monday. And I was like, I have this idea and I would like to make a playlist and do that as a story. And everybody was like, do it. We've made a playlist for five years on our show. And your playlist was way more successful than anything we've ever done.

So this really resonated with people. Within hours of the list publishing, the follower count was just climbing and climbing and climbing. Right now, I just checked on my phone. the current subscriber list is like 4,775. That's great. Yeah, it's pretty good. So while I had noticed these songs playing, what I'm really excited to talk to you about is that, like,

I'm not a musician, and I would love to learn more about what's happening with these songs musically in the way that they're made, in the way that they sound that might make them a good fit for dining. Cool. Okay, so I thought maybe the first thing we should do is listen to one of my favorite songs on the playlist. This is LCD sound systems I can change.

I love those 80s. Do you. Okay, so the main thing that this is giving me some deep college dance party vibes. I'm feeling a lot of feelings. A lot of feelings. Why is this here? I mean, I feel that on a factual level, LCD sound system is one of the bands that I keep hearing over and over again in restaurants. When I listen to this, the main thing is he's saying, you know, never change, never change, never change.

And the song is honestly like non-offensive good back. background music. Now, this is also really great energizing dance music if it's the thing which is present. But, you know, frankly, the composition is really simple, right? We have a basic four to the floor sort of like house dance beat. Harmonically, it just does two things. It has a home chord and then it goes and moves off to another chord. It changes momentarily. And it then comes back. So it can change, but it never changes. It changes for a moment and then repeats itself. So it's like it's almost stuck in a loop.

These are totally simple lyrics that are not going to bother anybody. And I think because it really is this like long, slow build, there's no moment that is going to pull you out of the experience. Like this song is what? Like almost six minutes long, right? That's a long song. It's not building to these wild top climates. maxes. It's really just slowly, slowly, slowly going somewhere, easing back down and then changing slowly, if at all. And I think that that sort of fits as background music is what I'm

thinking. That's interesting. But I guess the thing that I am more interested in is how did this all come together, right? Like there's obviously some musical qualities that are happening on your playlist. I'm hearing definitely a lot of indie, synthy pop stuff happening, some throwback hip hop. But I want to know where are these coming together? Who's doing it? Some people do it themselves. Maybe it's the chef owner and they're really into music. They make their own playlist.

Maybe it's a bar and bartenders are allowed to play their own music for the shift. But there is an entire sub-industry of restaurant playlist makers. I wanted to speak to a couple to get to know how they shape these background sounds of our lives. And the first person I spoke with is a music selector for restaurants and bars. My name is Yvette by Yash. I'm located in Washington, D.C. One of the greatest things about talking to Yvette was that she does this professionally

and she confirmed me that I wasn't just making this up. Your playlist just made me laugh because it is so accurate for the most part. Like, every restaurant, same song. I literally laughed Hillary like, oh shit. Like, yep, yep, mm-hmm, yep. This is great. I'm so glad this confirms your,

your premonitions here. Yeah, as a journalist, it's nice not to be like totally wrong when you're out on that limb. I asked her about how all of this got started, and she told me that this industry took off during the same time as the rise of algorithmic music platforms. It definitely depends on who is running the music because if there are of a certain era, it was like the Pandora 101, basically. Those were songs that were thrown into an algorithm. of you put in one artist

and it just kind of popped up and then the people who are selecting the music are obviously music heads eager to put those tracks on restaurants or playlist. It's just like this small weird bubble

of music selectors. I love this. It's a small weird bubble of music selectors. Perhaps this is why this playlist keeps moving through the ecosystem. But also don't you remember that period? of Pandora were like, no matter what song you would put in, you would inevitably end up with like the Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, It's Blitz album.

They're definitely in the early era of Pandora. It felt like I was being algorithmically led down one person's music taste for sure. Oh, yeah. It was like the yeah, yeah, yeah, cut copy, the X-X. Anything that has a guitar was going to take you there. Yeah, totally. Obviously, an indie rock playlist doesn't work for every single restaurant. And, you know, sometimes it's even easier to figure out what the music should be. So, like, if you have a a heavily themed restaurant. Maybe you have a sort of very romantic French bistro. You really want to give it that like old world Paris vibe. Yeah. Then like, or like maybe the Amelie soundtrack. But other times you do have to sort of figure it out for yourself what music belongs in your restaurant. So I asked

