Easy listening: Difference between revisions

'''Easy listening''' (including '''mood music'''<ref name="musiker">{{cite book|last1=Musiker|first1=Naomi|last2=Musiker|first2=Reuben|title=Conductors and Composers of Popular Orchestral Music: A Biographical and Discographical Sourcebook|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ipnrAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT16 |year=2014|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-135-91770-8|page=16|quote=Mood music has come to be known as easy-listening music; however ... in the strict sense of the term, mood music means background music written for radio and television programs (including 'commercials'), as well as feature, documentary and newsreel films.}}</ref>) is a [[popular music]] genre<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011g614|title = BBC Four - the Joy of Easy Listening}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.liveabout.com/easy-listening-genre-overview-2522405|title=What is Easy Listening Music?}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.allmusic.com/genre/easy-listening-ma0000002567|title = Easy Listening Music Genre Overview|website = [[AllMusic]]}}</ref> and radio format that was most popular during the 1950s to 1970s.<ref name="lanza">{{cite book|ref={{SfnRef|Lanza et al.|2008}}|last=Lanza|first=Joseph|editor-first=Paul D.|editor-last=Miller|editor-link=DJ Spooky|year=2008|place=Cambridge, Massachusetts|publisher=[[MIT Press]]|title=Sound Unbound: Sampling Digital Music and Culture|chapter=Chapter 16: Zing! Went the Strings|isbn=978-0-262-63363-5|page=161|chapter-url=https://wwwbooks.google.com/books/edition/Sound_Unbound/9vvapHTNuqwC?hlid=en&gbpv=19vvapHTNuqwC&pg=PA161}}</ref> It is related to [[Middle of the road (music)|middle-of-the-road]] (MOR) music<ref name="keightley">{{cite book|last=Keightley|first=Keir|chapter=Easy-Listening|editor-last1=Shepherd|editor-first1=John|editor-last2=Horn|editor-first2=David|title=Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World Volume 8: Genres: North America|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=__DTvryrBZkC&pg=PA192|date=2012|publisher=A&C Black|isbn=978-1-4411-4874-2|page=192}}</ref> and encompasses [[instrumental]] recordings of [[Standard (music)|standards]], [[hit song]]s, non-[[Rock music|rock]] vocals and instrumental covers of selected popular rock songs. It mostly concentrates on music that pre-dates the [[rock and roll]] era, characteristically on music from the 1940s and 1950s. It was differentiated from the mostly instrumental [[beautiful music]] format by its variety of styles, including a percentage of vocals, [[arrangement]]s and [[tempo]]s to fit various parts of the broadcast day.

{{moreMore citations needed section|date=June 2016}}

The magazines ''[[Billboard (magazine)|Billboard]]'' and ''[[Record World]]'' featured easy listening singles in independently audited record charts. Generally 40 positions in length, they charted airplay on stations such as [[WNEW-FM]], New York City, WWEZ, Cincinnati, and [[KMPC]], Los Angeles. ''Record World'' began their listings January 29, 1967, and ended these charts in the early 1970s. ''Billboard''{{'}}s Easy Listening chart morphed into the [[Adult Contemporary (chart)|Adult Contemporary chart]] in 1979, and continues to this day.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Hyatt|first1=Wesley|title=The Billboard Book of Number One Adult Contemporary Hits.|date=1999|publisher=Billboard Books|location=New York City|isbn=978-0-823-07693-2}}</ref>

During the format's heyday in the 1960s, it was not at all uncommon for easy listening instrumental singles to reach the top of the charts on the [[Billboard Hot 100|''Billboard'' Hot 100]] (and stay there for several weeks).<ref>{{Cite magazine|url=https://www.billboard.com/artist/walter-wanderley/chart-history/hsi/|title=Walter Wanderley Summer Samba (So Nice) Chart History|magazine=Billboard|access-date=2017-12-December 16, 2017}}</ref>

Beautiful music, which grew up alongside easy listening music, had rigid standards for instrumentation, ''e.g.'', few or no [[saxophone]]s (at the time, the saxophone was associated with less refined styles such as jazz and [[rock and roll]], although [[Billy Vaughn]] was an exception to the rule), and restrictions on how many vocal pieces could be played in an hour. The easy listening radio format has been generally, but not completely, superseded by the [[soft adult contemporary]] format.<ref name="formatguide">[http://www.nyradioguide.com/formats.htm#liteac Radio Station Format Guide] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060327164156/http://www.nyradioguide.com/formats.htm |date=2006-03-March 27, 2006 }}</ref>

Easy listening/lounge singers have a lengthy history stretching back to the decades of the early twentieth century. Easy listening music featured popular vocalists such as [[Frank Sinatra]], [[Bing Crosby]], [[Dean Martin]], [[Patti Page]], [[Tony Bennett]], [[Nat King Cole]], [[Rosemary Clooney]], [[Doris Day]], [[Perry Como]], [[Engelbert Humperdinck (singer)|Engelbert Humperdinck]], [[The Carpenters]], [[The Mills Brothers]], [[The Ink Spots]], [[Julie London]], and many others. The somewhat derisive term lounge lizard was coined then, and less well -known lounge singers have often been ridiculed as dinosaurs of past eras<ref>{{Cite news

| url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,958377,00.html

}}</ref> and parodied for their smarmy delivery of standards.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://archive.salon.com/people/bc/2001/02/06/murray/index1.html|title=Bill Murray|author=Sean Elder|work=[[Salon.com]]|access-date=2008-01-January 18, 2008|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080112153311/http://archive.salon.com/people/bc/2001/02/06/murray/index1.html|archive-date=2008-01-January 12, 2008}}</ref>

In the early 1990s the lounge revival was in full swing and included such groups as [[Combustible Edison]], [[Love Jones (band)|Love Jones]], The Cocktails, [[Pink Martini]] and [[The Nightcaps (Seattle band)|Nightcaps]]. Alternative band [[Stereolab]] demonstrated the influence of lounge with releases likesuch as ''[[Space Age Bachelor Pad Music]]'' and the [[Ultra-Lounge]] series of lounge music albums. The lounge style was a direct contradiction to the [[grunge]] music that dominated the period.<ref>{{cite news|title= Review/Fashion; Chic Prevails Over Grunge|author=Spindler, Amy M. |work=The New York Times |date=March 7, 1995|access-date=2007-12-December 12, 2007 |url=https://querywww.nytimes.com/gst1995/fullpage03/07/style/review-fashion-chic-prevails-over-grunge.html?res=990CE1DE133FF934A35750C0A963958260}}</ref><ref>{{cite newsmagazine |title= Ring-A-Ding Ding |author= Lacayo, Richard |publishermagazine= Time |date= May 25, 1998 |access-date=2008-01-January 17, 2008 |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,988394,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080203123148/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,988394,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=February 3, 2008}}</ref>

* [[ElevatorSoft musicrock]]

* [[MuzakBackground music]]

* [[SchlagerElevator music]]

* [[Smooth jazzSchlager]]

* [[Soft rockjazz]]

== References ==

== BibliographyFurther reading ==

* Borgerson, Janet and Jonathan Schroeder (2017). ''Designed for Hi-Fi Living: The Vinyl LP in Midcentury America.'' [https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/designed-hi-fi-living Cambridge, MassachusettsMass.: MIT Press]. {{ISBN|978-0-2620-3623-8}}.