MediaFile

Here’s a post from our San Francisco reporter Clare Baldwin:

Radio listeners are brooding as the world economy continues to falter, and American Public Media is rewriting its music to improve the mood.

Marketplace, American Public Media’s daily business and economics show, has rescored the music that accompanies “The Numbers” section of the program, which ticks off the ups and downs of the stock market.

The show plays “We’re in the Money” when the market is up and “Stormy Weather” when the market is down.

But there have been complaints that the Depression-era “We’re in the Money” is too upbeat a soundtrack to accompany the figures that signal disaster for so many investors.

In response, Marketplace commissioned Los Angeles-based composer Joe Matzzie to write a “more melancholy version of this ‘happy music’ in response to the historic drops in the markets and the current Great Recession.”

The new, slower music features a muted trumpet instead of a jazzy piano, and is meant to better reflect the macro economic situation.

“It’s still the ‘We’re in the Money’ song that reflects the fact that the markets went up, but it’s just a little bit less happy than the original song, because still, investors are feeling a pinch with the economy,” APM spokesman Brad Robideau said.