When I was in grade school, a pizza and ice cream restaurant I went to had a jukebox. Back then, it seemed perfectly natural to deposit a quarter, select a song, and have that 45 played to the entire restaurant. My familiarity with jukebox oldies then was confined largely to what I'd heard KXOK play on its "Super Oldies Show" and the handful of tunes I heard on the ostensibly '50s-based "Happy Days" TV show. My choices were typically safe, obvious ones. I can't imagine that anyone in the restaurant thought, "Oh, no! 'Let It Be' by The Beatles? Blech!" Today, however, playing a song on a jukebox would strike me as presumptuous, even if I'd paid to hear it. Thinking that everyone in an establishment should hear the song I picked? Why would I do that, when I could play the song over headphones, just to myself?
Outside of concerts, music is less of a shared experience than it used to be. In some respects, that's not a bad thing.
