Seeburg 1000 - Los Angeles, CA

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If you prefer hearing music that was played 'live' by musicians instead of coming from a sampler or synth, the Seeburg 1000 station will definitely appeal! The music comes from the ten-inch, 16 rpm 'background music' discs and machines which Seeburg rented out in the USA to companies (and possibly to individuals?) from the late 1950s until the mid-1980s. The '1000' name derives from the machines — effectively, specialised jukeboxes — each containing 25 double-sided discs, with each disc containing twenty selections per side: hence, 1,000 selections in total wthin the machine. Seeburg would send new discs on a regular basis, and subscribers returned the specified 'old' discs. Some people did not bother to return the 'old' discs, which is why some are still in private hands today. The music is almost completely instrumental, though Seeburg did include a few vocal selections on the earliest discs. Presumably it was decided fairly quickly thereafter to stick purely to instrumental selections. Yes, some of the music arrangements are 'odd,' like "Feed The Birds" (from the Mary Poppins movie) played in Tijuana style (?!). And yes, there do seem to be a disproportionately large number of Tijuana-style selections in the library in general

Jan. 22, 2023, 1:10 p.m. GMT