This perhaps should go under the grumpy thread? 
This hasn't happened to me today but it just crossed my mind and perhaps if enough people do this they might get the message.

Next time you are in a shop and they are playing "music" loudly, purposefully start a conversation with the person behind the till but only mouth the words

When eventually you actually say something audible, say something like "well perhaps if you didn't have this noise playing then you may have been able to hear me properly"

Pay for goods and exit, grinning evilly.

Complaining works.  I complained regularly about the muzak in my local supermarket.  By the end of the July they did finally take off the tape of "Hark, The Herald Angels Sing" and "In Dulci Jubilo".

I'd agree with that, GG.  When I was 15 I did a week's work experience in my local branch of a high-street fashion chain.  It was December and by the time I finished I never wanted to hear most of the "Christmas classics" ever again.  Fortunately it was all pop, so I didn't actually have any of my favourite carols ruined forever.

On Oxford Street, the basement level of House of Fraser is the "young fashion" department.  It has its own entrance from street level, from which LOUD music blares.  Perhaps it is to sort out the clientele, in the hope that anybody not young and trendy enough to put up with the music isn't young and trendy enough to come in and buy things (well, I'd go along with that!).  Perhaps, indeed, it is the reverse version of those sound installations where classical music is played at loitering/graffiti hotspots in an attempt to deter the local ASBO-wannabes.

Oh yes, GG: some organisations pay a good deal of money to have the music in their stores carefully profiled to fit the circumstances. At one point the mob with whom I am still occasionally associated had a system which started off with bright pop in the early morning, changed to mellow and light classics during the hectic period around lunch, and then moved towards more driving stuff towards the end of the day when people were flagging. It worked very well, but was considered too costly: each store had a DVD of mp3s, which were changed monthly, so that in any one week, let alone a day, it was unlikely that anything would come round more than once or twice. Now there's a cheaper system which repeats rather more often. Were such music to stop altogether, of course, it would have a considerable effect on the funds of the Performing Rights Society.

Hah.  I misread that first as "choral christmas cards".  Not MUCH better on re-reading, however.

One of my favourite shopping moments was while killing time early one morining in the souvenir shop outside Waverly station in Edinburgh. There were two young members of staff on duty: a man who appeared to be Polish and a woman who I think was Romanian. They were comparing experiences about being a migrant worker in a Scottish tourist shop.

Suddenly the woman dashed behind the counter saying, "oh no, we haven't put on the CD!", eliciting groans and much face-pulling from the man. Sure enough, the pipe-and-drum band started up...... at which they grabbed each other by the arms and treated the entire shop (which would be just me and a couple of Japanese girls) to a display of "traditional" Scottish-Polish-Romanian dancing. I laughed so much I nearly missed my train, and if they'd put a hat down I'd have chucked all my Scottish pound notes in it

I'm still not sure if the Japanese girls realised they weren't Scottish and weren't really part of the scheduled tourist entertainment