Mall Music Muzak but the mall is empty

you feel alone...

[dengekitomato]

My first job was in a mall back in 2003. I used to work in the morning at a bakery and this music used be blasting in the mall before retailers open. It was for the elder mall walkers in the morning. It was that pleasant, that I even saw a elder couple dancing to it together. I miss those days!!

[BandiPower]

Remember the time where when you walked into a mall, people were dressed up, more stores were moving in, and business was sparking. I do.

[stokepogue]

You don't hear this sound on the main mall floor. You hear it at the end of the long corner hallways on the way to the restrooms.

[mavohq]

i miss the design of older malls/buildings. i prefer warm lighting, earth tones, and dark brick and wood over white and grey everything, sharp edges, and blinding lights that honestly just feel overstimulating and uncomfortable. i’d go to the mall more often to walk around and relax if the ones near me didn’t feel like prisons or overwhelming modern art museums. maybe it’s just me but i don’t get it when people call things ‘outdated’. who decides that? all i can think when i look at 70s/80s design is “wow that’s gorgeous”.
edit: i get that the point of the unfriendly design is to get you to leave if you’re not buying anything but as a young adult who pretty much had no access to any ‘third places’ as a teen and who’s feeling the mental effects of the lack of them in my current life, i simply don’t care. honestly i might even end up buying more if stepping foot in a mall didn’t hurt my eyes and make me feel exhausted.

[rosssmith]

There is a reason malls did so well back then.
There was more culture, and therefore had stores that don't exist today.
Greeting card shops.
Book stores.
Record stores.
Tailors.

[fionaterry-chandler]

When we were kids trailing after our Mums shopping-this was hell. Now we see it was actually heaven.

[orangeblossom]

Early June, 1972. A clear, sunny, blue-sky day. Although it’s only nine A.M., it’s very warm already and the outside temps hint at the scorcher that today will later prove to be.

You step outside the door of your mid-century suburban ranch-style home. You’ve lived here since the subdivision was new; you both moved here when you’d only been married for a couple of years. Before the kids came along. You close the door behind you, and without locking it, you walk toward your Ford Galaxie 500. It’s a newer model, and though you told Eddie that you were fine with driving the old one, it’s his habit to buy a new Ford every couple of years.

As you reach the car, the warm humid air fills your nostrils and you smell the mingled odors of moist earth and fresh-cut grass, the signature of a suburban lawnscape. You hear the whir of a lawn mower, and turn to wave at Joe Harrington, your across-the-street neighbor four doors down. Joe’s a good neighbor. He and Minnie moved here around the same time that you did. Your kids are the same age as theirs, are in the same classes together at school. Eddie Jr. and Mike Harrington are on the same Little League team.

You back out of the driveway and steer your car through the winding streets of your neighborhood. Modest but immaculate houses, familiar to you as the homes of friends, acquaintances, and some of Eddie’s co-workers, line the quiet streets. They won’t be quiet for long. The kids are still in school. They only have a couple of days left to go, ‘til the end of this first week of the month. From their first day of freedom until they return to school just after Labor Day, their shouts, laughter and games will fill the neighborhood streets from early in the morning until just after dark, when they’ll reluctantly head home one by one as each responds to their mother’s calling of their name from their front yard many blocks away.

This morning though, you are going to the mall. Your car smoothly skims the surface of each street as you head toward the main entrance to your neighborhood. Red Leaf Lane, then right on Poplar Hill Road. Sunlight sparkles on water droplets left by lawn sprinklers on blades of dark green grass. You exit Forest Manor Hills and turn left onto Miller Parkway. The mall sign is about a mile up, on the right. For a long time, the large white starburst shaped sign for Manor Mall was the only landmark in a wide sea of old farmhouses, fields and wooded areas. That’s all changed in the last ten years. But the sign still dominates the newer landscape of service stations, the entries to since-built subdivisions, diners, and numerous smaller shopping centers filled with small businesses.

You swing the Galaxie into the parking lot, and pull into a spot close to the mall’s main entrance. As it’s early, you have your pick of parking spaces. By mid-afternoon, the lot (and the mall) will be full. But you, along with more than a few of the other area housewives, enjoy taking advantage of this time of day when the mall is just opening, to enjoy some quiet shopping and to get some errands done.

You exit the car, sunglasses in place against the asphalt glare. The sunshine reflects off the crisp white and yellow sundress you’re wearing, you bought it at Garson’s, the department store here at Manor Mall. You enter the mall. As the doors close behind you, you are enveloped in its cool, dim and welcoming embrace. You remove your sunglasses. The filtered daylight streams through the mall skylights and falls upon the indoor gardens of green tropical plants suited specifically to this environment. The stores are just opening. Shop clerks are still rolling up the gates or unlocking the glass doors of their establishments. There is a an echoing quietness, filled with a distant music.

