Program Directory

On this week’s pro­gram, we turn our atten­tion to the his­to­ry of indus­tri­al music – not the noisy music genre – but music played in indus­tri­al set­tings for work­ers. A vari­ety of ser­vices offered (and still offer) back­ground music for work­places. Muzak and the RCA Plant Broad­cast­ing Sys­tem are just a few of the prod­ucts that were sold to com­pa­nies in the hopes of increas­ing morale and/​or effi­cien­cy. Our guest, Alix Hui is asso­ciate pro­fes­sor of His­to­ry at Mis­sis­sip­pi State Uni­ver­si­ty and has been study­ing the his­to­ry of indus­tri­al music sys­tems, as well as back­ground music generally.