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Hooked on Hold!

 Should probably have gone in public: evil.
  (+3)
(+3) 		  [vote for,
against]

Live music show of popular classics and smooth jazz hits, identical in every respect to typical affairs such as this, save for the intermittent, irregular sharp breaks in music, where melody is replaced with the disembodied voice of a bunged-up lackwit intoning blankly "Your call is in a queue and will be dealt with as soon as an operator is free" whereupon music starts again, as if nothing had happened.

Repeat for ever.

—calum, Nov 04 2003

One of the shorter Distintegration Loops http://www.youtube....watch?v=zhfKK547r94
[calum, Jun 28 2013]

[link]






       I'm confused: many call waiting systems allow you to plug in the radio station of your choice, making this an everyday occurrence out there in office land. Widely Baked, I say.
—DrCurry, Nov 04 2003
   

       Call center radio ga ga.
—skinflaps, Nov 04 2003
   

       At no point during this show is anybody actually on the telephone. The attendees are sitting in plush velveteen seats, sucking on mint imperials and moving their false teeth around in their heads. It's a *live music event* not an option for hold music - hence the term "live music show" and the choice of category as "culture: music show" (as opposed to "business: please hold").   

       Also, having now spent more of my life on hold than asleep, I am intrigued by these radio station plug ins, the likes of which I have never encountered before.
—calum, Nov 04 2003
   

       It's the popularization of MOH*.   

       *Music On Hold, Music Of Hell...
—phoenix, Nov 04 2003
   

       I can visualise (audio-ise Shirley?) a new dance/techno track which will beat along in a fast rhythm - only to stop once in a while at regular intervals: a polite voice intones "Putting you on hold"; a few bars of 'Greensleeves'; and then back to the frenetic beats.   

       Instant dance club classic. You know the score (+)
—Jinbish, Nov 04 2003
   

       Muzack is the ENEMY
—Letsbuildafort, Nov 04 2003
   

       + 1.
—snarfyguy, Nov 04 2003
   

       I'd like them to sing along with the music. No interruptions. "Your call... is important to us..." tra la la....
—waugsqueke, Nov 04 2003
   

       How about:   

       Dial-a-Radio-Station!   

       For all those idiots who buy local cable TV in strong signal areas, and will also miss the fact that a Radio doesn't run up your phone bill!
—mr2560, Nov 04 2003
   

       "Your call is very important to us. However, we are currently experiencing high call volume and wait times may exceed two hours. Please stay on the line, and your call will be answered in the order in which it was received." followed by a nice soothing rendition (either by Zamfir or Kenny G.) of "Once, twice, three times a lady" is enough to drive me postal.
—Freefall, Nov 04 2003
   

       [mr] That's baked by They Might Be Giants. Dial-a-Song 718-387-6962. It's free when you call from work.
—Worldgineer, Nov 04 2003
   

       There's a jazz piece I've been trying to find called call waiting that's similar to this idea, but not as jarring...just easy vibes and bass with a soothing female voice occaisionally commenting - also available as a piano solo...I like the jarringness of this idea more...
—inc_b, Nov 05 2003
   

       The part of my brain that's prone to recursion wants this music show to be a smash hit, spawning million-selling live CDs and bringing to bloom a brand new musical genre - a genre that is wholeheartedly embraced by operators of call centres as an ideal choice for hold music. Feed it through the loop again and again and again and forever and you'll be able to claim the title of "Originator of the World's Most Broken Music."   

       Oh boy I can hear it now - nightmares tonight.
—calum, Nov 06 2003
   

       If it was in public: evil I'd give it a + vote. But its not so it gets a fish, for being really evil. Sorry.
—RobertKidney, Nov 06 2003
   

       I'm voting this one up. It's the holding pattern experience of a lifetime. I would buy t-shirts and bring an oversized inflatable phone to the concerts.
—k_sra, Nov 06 2003
   

       William Basinski's Disintegration Loops would work quite nicely as deteriorating hold music: short passages of pretty chill contemporary classical looped over and over, with each loop being slightly - only slightly - decayed until you've been on hold for an hour or so and all that is left is a faint static interrupted by patches of seemingly distant music.
—calum, Jun 28 2013
   

       Another version would be to loop your phone's posh robot lady voice directions over songs, layering journey after journey on top, to produce through repetition of the same journey a creamy, Beach Boysian effect, or through having less deeply entrenched habits, a wall of incomprehensibly overlapping imperatives.
—calum, Nov 03 2021
   

       [calum] I hope you were not on hold listening to the music all that while trying to get through to the halfbakery to reannotate this idea.
—pocmloc, Nov 03 2021
   
      
[annotate]
   


 

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