You move to this wavering music, as you and your fellow few early mall customers glide along serene pathways into the shops to pursue your purchases. Milton’s Menswear, your first stop. Eddie needs some new handkerchiefs. Mr. Harlow greets you by name as you enter the store. A neighbor of yours, he’s worked at Milton’s since before the mall opened. He started at the old downtown Milton’s store. He purchased a home near you, and has raised his two kids while working this job; his wife Edith was able to stay home with the kids while they were in school.

After Mr. Harlow helps you select some new handkerchiefs from the store’s variety, you exit into the mall and head to your next stop. Along the way, you cross paths with other shoppers, some of whom you know. Madge, who’s daughter Monica goes to school with your little Rosemary, greets you, and you chat for awhile. Would you and Eddie like to join her and Bill for bridge on Saturday night? Madge knows of a good babysitter if Jenny, the teenage sitter you usually use, isn’t available.

The echoes of the music surround you as you make your bridge date with Madge and you both part ways. Your next stop is Dalton’s Toys. They’re a chain of toy stores in your area that’s been expanding into most of the new malls. Rosemary’s birthday is next week and there’s one particular toy she’s been asking about. You hope to find it here today...

...And so it goes...the mall slowly begins to fill with other shoppers as you go into and out of the stores. The large department stores that will be there forever, the smaller local shops that have moved their businesses here in addition to (or instead of) their downtown shops. They’re surviving or even thriving in their new homes. Then there’s the newer store chains that have sprung up and are now found in every new mall—-and there are so many of them!—- being built.

And above it all, the music. The music that is only heard at the mall, nowhere else, not like this. It is the mind and heart of the mall, its very voice. And you are like a child in the womb, hearing its mother’s heartbeat, while taken in by the mall and given sustenance, before being delivered again into the world outside. But you know that you can re-enter at any time, and it will take you back, and give you what you are looking for, to support you in any way it can to meet the many needs that are found in your suburban dream.

You prepare to leave. You don your sunglasses to face the glare of asphalt and sun. Post-delivery from the mall, you plan on going to Setzer’s, the local butcher shop. Marty & Mary run the store, they always put aside the cuts of meat that they know you’ll be in for every Thursday.

The last thing you hear as the doors close behind you, is some distant, shimmering sounds. The music. Did you catch a strain of “I’ll Be Seeing You” ? You will be back, you’ll always be able to go back. It’s been like this for such a long time now.

And it always will be.

[robothunter]

The echo makes it spooky and beautiful at the same time.

[XtremeMusik]

Reminds me of a mall I keep going to, where there's nobody around. I could chill on the recliner on the top floor all day.

[MrJBest]

When I’m depressed (99% of the time) I play this and it lifts my spirits again. I really miss these days. Just seemed like much simpler times. They will never make anything like this ever again 😔

[jayjay-bzrr]

Without the color of avocado 🥑, it’s just not the 70’s

[VideoArchiveGuy]

I honestly think malls began to die when they began removing the fountains and water features.

Both began to happen in the late 1980s.

[_PrimetimePranks]

Take me back to 1981 Highland Mall in Austin, sweet memories of arcades, cafeterias, toy shops, clothing stores and candy shops. It’s my “happy place” in my mind during stressful days. Thank you for this music. 👍👍

[SomeGuy]

This music feels kind of sad because it feels like the world in a way. The reverberation of the music the walls, the reverberation of time going pass you in an instant. When played back. When you try to relive an old memory, it doesn’t feel the same because you’re trying to repeat an old memory, rather then trying to make a new one… thank you for coming to my Ted talk

[InspectorCallahan.]

I'm an 80s kid but man this makes me feel nostalgic for the 70s.

[Seth_Arkada]

Man, so many malls these days just look and feel both cold and sterile, compared to malls back in the day. I remember talking to Unicomm Productions on one of their vids about the "Simonization" of malls, turning many from the unique, sometimes invitingly-warm or vibrant look and design, and just making it feel generic with so many shades of white and grey. It makes malls not feel as enjoyable or exciting of a place to shop at.

[opinion]

Hearing this music makes me feel everything is going to be ok.

[liveyourmisery]

i wish they would use these types of music in malls nowadays...

[roachtoasties]

You got to like those 1970's mall designs. You might laugh at that now, but it worked. Malls were packed backed then. Maybe a major mall should go totally retro, and remodel it to an exact 1970's style. I'm thinking that might just work, and a mall to do that will be packed with shoppers wanting to experience that. I can't say why the pictures above are empty of shoppers, but that's easy to do if the photographer came in very early on a weekday morning and started snapping pictures.

[kozmokohler]

-- lights up cigarette-- Weren't you looking for those corduroy bellbottoms boo..?