Yvette, how do you even get started doing that? Well, first thing I do with every new restaurant that I'm programming for, I actually go to the restaurant to have dinner. I'll bring a friend, I'll bring my husband. I'm very observant. I just kind of look at the people. I look at how everyone's interacting. I look at the noise level. Is this a restaurant where people are, you know, kind of active and height and could use some fun vibes or is it, you know, in a graveyard full of, you know, early bird specials where I know that I should put something that's a little bit more, you know, relaxing, even if it's a restaurant I'm familiar with. If they're giving me free reign, I sit at a table and the bar

and use that inspiration to go home and go through my collection or start digging for things that perhaps I don't have, and I just kind of let it flow from there. She helped me understand that a good music consultant knows how to enhance the experience and not detract from it. In restaurants, most people aren't even listening to the music. But however, if a restaurant has shitty music, It really messes up the experience.

I mean, the food's going to have to be super bombs for me to get over the fact that the music is crappy. I love this. Yeah. So music not only has to enhance the experience, but most importantly, the worst thing you can do is detract from it, which honestly, my experience as one of these so-called music heads going into food experience is overwhelmingly the case. It's like there's just one pizza place nearby in the neighborhood that plays death metal. And there's like a time in place for death metal, but it's not always where I'm like, after work and I want to like just enjoy a slice of pizza. So it's like it's not my spot. And there's

so frequently where it's just the wrong thing for the vibe, which I'm guessing frequently has got to be an employee's just throwing on whatever they're interested in, which might not serve the whole clientele. Yeah. And I think even if you're not a music head, it's the same reason why like movies all have soundtracks. Music does tell us how to feel and how to engage with a space, even if we're not perhaps as like annoyed and obsessive as I am, like taking notes in my phone about it. You know, like you still feel it. Like you felt that death metal is bad for pizza. You know what I mean?

I mean, if it's like really spicy pizza and I'm really angry, then maybe it works. You're just going to like rage eat. Okay, I want to put this to the test with your playlist. And another song that really stood out to me, which was the M83 track Midnight City. What kind of dining experience would you want to have listening to me? Midnight City. Like, are you asking me if, like, we should be eating, like, blistered shes chishito peppers right now?

Sure. I'm curious putting on the hat of, like, a music consultant like a vet. This song is perfect for this restaurant. And so maybe to get into this music, what words would you use to describe this song? I think this song is dramatic. Yes. I think it's cinematic, if that makes sense. It feels very evocative to me.

Yeah. I think the song is very earnest. Like it announces a big emotional intent. Yeah, it has those 80s drum fill. I mean, he like wails that the city is his church in this song. You know, there's like an unembarrassedness about that. So unembarrassed, brash, it announces itself. Now we have to pair it with food.

What goes well with this song? Whoa, I'm like having a breakthrough because like, embarrassed, rash, big and loud. These are some of the adjectives that were used to describe what was happening in food, like around 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012. Like, lots of salt, lots of fat. I think back again to like the Momofuku palette. Yeah. When pork belly was really popular. Huh. When like Sri Racha was like a new thing. And so these palettes are actually blending well with this music. Yeah. Like it actually is making sense.

What would it not go with? Although there are fine dining restaurants, and I'm talking like expensive tasting menus that will play, you know, like indie rock and music like this, I would have a really hard time approaching a meal that trades in subtlety listening to this music.

I think I'd find it really distracting. Yeah. Like the restaurant that, like when you asked me that, instantly came to mind is Khadjitsu in New York, which is like Buddhist cuisine. There's no garlic. There's no meat. and it's beautiful, but it is a study in mellowness.

And I don't think M83 would fit there. M83 would have been like a drunk uncle at a wedding at that restaurant. You're like, excuse me, you're not invited, please sit down. Like, who invited you? So this has got me thinking that we're not talking obviously about all restaurants. Right. The subtitle of your piece was, if there's a small plate on the menu, this is what's on the speakers. And your article seemed to catch on a certain universalism of music.

in restaurants, but what kind of spots specifically are we talking about? I think you'll see this playlist in restaurants in big urban centers like in New York or Chicago or in L.A. Its target clientele is millennials, gen Xers, and the price point could be anywhere from like, you know, Shake Shack plays a lot of these songs. So anywhere from sort of upper end of what we would consider like budget friendly. And then as a much as like hundreds of dollars a meal. It sounds like there's a way in which this playlist even carves out what the expectations of the space might be. I 100% agree with that. I think it's communicating a certain set of expectations and values around what good taste is, where it's like,

you come here, you like this music, you like the food that I make for you, and you like the kind of service that my staff gives you. And there's nothing inherently wrong with. matching your music to your clientele. And I think there are ways in which you could even make your clientele uncomfortable with the wrong music. I'm not going to choose like, you know, an old ice cube song for a restaurant where I see a bunch of, you know, white males over the age of 60 sitting in there. So these playlists have way more power.

