Soberboy has curated music for five-star hotels and restaurants alongside his club work, and he is unusually blunt about how most venues handle it. I asked him why he keeps comparing a playlist to a plate of food.
Why the food comparison?
Because in a fine dining room, nothing reaches a guest by accident. The ingredients are chosen, the plate is composed, the timing is decided, and somebody tastes it before it leaves the pass. Music is served to exactly the same guest, for exactly as long as the meal lasts, and in most places nobody has tasted it. Somebody pressed play on a playlist they found, and that is the room’s sound for the whole evening.
If you would not serve a dish you had never tried, you should not serve music you have never sat through.
What does quality mean in this context? A playlist is a playlist.
It is not. There is a real difference between tracks that are mixed and mastered well and tracks that are not, and it is more obvious in a quiet room than in a club. Harsh top end makes people tense without their knowing why. Muddy low end makes conversation an effort, and guests who find conversation difficult ask for the bill. Sudden jumps in loudness between tracks make the room feel unmanaged.
Then there is the material itself. The version matters. A radio edit with a vocal shouting over the top belongs to a different kind of business. An extended instrumental with room to breathe lets people talk over it and still feel carried by it.
How closely should the music follow the concept?
Completely. The music is part of the concept, not decoration applied afterwards. A Japanese room with a smoky, minimal identity should not be playing the same set as a Mediterranean terrace at sunset. The lighting, the plates, the uniforms and the sound should all be describing one idea, and a guest should be able to feel that idea without anybody explaining it.
When the music contradicts the concept, guests do not usually complain. They simply do not come back, and nobody ever finds out why.
You have said the chef and the DJ are on the same journey. What does that mean in practice?
A menu has a shape. Something light to open, then it builds, then a peak, then something that lets you sit back. Service has a shape too — arrival, the room filling, the middle of service, the drift into drinks and the end of the night. The music has to move with that.
Early on you are setting a mood and getting people comfortable. As the room fills you lift the energy slowly so the noise of a full room feels intentional rather than chaotic. Later, once the plates have gone, you can open it up and let the evening turn into something else. If the music is doing one thing all night, it is fighting the kitchen instead of working with it.
How do you lift the mood without turning a restaurant into a club?
By raising energy through groove rather than through volume. You can make a room feel alive with a firmer rhythm, warmer bass and more movement while the level barely changes. The mistake is reaching for the volume knob, which just makes everyone shout and shortens the evening.
You also need to keep some mystery. Guests should not be able to name every track. The moment a room recognises the playlist, the atmosphere stops being the venue’s and starts being generic. Familiar enough to feel comfortable, unfamiliar enough to feel like somewhere — that is the balance.
What are the most common mistakes you see?
Letting staff control it, so the sound changes personality with every shift. Streaming a free service that inserts ads and shuffles into something that does not belong. Using one playlist from open to close. Playing chart records with explicit lyrics in a room full of families. And ignoring the hardware — beautiful curation played through two small speakers above the bar leaves half the room in silence and the other half deafened.
What should a venue owner do first?
Sit in your own room for a full service and listen instead of eating. Notice when the sound stops matching what is happening. Then decide what the room is supposed to feel like at seven, at nine and at eleven, and build three sets rather than one. That alone puts you ahead of most places.
And when is it worth bringing somebody in?
When the room is the product — when people are choosing you for the evening rather than only for the food. At that point the music is worth the same care as the menu, and it should be built by somebody who does this for a living, refreshed regularly, and handed over in a way your team cannot accidentally break.
