Easy listening (including mood music) is a

popular music Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fun ...

genre and radio format that was most popular during the 1950s to the 1970s. It is related to middle of the road (MOR) music and encompasses

instrumental An instrumental or instrumental song is music without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through Semantic change, semantic widening, a broader sense of the word s ...

recordings of

standards Standard may refer to: Symbols * Colours, standards and guidons, kinds of military signs * Standard (emblem), a type of a large symbol or emblem used for identification Norms, conventions or requirements * Standard (metrology), an object t ...

hit song A hit song, also known as a hit record, hit single, or simply hit, is a recorded song or instrumental that becomes broadly popular or well-known. Although ''hit song'' means any widely played or big-selling song, the specific term ''hit record'' ...

s, non-

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wale ...

vocals and instrumental covers of selected popular rock songs. It mostly concentrates on music that pre-dates the

rock and roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock-n-roll, and rock 'n' roll) is a Genre (music), genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It Origins of rock and roll, originated from African ...

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 In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orchestr ...

s and

tempo In musical terminology, tempo (Italian for 'time'; plural 'tempos', or from the Italian plural), measured in beats per minute, is the speed or pace of a given musical composition, composition, and is often also an indication of the composition ...

s to fit various parts of the broadcast day. Easy listening music is often confused with

lounge music Lounge music is a type of easy listening music popular in the 1950s and 1960s. It may be meant to evoke in the listeners the feeling of being in a place, usually with a tranquil theme, such as a jungle, an island paradise or outer space. The ra ...

, but while it was popular in some of the same venues it was meant to be listened to for enjoyment rather than as background sound.

History

The style has been synonymous with the tag "with strings". String instruments had been used in sweet bands in the 1930s and was the dominant soundtrack to movies of Hollywood's Golden Age. In the 1940s and 1950s strings had been used in

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

and

contexts. As examples in the jazz genre, there are recordings of

Frank Sinatra Francis Albert Sinatra (; December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor. Honorific nicknames in popular music, Nicknamed the "Chairman of the Board" and "Ol' Blue Eyes", he is regarded as one of the Time 100: The Most I ...

. Another example of a practitioner in the popular context was

Dinah Washington Dinah Washington (; born Ruth Lee Jones; August 29, 1924 – December 14, 1963) was an American singer and pianist, one of the most popular black female recording artists of the 1950s. Primarily a jazz vocalist, she performed and recorded in a ...

's "What a Difference a Day Makes". In the 1950s the use of strings quickly became a main feature of the developing easy listening genre.

Jackie Gleason Herbert John Gleason (born Herbert Walton Gleason Jr.; February 26, 1916June 24, 1987), known as Jackie Gleason, was an American comedian, actor, writer, and composer also known as "The Great One". He developed a style and characters from growin ...

, whose first ten albums went gold, expressed the goal of producing "musical wallpaper that should never be intrusive, but conducive". Similarly, in 1956 John Serry Sr. sought to utilize the accordion within the context of a jazz sextet in order to create a soothing mood ideally suited for "low pressure" listening on his album '' Squeeze Play''.

Reception

The magazines ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertis ...

'' and ''

Record World ''Record World'' magazine was one of three major weekly music industry trade magazines in the United States, with ''Billboard'' and '' Cashbox''. It was founded in 1946 as ''Music Vendor''. In 1964, it was changed to ''Record World'' under the ...

'' featured easy listening singles in independently audited record charts. Generally 40 positions in length, they charted airplay on stations such as

WNEW-FM WNEW-FM (102.7 FM broadcasting, FM, ''NEW 102.7'') is a hot adult contemporary-Radio format, formatted radio station, City of license, licensed to New York, New York and owned by Audacy, Inc. The station's studios are located at the Audacy faci ...

, 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 in 1979, and continues to this day. 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 (and stay there for several weeks). Beautiful music, which grew up alongside easy listening music, had rigid standards for instrumentation, e.g., few or no

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to p ...

s (at the time, the saxophone was associated with less refined styles such as jazz and

, although

Billy Vaughn William Vaughn, popularly known as Billy Vaughn (born Richard Smith Vaughn, April 12, 1919 – September 26, 1991) was an American musician, singer, multi-instrumentalist, orchestra leader, and A&R man for Dot Records. Biography Vaughn was bor ...

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 Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the 1980s to the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul ...

format. According to the ''Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World'', "The public prominence and profitability of easy listening n the postwar yearsled to its close association with the so-called ' Establishment' that would eventually be demonized by the rock

counterculture A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Ho ...