than just sculpting a mood for a space. And they're not exactly self-selecting who should be in this space, but rather they really reflect who is in the space. Oh, interesting. It depends on the city. I've been in New York, and I've been at restaurants that are super nice, and you will hear Wu-Tang in the background. And, you know, it's no biggie because of cities like L.A., New York, Chicago.

I can just imagine the, like, Hill Stafford. in their suits going to fancy restaurants and there's a certain political sectors of DC are going to say, hey, the music in the background needs to be like, safe classical music or something. You know, like, do we think Callie Ann Conway is like going to lunch in her sheath dress and like listening to a tribe called Quest? Unlikely. Yeah, it seems like not a fit.

When we come back, I want to think about what it would be like to make one. to make one of these lists, how we would go about it, and then return to your list and see how it performs against what we've learned. It's going to perform great. Maria, you have a podcast now and you need to start acting like it. What's the first step as a podcaster? Well, you have to ask lots of questions. I'm Maria Sharpova, and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough.

Every week, I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic, and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness. I have a few pretty tough questions for you. Okay. Ready? Ready. Do not sugarcoat something for me.

No, no. We'll dive into their stories and get valuable insights from top executives, actors, entrepreneurs, and other individuals who have inspired me so much in my own journey. Pretty tough is your front row seat to the women who have demonstrated the power in being unapologetic in their pursuits. I hope you'll join us. New episodes drop Wednesday.

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from which they came. But what we want to do in this space is talk about America and politics beyond the current president. So what do most Americans think about deportation and border security, period? I think that Americans are definitely against the kind of violent displays that we've seen in the street from ICE. When it comes to the question of deportation, the answer is more complicated. My sense is that people want border at the border.

They don't like the idea of having no idea who's coming into the United States at any given time. The view on immigration from the bottom up instead of the top down. That's this week on America. America, actually, every Saturday in your audio and video feeds. Okay, so Hillary, say you and I want to open a restaurant, what do we need to do to design music for our space? How would we even go about this process? To answer that, I spoke with Jonathan Schechter. He's the founder of Playback Prodigy.

It's a background music provider based in Vegas. And here's what he told me. There's a number of challenges, but one of the most important ones is having enough music so that it's not boring and predictable for everyone. So I guess the first thing you and I would need in our restaurant is a lot of music. I got you on that. And maybe even more than we might expect. If the place is open 10 hours a day, you want 30 hours of music at least. That sounds exhausting.

It's a lot of music. Yeah. We'll also need to think about the times of day that our restaurant is open and the vibes we want in those times of days. In our case, there's a random shuffle that happens. But it's not fully shuffling the whole list. So it only shuffles that particular day. part, but you know, you're not going to hear a night song at 5 p.m. A late night song at 5 p.m. So you have to sequence the whole thing so that the right energy sort of stays intact, but it's still

shuffles and it's still random. And most importantly, we'll need to think about who is listening and it's not just our diners. We talk to the owner, we talk to the manager, we try to talk to the employees. You used to work in restaurants. Yeah. And you spend a lot of time. in restaurants. Yeah. So it's almost like your staff going into a restaurant even when you're not staffed in a restaurant. What is your experience of hearing these playlists over and over and over again? This is for you as well. Yeah, I will say Jonathan is 100% right about like the staff relying on the music and also the staff providing the most critiques of the music. I worked as a cocktail server in the Ace Hotel lobby in New York, which like used to be a scene around the time

that these songs were very cool. I swear they must have had only like four. playlists. So I was working close to full-time, and I heard Jolene like multiple times a week. Jolene is a beautiful song. It's a great song. It's a very specific song. And Dahlia's got a great voice, but this is not like, this is not background music for me. That is very present music. No, I mean, the song is short, but like, it's like the short burst and like you're like, okay, I am listening to Jolene now. Jolene's back. And I am carrying my cocktail tray. Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, please don't take him just because you care. We're talking about, most importantly, Dahlia Parton version, not Miley's version.

