11 Recordings of Terrible Hold Music

I know what you're thinking: What hold music isn't terrible? When I discovered the voice recorder app on my iPhone, I immediately started recording bad hold music whenever I was forced to wait for a real person to help me. Clearly, I spend a lot of my life on hold, as this short list represents only half the total I recorded over the course of the last year. What follows is the best, er, worst 11 of the lot. I've purposely kept the names of the companies who use these recordings out of the post to protect their anonymity. 

After you've listened to them all, tell us in the comments which is your favorite (wait, or would that be least favorite?). 1. My call was "first in line" for, ohhhh, maybe about 20 minutes. That annoying synth string orchestra did me in by minute 2! A power drill is more pleasing to the ear.



2. Am I the only person here who is reminded of some other kind of music with this one?



3. There’s nothing worse with hold music than bad loops. This is the worst one I’ve ever recorded.



4. Good thing that guy keeps coming back on the line, otherwise this one would have surely put me to sleep.



5. This is only going to bother the musicians out there, I’m sure. Get a load of this sudden modulation out of nowhere and to what key? I had to cut off the recording abruptly to protect the company’s anonymity, sorry! It just keeps modulating, trust me.



6. Many of you might recognize this offender. It’s a lulu!



7. Another really sorry loop… made worse by having to hear that honkey-tonk horn over and over again.



8. I’ll keep this one short; otherwise you might go looking for a large mallet to knock yourself out with.



9. I used to enjoy Vivaldi’s Four Seasons… that is, until I had to listen to this little portion of the Autumn movement for—ready for this?—34 ½ straight minutes!! Verily, I say unto thee.



10. Not sure who you should feel more sorry for: me, or the poor sap who had to write this ditty.



11. Seemed fitting to end with what sounds to me like something John Williams threw in his garbage can while working on Indiana Jones.



So let’s have a vote: In your opinion, which is the worst piece of hold music on the list? Photo: viciousmomma.blogspot.com

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#3 made me want to shove an auger through my ears and hit the Go Button. #4 actually wasn't too bad. Speaking of number 4 - I found two names and a song title attached to it: Darrick A. Deel and Tim Carleton - Opus Number 1. They were the two engineers that worked on the Unified CallManager project.

Here's a directory with various wavs of the song in it: http://www.digitalnrg.com/dnrgftp/MOH/

The first, third, and fourth sound the same to me with the last one sounding a bit... "higher fidelity." *snrk* I couldn't be arsed to mess with the second file.

Here's a YouTube link if you wanna terrorize/please your friends: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5ZvUYhIeoQ

Cheers!
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Carson, Brandi, Vampiress, and Aerik:

You all mentioned #4. It reminds me of flying over the coast of a caribbean island with the blue water below the plane!

Could one of you PLEASE research the Title/Artist of that hold loop?

For some strange reason I really dig it and would appreciate having the full-fidelity in my collection!

Thanks on behalf of myself and Dday!
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Where can I download #4?? I have a customer at work that loves that song (not sure why) and it would be awesome if I could get it to him for a ringtone. Any ideas? I've scoured the internet and cannot find it and my internal phone guys are no help.
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