I don't really care. We have it on pop right now though. I can wear headphones (I got these fancy over the ear ones that like conducts through the bone) so when I want to listen to something I'll just use those. I was really into murder mysteries last year and listened to those a bunch.

Are there radio stations that, instead of playing music, do things like play audiobooks? And then chapter breaks are advertisements?

I somewhat doubt radios can (or rather, are allowed to) play audiobooks, but mind you I don't listen to the radio much, so maybe???

And I'm guessing shops playing the same stupid music on repeat and in every store is either a matter of copyright (so playing songs for which they already paid royalties), or of songs being in the public domain? I'm rather curious.

I feel like Starbucks gives us a lot of choice when it comes to playlists we have to choose from in store but at the same time...why are half of them jazz?! Or just bad? But then they put just enough wonderful music sprinkled in that you never truly win or lose no matter which playlist you pick.

My favorite times are when the music player is broken and we get to put spotify on because not having music at all is also very against the Starbucks atmosphere. >.>

Copyright is a very big part of what songs are picked for businesses. It's actually more freeing to play radio stations than say, a custom playlist because the radio station already garnered all the permissions.

And then where I work nearly every radio is set to the same country radio. Eugh
A handful are set to the local college station, one or two on a classic rock station
And the rest of us use primarily Spotify. A few use youtube (highly sketchy because upper management are very twitchy on the no phones rule) and i know of one who uses Apple Play

Weird. I've been into small businesses that just have a local station on often enough. But then again if you play something off of youtube or a music streaming service, there's a chance curse words will be said and that could be bad because some people are too sensitive to words.

@blackbriar, lmao, half of them are jazz? I don't go to Starbucks, but that's funny AF if true.

@Kitalpha Hart, Don't you need your phone for Spotify as well?

Yes. Mine will be in my bag, covered by my hoodie as it charges

Jazz, huh....

Could be worse.

I suppose if you go with the radio you can always station-hop for a change of pace.