Oh, yeah. Like, Miley was like still potentially Hannah Montana when this was happening, I think. Jolene. Jolene, in your experience, was not working for the staff. We have to consider the staff in the whole process. Yeah, I mean, because ultimately, what is. the most important part is considering what the restaurant itself is trying to communicate about itself.

When you use songs that are current or hit songs right now, you are projecting a kind of energy and thus creating a kind of experience that is connecting to the music and expecting people to listen and nod their head and maybe sing along and be part of the music. And that's great. I mean, that's what happens in a, in a, in a, lounge or in a club or in a restaurant that has a nightlife kind of vibe. But there are other cases where I feel like that's not right. You've got to pay attention to the weight of the music.

And by that I mean, is it like loud in your face music? In your experience, dining in an infinite number of places, are there any places that stand out in the intention that they're trying to set with their music? Yeah. In Los Angeles, there is a restaurant called Vespark. And they have a soundtrack that was custom made for the restaurant. Oh, this is not even a playlist. This is like they've scored the restaurant, like it's a film.

Yeah, it's a scored experience with never before heard music. And? And it's a lot. The music itself is actually pleasant, but to use Jonathan's words, that music carries a weight to it because you're never not listening to it, if that makes sense. Yeah. So you enter the building. This music is playing.

You are taken up a floor. You get to greet the chef. His name is Jordan Khan. You see the kitchen where the team is working. That's cool. Then you're taken to your table. You know, you go to the restroom. And like inside the restroom, that soundtrack is there.

Weird. You know, the dinner is well over two hours. I think it might have been over three hours. And I was there with a group of four. It's not that we weren't able to have conversations. It's not that we weren't. and able to tune it out, but it is unusual in a restaurant to tune back in to the exact same thing. And I would need to fact check what the progression of that score is, because I don't think it's

literally the one song that is three hours long, but as an untrained ear, it sounded like that to me. Your seating at the restaurant was one song. Was one song without a lot of movement that I could detect. Yeah, let's hear it. So this is called Kitchen, and it's by the band, This Will Destroy You. It's slow. It's minimalist. Oh.

There's like a hum through the entire thing at the bottom. Yeah, I mean, it sounds like a cello, which is just constantly being bowed, many cellos, being bowed and abode and delayed. Oh. That's kind of pretty. Wait, but now I feel like I'm in like the slow, reflective moment in like a team. drama. It feels a little emo. Oh, my, it just took this minor turn. Oh, major. Uplift. And we're going to go back home, I bet. And we go back home. Okay. Does this make you want to spend hundreds of dollars on food? No, it really makes me want to be like looking at a sunset over

Los Angeles thinking about my crush when I'm 17. The crush part, the restaurant can't give to you, but you do get amazing sunset views there. I'll say, yeah, the restaurant occupies a three-story building. And the top floor is this lounge, like kind of like where you have your cocktails and stuff before you get seated. And the views are legitimately incredible. All right. So it is succeeding a bit. I mean, you're very good at this.

This is fun. Okay. So I'm taking away. We need a ton of music. We need to make sure that the employees are going to be happy. I do worry that the employees of a restaurant that is scored with the exact same soundtrack every single night might lose their mind. It should be randomized. It should be fit for the proper time of day. It needs to most importantly match the mood of the place that we're going to. And I thought we should go back to the original

playlist. And after speaking with these consultants, do you think that the original argument of this playlist ubiquity holds up, especially given, as you were saying, a lot of these sounds were happening during a certain dining scene in the aughts where it's spicy, wild, big, and bold, both bodacious flavors. I just said bodacious flavors. I like it. I'll stick with it. We're happening in the food scene. So does the playlist hold up today and what's happening in food? I think it does, but I think the idea of it being ubiquitous is worth troubling. And Jonathan suggested that maybe this entire playlist is just a reflection of my taste and bias. To be quite honest, I thought that that list was more a reflection of you than a reflection of what's in restaurants. I don't disagree

with you. I thought your list was a good representation or maybe cross-section of the kinds of songs you hear in restaurants, for sure. However, it felt more like a reflection of what you noticed that you heard because you recognize all those songs. Yeah, I hear some truth to this, although I'm confused because part of his argument is that there is just a broad amount of music which is happening in this ecosystem. Yet at the same time, there's a small number of music consultants who are making this work. And for those who are going out into the dining world, constantly professionally, there has to be some reason why your pattern matching this music. Yeah, I think a good point that Jonathan brings up is that, like, this is not ubiquitous. There are all sorts of restaurants that are not the kind of restaurants that play this playlist. Clearly, I didn't put any music on this Spotify playlist that I didn't know, because how would I have achieved that? And I do think it's always worth remembering any universal is really worth. Questioning, universal for whom, like, what are we not including in our definition of cool restaurant?

