Music is often something in the forefront of our lives. That could be because you are a musician honing your craft, an avid watcher of music videos, a frequent concert attendee, or even just someone who got called out in their Spotify wrapped for how much music they streamed last year. With all the mainstream music we consume, it can be easy to tune out and forget about the music, or muzak that is, in the background. 

Have you ever been in an elevator and suddenly found yourself focusing on the elevator music? You may have wondered, “Who wrote this?” or possibly, “Why did they?”. You may have just tuned it out entirely and not given it a second thought, afterall the background music is just a part of everyday life. Many consider elevator music to be boring or mundane and, while everyone is entitled to their own preferences when it comes to what they listen to, I find the history behind the music to be fascinating.

Muzak found its start in the 1920s as “Wired Wireless”, a pet project of Brigadier General George Owen Squire. Squire was an extremely progressive, well rounded man with a lot of ideas and a lot of passion. While he had many patented projects, and is even considered to be the grandfather of the Modern U.S. Air Force, Muzak would probably be considered his most well-known and lasting creation. “Wired Wireless” began as a residential project which would, for a subscription fee, install receiver boxes and utilize electrical lines to feed quality music into homes across America. 

The project didn’t hit the market until the 1930s and in 1934, Squier officially changed the name from “Wired Wireless” to the better known “Muzak”, a mashup of the word music and the brand name Kodak (yes, like the camera company). While the invention worked brilliantly, it officially rolled out around the same time as commercial radio began gripping the nation. It was hard to keep interest in a subscription service when Americans could now tune into free radio broadcasts. Understandably, due to this unexpected competition, Muzak had a hard time keeping up. In the time leading up to and following the death of Squire in 1936, the company turned their focus from the residential sector to more commercial possibilities.

This change in company direction allowed many more opportunities than Muzak’s attempts to take over the residential sector had. There were so many ways Muzak could be applied to different scenarios. The most historically popular use for Muzak was to provide both a sense of comfort and distraction during elevator rides. Back in the day, elevators had much louder mechanics and made much joltier movements than what we are used to in modern day lifts. This made Muzak the perfect way to mask the clanging and whirring of the machine from riders while also playing music that may make them feel calmer or a bit more cheerful.

 Along with elevators, Muzak moved into the businesses that housed these elevators. Thanks to promises of productive work environments and more patient, contented customers, Muzak became widely popularized in restaurants, hotels, offices, and retail spaces. By this point, Muzak had made a name for itself and would continue to receive business through many important channels as the decades passed. Throughout the 1940’s Muzak was used as a productivity booster for factory workers. The company’s engineers had come up with a musical concept called “Stimulus Progression”. According to their research, this musical method was scientifically proven to motivate workers and negate possible fatigue or boredom that may arise.

While their marketing alone probably would have brought the company decent success, their Stimulus Progression method coincided perfectly with the industrial demands of World War II. Stimulus progression and by proxy, Muzak, was swiftly and heavily implemented in most military factories in an attempt to increase production of supplies to ship overseas. I believe this circumstance is what cemented Muzak as the soundtrack of the States for decades to follow. In subsequent years, Muzak had become so highly popularized that it was installed throughout the White House and was even utilized by NASA for astronaut training.

As Muzak evolved, so did the world around it. Time, as it always does, changed things. Factories closed as our industrial interests were outsourced to other countries, elevator mechanics have progressed to provide both smoother and quieter transport, and a mini computer in our pockets allows us to listen to whatever we want whenever we want. While these developments may be considered positive, they also led to a decline in demand for Muzak’s services. In February of 2009, Muzak officially filed for bankruptcy. About 2 years later in March of 2011, Muzak Holdings sold to MoodMedia. In part due to Covid lockdowns, Mood Media actually filed for bankruptcy in 2020, its second time in 3 years. Later that same year, Mood Media was acquired by a company called Vector Capital  and seemed to have made at least a partial recovery as they are still in operation currently.

As of 2024, Muzak still exists, but no longer by the same name and no longer in such a prominent way. Though not nearly as common as it once was, you can occasionally find an elevator that still plays the Classic tunes that once acted as an ever-present soundtrack to daily life. While elevator muzak may not exist in the same way we once knew it, it is an important part of musical history that has helped integrate music into the everyday.

Works Cited

Bond, Brad. “History of Muzak.” Mood Media, 27 Jan. 2025, us.moodmedia.com/blog/history-of-muzak/. Accessed 2025.

Hsu, Tiffany. “Muzak Rocked but Not Silenced as It Files for Bankruptcy Protection.” Los Angeles Times, 11 Feb. 2009, www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-feb-11-fi-muzak11-story.html. Accessed 2025.

Hui, Alexandra. “Elevator Sounds.” Historians.Org, 30 Mar. 2022, www.historians.org/perspectives-article/elevator-sounds-april-2022/. Accessed 2025.

Kushner, David. “Modern Muzak: It’s Not Your Parents’ Elevator Music.” The New York Times, 1998, www.nytimes.com/1998/08/27/technology/modern-muzak-it-s-not-your-parents-elevator-music.html. Accessed 2025.

Lazarus, David. “Column: Whatever Happened to Muzak? It’s Now Mood, and It’s Not Elevator Music.” Los Angeles Times, 7 July 2017, www.latimes.com/business/lazarus/la-fi-lazarus-store-music-20170707-story.html. Accessed 2025.

Media, Mood. “Stimulus Progression.” Muzak Archives, 19 Sept. 2022, muzakarchives.com/stimulus-progression/. Accessed 2025.

Orndorff, Brandon. “Vector Capital to Acquire Mood Media.” Mood Media, 1 Dec. 2020, us.moodmedia.com/company/news/vector-capital-to-acquire-mood-media/. Accessed 2025.

Padua, Pat. “Elevator Music.” Blogs.Loc.Gov, 21 Sept. 2010, blogs.loc.gov/music/2010/09/elevator-music/. Accessed 2025.

Randles, Jonathan. “Muzak Owner Files Quick Bankruptcy to Cut $400 Million in Debt.” Wall Street Journal, 2020, www.wsj.com/articles/mood-media-files-quick-bankruptcy-to-cut-400-million-in-debt-11596212313. Accessed 2025.

Roos, Dave. “The Army General Who Invented Muzak.” History.Com, 15 Oct. 2024, www.history.com/articles/muzak-invention-army-general. Accessed 2025.

Tribune, Chicago. “Shafts of Silence Our Search for Elevator Music.” Chicago Tribune, 24 Mar. 2009, www.chicagotribune.com/2009/03/24/shafts-of-silence-our-search-for-elevator-music/. Accessed 2025.