Muji's background music

Muji sells high quality generic products at inexpensive prices; think Ikea with better taste and a Japanese flavor of minimalism. This is its background music. Bruce Sterling: "More starkly minimal than the muzak from lesser outlets of capitalism."

• [I dream lo-tech]

  Muji is the coolest. I’ve been to two stores so far. I wish we had one here in Chicago. 

  • [Anthony]

    Everyone knows Muji is owned by Wal-Mart right?

• [Peter Hollo]

  I can’t help wondering where this is sourced from. I know it was blogged by Chairman Bruce, but there’s nothing on the SoundCloud page/account suggesting it’s genuine.
  That said, I could totally believe it IS. And MUJI is indeed the coolest, at least in Japan.

  • [I dream lo-tech]

    … and in Singapore, Hongkong, Manila, Bangkok, Seoul, Taipei, etc.

  • [penguinchris]

    Indeed it is sorta believable, but then it’s also a bit too Muzak-y, and not necessarily ‘more starkly minimal’ than others (though it’s good quality, relatively). If you watch the videos on Muji’s website you’ll hear some fantastic ambient-ish music that is a lot higher quality than this.

    But all the times I’ve been in Muji stores – mostly in NYC but also in Bangkok – I honestly can’t recall if there even was any background music playing. Some of this is corny enough that I think I might notice, but then maybe the whole point is that you’re not supposed to notice it (which goes along with their aesthetic in general). 

    OK – I skimmed through disc 3 (tracks 14-23) and those I can definitely believe.

    Oh, and Muji may have ‘inexpensive prices’ but that doesn’t mean that you will be able to resist spending way too much money when you go there :)

• [Ross Velazquez]

  These are indeed authentic. They’re from a 3 disc collection called BGM 1980-2000.

  Muji has also released a series of BGM albums collecting music from various regions around the world. They’re a little hard to find but most Muji stores will have at least a few lying around.

  http://www.muji.us/store/catalogsearch/result/?q=bgm

• [caipirina]

  I love Muji stuff. My problem is that at 6’2″ even their XL stuff is not big enough for me.

  Now, how do I download this stuff ?? :D 

• [αlexander]

  Vangelis/Eno lovechild, get in my ears!

• [Paolo Zago]

  I have to redefine the concept of “inexpensive price”, at least for Muji in Italy ;D

  • [caipirina]

    Agreed! Our Muji in Torino is just silly .. they leave the original Japanese price tags on, so it is very easy to see that the € price is nearly double compared to the Yen price.

    • [Wisco]

      Yeah, most of their products seem ridiculously overpriced in New York as well, given their Cromwellian greige flavor — I’m not that sure the products *are* in better taste that Ikea. But the music’s nice!

  • [guanto]

    Like many stores in Japan, Mujirushi (“Muji”) gives you a choice of cheap Chinese-made or expensive Japanese. They have really cheap, crappy, barely usable stuff and products of excellent quality.

    I do like their color range though: roughly from light brown to dark brown. But in a good way, looks really cool.

    Sadly my Muji slippers didn’t quite make the jump back to Europe, they were the best slippers I ever had!

• [EH]

  What are the chances of Boing Boing incorporating non-blocking javascript techniques so that page loads don’t freeze?

  • [EH]

    Nevermind. I just found out that AdBlock on Chrome sucks.

• [blackbooks]

  I am addicted to their pens, love the .38 gel ones. They ended the line of notebooks I liked though…

• [strangefriend]

  All I’m seeing is a gray box.  

• [ehuelga]

  Music for Japanese Airports

• [bluest_one]

  All I know is that I want to show this some dirty, copyright-disrespectin’ love.

• [Fiz Wahid]

  Having worked as a part-timer in Singapore’s Muji, I can say that they don’t play the music we’re listening to here. More like generic French, Celtic, Italian muzak. Which is a shame, I like these better. Or was I so hammered by 10 hour shifts full of happy Celtic flutes that I couldn’t stand it anymore and this is a nice change of scenery?

• [Calton Bolick]

  I dunno, I’m a long-time Muji shopper here in Tokyo, and I didn’t recognize any of the samples I listened to. The Yurakucho store a while ago had a big display, with listening stations, of a bunch of Muji BGM CDs, and somewhat like Fiz Wahid says above, they were specifically identified as Celtic, French, etc., but it wouldn’t call it Muzak.

• [Ant]

  Is it me or is this video not working?