The old sounds of money were so pleasing they could fill a symphony, or a psychedelic blues song. From the cha-ching of old timey cash drawers to the bling-bling of the petrodollar, money used to spread euphony like disease. Cash registers rang like slot machines and everyone had dollar-signs in their eyes. It’s enough to make you nostalgic for the Reagan era when money would trickle down like rain. Cash was king, and coins his jingly jester.
Today, in our cashless society, where money is non-physical, there is a sonic need for some kind of signal to let the customer know they are actually spending real fiat currency. What sound does crypto make? Or NFTs? Even GIFs can have sound. You’d hope Bitcoins would klup like in Super Mario. But it’s all silent, and silence is sleazy.
Boomer credit card machines were nothing special, but they did make a satisfying noise, if they didn’t slice your fingers off in the process.
The sound of an imprinter is intuitive: it chomps and devours your bank account.
Sometime in the nebulous 2000s, the ruling-class banksters once again turned to classical melodists for real-life foley. Behold and hearken, the Verifone melody:
This melody asks a question. Are you happy with your purchase? Would you like to buy more? Is corporate-branding an adequate substitute for your true spirit-self?
The Verifone melody is one of the most popular sounds in the world, heard millions of times a day, much more than Westminster Quarters. Shopaholics hear this Pavlovian chime and salivate. Of course, it’s in the universally pleasing key of C. Although no C is sounded in the above melody, it is implicitly there. Perhaps you are the C, gentle consumer. With every sale and dopamine hit, the consumer is ever seeking more melodic transactions to resolve their atonal insatiability.
Don’t forget: Usury is a sin! It’s one of the first things God banned after murder and pagan key-parties.
