Cafe Music

Good Afternoon! Happy Tuesday! It’s just after noon here at the shop and i’m in my usual slow hour or so, caught up on prep and drinking seltzer water, listening to Clever Girl on the cafe speakers. I’m kinda beat up, I was sick on Thursday and had my first employee Ty take solo bar, then we crushed the weekend together setting record sales. I slept yesterday! Today! I’ve got a bunch of social media posts to make, but they’re tied to other up and coming ideas. So for now, I decided to write about music. This is something I thought a lot about on bar, since you’re sort of a dj for the space. I’ve met a few more people this week who say they read or have read the blog, so a practical subject felt like a good choice.

Finding cafe music is easier than ever, but still sort of hard.

When I started this journey 8 or 10 years ago, If you searched “cafe music / coffee shop music”, you’d get a lot of generic acoustic jazz or piano. This music is serviceable depending on what kind of cafe you are, but if you listen to this stuff too long it will drive you insane. When music radios like Pandora were new, they’d end up playing the same ten songs on repeat and that was basically unlistenable too haha. SO, I needed to find better music.

I used to spend a lot of time in facebook groups or other forums, asking people for recommendations on cafe music. I never really had much luck. I’d give a few examples and have people nodding their heads without much to contribute. So instead of hoping answers would come to me, i spent time reading what others liked and cherry picking songs or in some cases albums that were a good fit. Listening to a lot of classic albums and sparking conversation in the cafe was a fun way to discover new music. I definitely played a lot of inappropriate stuff, but it never really caused any problems. If I had someone to guide me on what was a good fit, I may have made more quick progress.

Thankfully now even without a cool music loving manager, there are places like Spotify that will guide you! Or expose you to a lot of great music, even searching for “cafe music” there are other people who are making normal playlists full of great music that are a good fit for a cafe.

& HEY! I believe baristas should listen to what they like, within reason.

There are things you want to watch out for making a playlist, like extended periods of silence, super loud harsh passages, or excessive and clear profanity.

Outside of that, just talk to the staff. If you’re an owner, manager, or caring employee you can try to curate a shop playlist with everyone. At my previous job I created a 36 hour playlist with my baristas, by having everyone contribute artists and songs they liked. Then I spent some time skimming songs for stuff that fit. That was overkill.

What I learned was that no matter how long your playlist is, people are still going to complain about hearing one song too many times. Trying to micromanage the music at all times is impossible; So keep that playlist evolving, let people play fun stuff and let Spotify do it’s thing. etc.

What I do now is keep a morning (chill) playlist, and a peak hour / afternoon (more upbeat) playlist that we can refer back to. So most of the time we play whatever, but if something weird comes up and we just need to get good music on fast, we have those playlists to flip on in a hurry.

Here are some album recommendations

Here are ten albums i’ve been listening to recently at the cafe, that are pretty safe to play aloud front to back. If you need something new to listen to : )

If these are too chill and you want something louder weirder etc, check out Parannoul (loud new shoegaze), or Pink Pantheress (soft fast drumn’bass)

The Universe Smiles Upon You - Khrouangbin (quiet jazz)

One Hundred Mornings - Windows 96 (vaporwave)

Falling into Place - Home (slightly more upbeat fun vaporwave)

Priorities - Project Pablo (house)

WHO CARES? - Rex Orange County (angsty soft boy pop)

No Dogs Allowed - Sidney Gish (angsty soft girl pop)

Summer’s Over - Jordana / tv girl (weird duet pop)

Lotta Sea Lice - Courtney Barnett / kurt Vile (weird duet folk)

Things Take Time, Take Time - Courtney Barnett (chill new folk)

effloresce - Covet (math rock)

Thanks for reading! Have a great week!