Tube Classical Music Trials

TfL have re-started trials of playing classical music on the London Underground in an effort to soothe stressful journeys and ultimately cut crime. However, the canned music doesn't seem to be going down well with residents of Camden Town, who are more used to the Nutty Boys than The Nutcracker. A newspaper vendor poses outside the Tube station with his hands over his ears.


Nigel Rodgers who set up a campaign to can canned music called Pipedown, believes the scheme isn't going to work. He began the campaign after a similar trial was launched in Piccadilly Circus Tube 15 years ago.

He said "Piped music mutilates anything it plays. They play it through a PA system designed for the human voice and it's meant to be acoustic Prozac. Frankly, it always sounds horrible. The answer is to try and fix the many problems with the Underground rather than try and make people numb to them by playing music. It is an abuse of people's freedom to get around without being pacified. What is wrong with having buskers?"

Thanks to Jon Justice, who sent me a picture of Camden New Journal who also aren't wild about the music. They suggest that tunes with more local relevance could have been chosen. Obviously there's Madness's Camden Town. "Belle and Sebastian's 'Mornington Crescent' might be confusing, while The Clash recorded 'London Calling' in Camden Town, and their song 'The Prisoner' is about the area. Even Mancunian miserabilist Morrisey got in on the act: he wrote 'Come Back to Camden'.

What do you reckon? Should we have classical music piped through stations to keep us pacified? What about having tunes which match the station or the local?