The Second Sense: Some Thoughts On Music Loops

To my U.S. fans, happy Labor Day! To my Canadian fans, Happy Labour Day! (My desk calendar at work lists them separately.)

I collect Disney theme park music and audio. If that surprises you...welcome to my blog! I have a huge archive for you to get caught up on! Anyway, this obsession extends not just to the soundtracks of individual attractions, but to the so-called “music loops” that provide atmosphere in open areas, attraction queues, and even shops. As far as I can tell, these started being used in 1971; presumably the first few were created for Magic Kingdom but also installed in Disneyland because why not?

Most loops run anywhere from 50 minutes to an hour before repeating, and traditionally they have been composed of instrumental music rather than vocal recordings. Recently, however, there has been a shift toward the use of actual songs* in music loops, often very well-known songs, and I think this is a bit of a mistake.

Firstly, instrumental music can readily fade into the background and provide atmosphere without demanding attention, while vocals (especially familiar ones) can be quite distracting. There's no way around it—we humans are social animals, our interactions are mostly mediated vocally, and thus human voices are more attention-grabbing than any other sound.

Secondly, songs tend to be more instantly recognizable than instrumentals (since most people listen to vocal recordings more often than they listen to instrumental music), and extremely recognizable music inevitably reminds people of the context from which they recognize it, rather than immersing them in the setting of the park as it is supposed to. (This video describes a similar problem with respect to film soundtracks that lean heavily on established pop music.) Some of the most lackluster music loops in the Disneyland Resort have to be the ones throughout Cars Land, which just sound like “oldies” radio stations and make me feel less like I'm in a small town in a fantastic world of living cars, and more like I'm in the car with my Baby Boomer parents controlling the radio.**

Now, there are things the Imagineers can do to mitigate this potential problem. One is by making music loops out of songs that guests will probably recognize, but don't experience in their daily lives. You get this effect with the swing-era loops in Adventureland and Hollywood Land—everyone knows Glenn Miller's “In the Mood,” but we don't listen to it every day, and it remains evocative of a specific period setting in a way that the perennially played (or overplayed?) Diana Ross does not.

Another possible fix is to use well-known songs, but embellish the loop a little with bridging material or other extras that make it unique to its theme park setting. One frequent use of this technique, especially in attraction queues, is to disguise the loop as a radio broadcast, with (fictitious) station bumpers and short news spots...that incidentally also provide a drip-feed of worldbuilding for people waiting in the queue.

However, of late I've seen a distinct increase in music loops that consist entirely of familiar songs, strung together with no adornment or alteration save the occasional cross-fade. The Collector's Warehouse (the gift shop at the end of the Tower of Terrible Synergy Decisions) does this with circa-1980 rock hits, while Pixar Pier contains several area loops composed of songs and score tracks from Pixar features and shorts with no further commentary. This is an especial problem in the latter case—in theory, Pixar Pier is supposed to represent an actual place,*** so why not put in the minimum effort necessary to make it sound like an actual place, and not simply a Pixar mega-fan's Spotify playlist?

The ironic thing is that I actually quite like the Esplanade loop currently playing in honor of Pixar Fest, which is similarly put together from Pixar film score tracks. But there are two main differences: firstly, score tracks are instrumentals, which as I have mentioned are more atmospheric in an open areas, and secondly, it plays in the Esplanade. It is there entirely to set the tone for what is to come, rather than trying to be immersive in itself.

(And it's just really well-constructed in general. I never got around to mentioning it in my review of Pixar Fest from a few months ago, but it samples from Pixar's entire set of feature franchises instead of focusing on just the most popular, and in the process treats us to some beautiful music that would otherwise get no attention because it comes attached to a movie that is overall not very good—I am looking at you, The Good Dinosaur.)

So yeah, there's some real room for improvement here. Frankly I think it would be spiffy if they went back to hunting down super-obscure specialty albums for themed atmosphere loops. You know, like the Alpine yodeling in the Matterhorn queue or the light orchestras on Main Street. In this day and age of digital downloads and music-identification software, nothing remains unknown to the true fans for long, but this stuff has the Glenn Miller advantage, turned up to at least eleven. Where else do we ever have the opportunity to listen to these genres?

The most distinctive loops of all, of course, are the ones composed and recorded specifically for use in the parks. These are rarer than you might suppose; even the ones consisting of covers of Disney songs which you've never heard before are often drawn from old, out-of-production albums. We collectors love the original loops, for several reasons. They represent the pinnacle of effort on WDI's part to produce something really unique for the parks. They're new experiences—a rare commodity for those of us who marinate ourselves in music in general and visit the parks frequently. The lack of commercial availability makes them impossible to reconstruct for personal use, but that's why the good electronic engineers of the world invented dynamic microphones.

The standard Tomorrowland music loop is of this type. So are three—well, two-and-a-half—of Fantasyland's area loops: the one for Fantasy Faire, the one that plays in the Castle Courtyard area, and the one that plays near the Carrousel, which is the same melodies as the Courtyard loop, but scored on calliope so that the two recordings blend seamlessly together.

And I guess now that I have covered the basics, that's my cue to rank all these music loop types I have been discussing. From most preferred to least preferred:

1. Original composition (e.g. Tomorrowland)
2. Obscure needledrop (e.g. Matterhorn queue)
3. Niche needledrop with embellishment (e.g. Jungle Cruise)
4. Niche needledrop without embellishment (e.g. Hollywood Land)
5. Mainstream needledrop with embellishment (e.g. Grizzly River Run)
6. Mainstream needledrop without embellishment (e.g. Collector's Warehouse...although that specific loop is still pretty rad)

In conclusion, Disney theme park music loops are awesome and if you're in the habit of collecting park music, you should not shun them.

* One of my pet peeves is seeing people use the word “song” in reference to an instrumental piece. If no one is singing, then it's not a song, is it?

** I mean...this was the correct way to portray the sound of Radiator Springs, whose residents seem to have culturally stagnated in about 1959, but it's not transportive, because the music favored by people who culturally stagnated in about 1959 is still everywhere. Maybe the real takeaway here is about how banal Radiator Springs is as a theme park concept, even if it does look great.

*** It makes no sense, but for the purposes of this exercise lets take Gropey John L. and the Imagineers at their word.