Music for visitors

Music when you have people over is its own brief. It has to fill the room without imposing taste, and it has to survive being talked over without sulking about it.

Bad picks: anything that announces itself as a choice. Music with a lyric that someone will half-catch and then have to ask about. Anything that demands you stop and say 'oh, this is X — they're really good' every two minutes. A great album, in the wrong context.

Good picks: instrumental, mid-energy, mood-friendly without being mood-setting. Music that holds the room without commenting on it. Often this is the lo-fi playlist at moderate volume, sometimes wellness if the evening is slow, almost never focus — focus wants you alone.

The dinner itself is its own micro-brief, slightly more present than the music before it and slightly less than the music after. But that's a different note.