Well, when I left England, there wasn't any 'automatic music' at all..! And over here in my part of the world, there's only a tiny handful playing arrangers or doing full sequenced solo gigs on keyboards. Now, back in the 80's (maybe early 90's) the solo synth player/singer did very well, but that reflected current pop music (your Thomas Dolby's and Howard Jones's, Human League, etc.), but around here nowadays, that vast majority of solo acts are acoustic guitarists doing the singer/songwriter book, etc..

In truth, what you read about here at SZ as far as gigging tends to be primarily Nursing Home entertainment, then the remainder is mostly restaurant background/foreground music, and represents only a TINY fraction of whatever 'live' music is going on in any area. The 'punters' are just as discerning over here, trust me!

The vast majority of my playing work comes from live bands, with only a minority being duo or solo work. Our 'scenes' aren't as different as you might think, with the exception of the 'working men's clubs', although I think outside my vacation destination area (on the Gulf Coast of Florida), in more working class areas, similar kinds of functions exist.

You get a very skewed picture of club entertainment in America if you only read this forum!