John Darko
The hi-fi show season for 2024 is upon us. Bristol and CanJam NYC are already in the can. AXPONA cometh, then Munich High-End. For the uninitiated, this is where a hi-fi manufacturer or its local distributor will set up a hi-fi system in a hotel room (stripped of its furniture) for attendees to listen to. Put many of these hotel room (or convention centre) hi-fi demos under one roof and you have a hi-fi show.
But there’s a wrinkle. One that’s become a permanent crease.
When hi-fi show attendees grumble or make jokes about the music heard at hi-fi shows, they aren’t taking a pop at anyone’s music taste. The songs about which they complain are not bad songs per se. Who are they to make that call? They are not guardians of taste.
Instead, the grumblers and the piss-takers have a higher-level complaint: hearing the same thirty or so songs year-in-year-out is tiresome. Show exhibitors who haven’t refreshed their demo music in over a decade make many of us not want to sit down and listen, thus defeating the purpose of attending a hi-fi show.
This cartoon from a few years back perfectly captures the disconnect:
If this sounds like a one-way complaint, it isn’t.
The lack of musical diversity doesn’t only stem from hi-fi show exhibitors. They pay (tens of) thousands of dollars to be there and will play anything permitted by their setup. The weasel word there is “anything”. It speaks to a vague promise whose intent in undone by reality. Don’t think you can turn up with a clutch of your favourite demo cuts and the exhibitor will play them. If you’re lucky, a room host might stream a single request. Put your CD away though: she’ll be playing it from Tidal or Qobuz. The rest of the time, savvy exhibitors with both eyes on business will play a) whatever best flatters their hi-fi hardware and b) whatever is most effective in keeping bums on seats.
And that points us at the other half of the problem.
It doesn’t get said enough in hi-fi circles that many show attendees display, outwardly in many cases, a low tolerance for new or different music. Over the years, I’ve seen numerous attendees harrumph out of rooms because the exhibitor dared to break from the norm with her music choices. “Could we please hear some light classical or female vocal?” is usually a sign that a certain someone doesn’t wish to hear hip-hop, metal, techno, indie rock, electronica, dub, funk or reggae.
But it goes further.
Our exhibitor might wish to let a heavy rock or house music request play out…but if the room begins to empty as it plays, harrumphers or not, she’ll get cold feet to cut the track short before returning to a lighter musical programme. Hi-fi shows and their exhibitors might promise a “celebration of all music” or that they’ll entertain requests for “all genres” – and they might even mean it – but on the ground at a hi-fi show, in most rooms you can hear any music you like as long as it’s classical, jazz, opera, blues, female vocal or one of the warhorses listed below. Think of it as Henry Ford on steroids.
Hi-fi show music, therefore, remains as stale as month-old bread because exhibitors stick to the tried and true, largely because attendees won’t let ’em do anything else. Is it any wonder that many onlookers complain that hi-fi enthusiasts are more into their gear than the music?
Salting this wound, clichéd hi-fi music rarely travels beyond the 1980s. Why is that?
In the main, exhibitors and attendees pull from the same demographic – middle-aged men – to remain in lockstep with each other. The median age of attendees at most regional American, British and German shows would easily tip fifty. Munich High-End might see that average dip a little lower but with mainstream consumers ditching traditional hi-fi systems for Sonos, Bluetooth, soundbars and A/V receivers, hi-fi shows have become playpens for Baby Boomers, largely because a) that generation grew up during the golden age of hi-fi and b) age is the strongest predictor of wealth; hi-fi isn’t a poor man’s game.
This demographic funnelling might also explain attendees’ intolerance of difference or unwillingness to change. As we age, our tastes harden and our mental faculties loses elasticity; it’s hardly surprising that a hotel or convention centre full of early Gen X-ers and Baby Boomers have a tough time dealing with music they’ve never heard before and/or sounds alien to them. And so the beat goes on: The Beatles and The Stones are as racy as it gets.
I am not blind to the fleeting shards of light at hi-fi shows where a handful of exhibitors take more risks with their musical programme – especially on Sundays as the clock ticks towards teardown – but they are outliers. But outlier behaviour, by definition, fails to break this hi-fi show attendee’s impression that most exhibitors lean on the same exceedingly narrow selection of music because (a vocal minority of) attendees demand it.
And it’s been like this for years already.
I’ve been attending hifi shows since 2010 — not as long as many industry veterans but long enough to know that at any time in the last twenty years, any regular hi-fi show go-er could have compiled this list of songs, played within an inch of their lives by well-intentioned room hosts:
- Boz Scaggs – Thanks To You
- The Eagles – Hotel California (Hell Freezes Over version)
- Bob Dylan – The Man In The Long Black Coat
- Chris Jones – No Sanctuary Here
- Rebecca Pidgeon – Spanish Harlem
- Nils Lofgren – Keith Don’t Go (Live)
- The Dave Brubeck Quartet – Take Five
- Hugh Masekela – Stimela (The Coal Train)
- Steely Dan – Babylon Sisters
- Stevie Ray Vaughan – Tin Pan Alley
- Norah Jones – Come Away With Me
- Chris Stapleton – Death Row
- Anything by Diana Krall
- Anything from Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon
- Anything from Miles Davis’ Sketches of Spain or A Kind Of Blue
- Anything from John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme
- Anything by Dead Can Dance
And some entries from the last few years that have already been ground to dust…
- Daft Punk – Giorgio by Moroder
- London Grammar – Hey Now
- Fink – Trouble’s What You’re In
- Yosi Horikawa – Bubbles
- Tool – Chocolate Chip Trip
“But John, those songs are played at hi-fi shows because they sound good”. To make that point is to miss my point. Of the 100 million songs available on any streaming service, are the aforelisted twenty or so songs the only ones good enough for a hi-fi show demo? Of course, they aren’t. It just takes effort to find them, the courage to use them as demo music and – flipping the coin – broader attendee tolerance of ‘different’ and ‘new’.
Hi-fi shows are where manufacturers set up shop to sell us on the new stuff and when you’re selling something new, you ought to be saying something we’ve not heard before. But when you or your music choices talk in clichés, you say nothing.
If you’re into hip-hop, metal, techno, indie rock, electronica, house, dub, funk or reggae and are attending a hi-fi show this year, be confident in politely letting exhibitors know of your tastes. Ignore the ‘hi-fi harrumphers’ who would prefer to maintain the status quo and try to encourage room hosts to stay the distance with your request. Just don’t go asking for Television’s “Marquee Moon” (10 mins), Neil Young & Crazy Horse’s “Love To Burn” (10 mins) or The Orb’s “Blue Room” (39 mins).
One final point. I am aware that musical taste is often a hotly debated topic. I do not intend to offend anyone by needling the endless deployment of Diana Krall or Nils Lofgren at hi-fi shows. However, experience tells me that, with some people, offence is unavoidable.
If that’s you, try to mentally separate ‘what I like’ from ‘who I am’ and note that I am not making personal remarks about you as an individual. Also, remember that offence is something you take (and not give). Someone could hang ten kinds of 💩 on McLusky or The Hold Steady – two of my favourite indie rock bands – and I would not give a damn. I would take zero offence because I am not my music taste — it’s not about me.
Offense is taken, not given. No need to disarm the world. Just make yourself bullet proof. Sticks & stones people. Block. Unfollow. Laugh.
— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) November 15, 2012
