In defense of the jukebox
I suppose I shouldn’t get defensive right away. After all, I have yet to observe in Sacramento the jukebox-offensive to which I am reacting. Perhaps you have seen the offenders in this town, however, or in San Francisco, where I used to live and first noticed the scourge descending.
I am talking about those new-fangled internet or satellite connected jukeboxes - the soul-less wall units giving bar patrons a seemingly endless array of musical options to pair with their Sierra Nevadas, Jack and Cokes, whiskeys, or cosmos. Have you seen them? They have touch screens. They have categories. They have search engines.
They don’t have Neil Diamond.
My favorite neighborhood bar in San Francisco replaced their traditional, fixed selection jukebox with one of these monstrosities not long before I left the city. I was crushed. Gone where the easy visual aids, the album cover art and playlists. Gone were the standards: Mr. Diamond, Jimmy Buffet, Johnny Cash, Steve Miller Band, Britney (oh yeah, I went there), Frankie, and Dino. In their place, a confusing system of categories and sub-divisions that relies on the bar patron to have the brain power - regardless of the hour of the evening - to think up, spell, find, and play their desired tune.
Can you do that after a few beers? More to the point - do you feel like it?
I can understand how bar tenders, backs, and owners might love the innovation after countless nights of standards. How many playings of Margaritaville are required for a defendant to prove justifiable homicide? Probably not too many, really.
Culturally speaking, however, the consumption of alcohol as a social ritual is frequently paired with music to create a certain atmosphere or convey a particular sense of space and identity. That’s a fancy way of saying, sometimes I hit the hole in the wall bar because I want to hear Johnny Cash. If I wanted Ciara, I’d have gone to a club instead.
Incidentally, some of these machines also result in the de-democratization of bar-going. If you can afford it, you slip the machine some extra cash and you won’t have to wait long to hear your song. No more wondering when your song will finally come up - no more beer-assisted algebra in which you calculate time-lapse in terms of plays per dollar and song length. (I’d think the bar would rather you have to stay put to realize your investment, for that matter). Nooo, we can bring the class war right into the bar! A social setting many cultural anthropologists (I am not making this up, and if you think about it, it’s accurate) recognize as valuable specifically because it allows for socially-acceptable mixing of classes is threatened by yet another modern convenience.
So leave my jukebox - with its rotating collection of CDs. Leave me my Sweet Caroline.
What’s your must-hear bar song? What bar song makes you want to break a bottle over your own head?
(Pictured jukebox is at Simon’s on 16th between O and N Streets.)
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I always like “Hotel California” and then there’s anything by Fleetwood Mac… But if I can find a really good jukebox, I like to hear Elvis’ “Suspicious Minds”…I guess it all depends. By the way, none of these are songs I’d want to hear at home. :)
I couldn’t agree with your post more. Digital juke boxes seem to be all the rage in the bay area. I understand that the bar owner sees these machines from a bottom line perspective (ie. more song choices, more money), but they just aren’t the same. Also, as an FYI, The Streets of London just replaced their juke box (on of the better in downtown, IMO) with the internet capable, queue skipping, credit card accepting, digital juke box. Truly a sad day.