As Arthur Schopenhauer has written in his essay on noise, noise can whip the thoughts straight out of your head. He states: "I denounce it as making a peaceful life impossible, it puts an end to all quiet thought."
Sound in general often leaves the mind blank and it is being used deliberately by companies for this very reason. To leave our minds continiously blank, to stop us from being able to start thinking. This is being done for different purposes.
There have been numerous studies done on if it works and, if it does, how it works. Most interesting are the studies done by the company called Muzak. Muzak became commercially big by delivering mind-numbing music for companies who wanted their employees to work harder and complain less.
The Muzak Wikipedia page states: "Muzak began customizing the pace and style of their music throughout the workday in an effort to maintain productivity. The music was programmed in 15-minute blocks, gradually getting faster in tempo, and louder and brassier in instrumentation to encourage workers to speed up their pace."
Music is everywhere. In cars, in homes, in shopping malls and even at the dentist. According to research, unobtrusive music selected by store managers, business managers, and companies like Muzak can affect a person's thoughts and actions without the person even knowing it.
This is evidence that stimuli below the threshold of the conscious mind can influence thoughts, feelings and actions. People are not consciously recognizing that they are being manipulated by music when it is occurring.
Music is used in workplaces, so people will work harder and complain less, and in stores, so people will think less about how much money they are spending and have them spend even more.
Every time there is a long waiting line somewhere they use music to calm the waiting people down. Music is not only being used to make our minds temporarely empty, they use it to make us docile.