The music we never choose

We like to think of music as something deeply personal. We spend hours curating playlists, following artists across platforms and paying good money to see live shows.

Music, after all, is one of the most intimate ways we express identity and mood. But step back for a moment, and you will notice that much of the soundtrack to our daily lives is not ours at all.

From the supermarket aisle to the Uber or taxi ride, the treadmill at the gym to the endless scroll on TikTok, we are constantly immersed in soundscapes designed by someone else.

This phenomenon is what might be called “the music we never choose,” and it is one of the most powerful, yet least examined forces in modern culture.

In this article, Music News Blitz writer Lindokuhle Mlombo writes about how background playlists and algorithm-driven soundtracks quietly shape our lives.

The supermarket symphony

Walk into almost any grocery store, and you are already part of an experiment.

The playlists you hear are not random. They are engineered to make you spend more.

Retail researchers have found that slower tempo songs encourage shoppers to linger in aisles, while upbeat tracks push people to move faster and often spend impulsively.

In some chains, playlists are even tailored to the time of day, with morning soundtracks energising commuters grabbing coffee and evening selections encouraging a more leisurely pace.

In other words, your choice between oat milk or regular might be less about taste and more about what song happened to be playing in the background.

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Gyms, restaurants, and the sound of control

The same psychology plays out in other spaces.

At gyms, high-BPM tracks pump adrenaline, subtly nudging you to stay on the treadmill longer.

In restaurants, tempo is carefully manipulated. Faster music means quicker table turnover, and slower songs encourage you to order another drink or dessert.

Even neutral environments are not immune. Elevators, waiting rooms, airports, and places where silence might feel awkward usually pipe in music that is meant to keep us calm, patient, or simply distracted.

Muzak, once a brand name, has become shorthand for the carefully engineered background noise that structures so much of our collective experience.

The algorithm as a DJ

If public spaces curate our offline listening, platforms do the same online.

TikTok has become the most influential music discovery engine in the world, yet users do not choose much of what they hear.

Instead, algorithm-selected audio snippets go viral and entire careers are launched from a 15-second hook that happens to sync perfectly with a dance trend.

Spotify, YouTube and Apple Music all do it too. Autoplay, radio modes and algorithm-generated playlists quietly shape our perception of what is popular.

The songs we think we love might actually be the ones we have been persuaded into hearing over and over until they stick.

This is not just convenience. It is economics, as it drives sales in different ways.

Artists who land on a big playlist can see careers explode overnight, while those left out remain invisible, no matter how good the music.

Our tastes, in other words, are not fully ours. Instead, they are constructed by invisible hands behind the play button.

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Memory, mood and manipulation

There is possibly also a deeper psychological layer to all this.

Because music imprints strongly on memory, background songs often become part of how we recall experiences, even when we were not actively listening.

A holiday remembered through a hotel lobby soundtrack. A first date is tied forever to whatever song happened to be playing at the restaurant.

This unconscious listening shapes emotions, too.

Studies suggest that even when we do not “notice” background music, our heart rate, mood and decision-making can shift in response.

That extra shot of espresso you ordered. That impulse to buy a candle at checkout. The playlist may have played a bigger role than you realised.

Global soundscapes

What makes this especially fascinating is its universality.

Whether you are shopping in Tokyo, riding a bus in Lagos, riding a taxi in Johannesburg, waiting in line in London, or scrolling in São Paulo, you are likely surrounded by the same phenomenon, unseen curators shaping your sonic environment.

Even if the genres differ, K-pop in Seoul, Afrobeats in Lagos, the logic is the same. Music is deployed as an invisible tool of influence.

And increasingly, these global soundscapes overlap. A TikTok trend in Los Angeles can make a South African artist blow up in Italy.

A gym playlist in Berlin might feature the same high-energy tracks as one in Cape Town.

The “music we never choose” is becoming not just personal background noise but part of a global cultural script.

Who controls the soundtrack?

So, the question becomes, how much of what we consider our taste is really ours, and what does it mean when corporations, algorithms and retail strategies hold so much control over the music that seeps into our lives?

This is not about demonising playlists or pining for silence. It is about recognising that music is never neutral.

Every song in a store, every loop on TikTok, every track that autoplay serves up carries a purpose, sometimes commercial, sometimes cultural, but always influential.

The music we never choose may not appear on our personal playlists, but it shapes us all the same.

It lingers in our memories, alters our moods and in subtle but powerful ways, guides our choices.

Maybe the truest mark of music’s power is not just what we love, but what we never even realised we were listening to.

Some examples of such sounds online are “Million-Dollar Baby” by Tommy Richman and “Anxiety” by Doechii.

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