." In '' Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies'' (1981), rock critic

Robert Christgau Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and later became a ...

said "semiclassical music is a systematic dilution of highbrow preferences".

Easy listening singers

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

Bing Crosby Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby Jr. (May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977) was an American singer, comedian, entertainer and actor. The first multimedia star, he was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century worldwi ...

Dean Martin Dean Martin (born Dino Paul Crocetti; June 7, 1917 – December 25, 1995) was an American singer, actor, and comedian. Nicknamed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, King of Cool", he is regarded as one of the most popular entertainers of ...

Patti Page Clara Ann Fowler (November 8, 1927 – January 1, 2013), better known by her stage name Patti Page, was an American singer. Primarily known for Pop music, pop and Country music, country music, she was the top-charting female vocalist and b ...

Tony Bennett Anthony Dominick Benedetto (August 3, 1926 – July 21, 2023), known professionally as Tony Bennett, was an American jazz and traditional pop singer. He received many accolades, including 20 Grammy Awards, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, ...

Nat King Cole Nathaniel Adams Coles (March 17, 1919 – February 15, 1965), known professionally as Nat King Cole, alternatively billed as Nat "King" Cole, was an American singer, jazz pianist, and actor. Cole's career as a jazz and Traditional pop, pop ...

Rosemary Clooney Rosemary Clooney (May 23, 1928 – June 29, 2002) was an American singer and actress. She came to prominence in the early 1950s with the song "Come On-a My House", which was followed by other pop numbers such as "Botch-a-Me (Ba-Ba-Baciami Piccin ...

Doris Day Doris Day (born Doris Mary Kappelhoff; April 3, 1922 – May 13, 2019) was an American actress and singer. She began her career as a big band singer in 1937, achieving commercial success in 1945 with two No. 1 recordings, "Sentimental Journey ...

Perry Como Pierino Ronald "Perry" Como (; May 18, 1912 – May 12, 2001) was an American singer, actor, and television personality. During a career spanning more than half a century, he recorded exclusively for RCA Victor for 44 years, from 1943 until 1987 ...

, Engelbert Humperdinck,

The Carpenters The Carpenters were an American vocal and instrumental duo consisting of siblings Karen Carpenter, Karen (1950–1983) and Richard Carpenter (musician), Richard Carpenter (born 1946). They produced a distinctive soft musical style, combining ...

The Mills Brothers The Mills Brothers, sometimes billed The Four Mills Brothers and originally known as Four Boys and a Guitar, were an American jazz and traditional pop vocal quartet who made more than 2,000 recordings that sold more than 50 million copies and g ...

The Ink Spots The Ink Spots were an American vocal pop group who gained international fame in the 1930s and 1940s. Their unique musical style predated the rhythm and blues and rock and roll musical genres, and the subgenre doo-wop. The Ink Spots were widely ...

Julie London Julie London (born Julie Peck; September 26, 1926 – October 18, 2000) was an American singer and actress whose career spanned more than 40 years. A torch song, torch singer noted for her contralto voice, London recorded over thirty album ...

, 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 and parodied for their smarmy delivery of standards. In the early 1990s the lounge revival was in full swing and included such groups as Combustible Edison, Love Jones, The Cocktails,

Pink Martini Pink Martini is an American band founded in 1994 by pianist Thomas Lauderdale in Portland, Oregon. Group members call it a little orchestra that crosses several styles, such as Classical music, classical, Latin music, Latin, traditional pop, and ...

and Nightcaps. Alternative band

Stereolab Stereolab are an English people, Anglo-French avant-pop band formed in London in 1990. Led by the songwriting team of Tim Gane and Lætitia Sadier, the group's sound incorporates repetitive motorik beats with the use of vintage electronic keybo ...

demonstrated the influence of lounge with releases such as '' Space Age Bachelor Pad Music'' and the

Ultra-Lounge ''Ultra-Lounge'' is a series of compilation CDs released by Capitol Records, featuring music predominantly from the 1950s and 1960s in genres such as exotica, space age pop, mambo, television theme songs, and lounge. Many of the volumes have sin ...

series of lounge music albums. The lounge style was a direct contradiction to the

grunge Grunge (sometimes referred to as the Seattle sound) is an alternative rock Music genre, genre and subculture that emerged during the in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington, particularly in Seattle and Music of Olympia, Washington, O ...

music that dominated the period.

History

Reception

Easy listening singers

See also

References

Further reading