Right. This is like urban, hip, like, skews white millennial who has disposable income within a handful of cities. Absolutely. That said, there are a lot of restaurants like that. And I feel really confident that a huge percentage of restaurants like that, if you go out for dinner, you're going to hear one of these bands. Makes me think about how the ways in which urban centers have changed over the last many decades, pushing people out of neighborhoods, oftentimes with restaurants being a part of that process with developers moving restaurants into a space. And then the coolness of certain music making that acceptable and comforting to a certain audience, which are newcomers, new young people into that place, maybe not the neighborhood that it's necessarily serving. Yeah, I said the list was a cell phone. I mean, it is definitely true that these playlists reflect, you know, the demographics of their audience. And I think one of the demographics that hits really close to home now that we're like talking about it is age. Yeah, definitely. How so?

When I compiled the list, it made me feel old and sad. Yeah. That this is music that used to make me feel cool. And what made me even sadder is that Jonathan did. basically confirmed that theory. Not everyone has this unlimited amount of musical knowledge, so they have certain reference points that they have, and so they want to find that list that touches some cool spots, but, you know, it seems like a lot of people have the same cool references. So that's kind of why you're hearing

some similar stuff. So they're trying to project the image of being cool, left of center, and contemporary, but not obvious. And I think that's what you find is a lot. of places that target people in their 20s and 30s. That's why you often, I guess, you know, people having those reference points and being in a certain neighborhood and so forth, it leads to some of that similarity that you experience. Ouch. Yeah, which actually brings, I remember, like, the first time I spoke to you and Nate about this playlist and you guys asked me, like, why do you think this is?

And I remember saying, like, I think we're getting too old to like new things. Yeah. And we're being pandered to. Yep. And Jonathan just confirmed that, and it just makes me so sad. I have some data that confirms how you're feeling. It's going to get worse. No.

Yeah. There was a survey sent out by the service Deezer in 2018 that basically showed that peak music discovery and consumption happens around 24, and that by age 30, new music in people's life just gets in the way. And this is corroborating a 2015 online study of Spotify, listeners. that shows that yes, it was like they pointed it maybe a little later. It was like 33, 34 or something in which people sort of stop listening to new music and just get nostalgia and go back to the things that they know.

But there's some positive things. And they say that these listeners in their 30s indicate that they would like to hear new things, but are too overwhelmed by choice, work commitments, and often family to spend the time to go digging for interesting new things. That's so sad. So we are being pandered too. If you're like, I'm listening to LCD sound system and it makes me feel really cool and makes me feel like I'm at a college party, you're probably too old to be into what's happening in contemporary pop music. I don't like that conclusion because it's the exact opposite thesis of this show. But it's definitely a trend that these restaurant consultants are looking to. Oh gosh. I guess that means if we're going to start a new restaurant, I want to do everything to counter all of these things. But I've learned some important things.

If we're doing a high concept place, I want it to be way more inviting to an entire breadth of its neighborhood by perhaps playing music that meets the space where the space is at, not the design of the empty box and idea, but rather what is the actual? ecosystem, the environment, the community around there, and start from there perhaps. Yeah. And add in a whole bunch of new music. So like our whole restaurant is just going to be like scored by Billy Eilish. Is that the idea? Let's give it a try. Let's be some sad food.

This episode of Switched on Pop was produced by Hillary Dixler, Canavan, Bridget Armstrong, and me Charlie Harding. We're mixed and edited by Brandon McFarland. Megan Lumen is our production fellow and Sarah Terry is our community manager. Liz Nelson and Nishat Karwa are our executive producers, were production of the Vox Media Podcast Network. I also want to shout out one more time. Thank you, Hillary, for helping us produce this piece

and expand your reporting on the This Is Every Generically Cool Restaurant's Playlist article that you did for Eater. This was a lot of fun. Now, I bet you're probably wanting to hear more of the great music on Hillary's playlist. We are going to post a link to it, the Every Restaurant playlist. In our show notes, check it out. And if you want to find more episodes of Switched-onpop, Switched-onpop.com, Apple Podcasts, IHeartRadio, Spotify,

we are anywhere you get your podcasts. And don't forget to send us other suggestions and ideas for the show. We are on social media at Switchedonpop on Twitter and Instagram.