Easy listening is a broad style of popular music and radio format that emerged in the 1950s, evolving out of big band music, and related to MOR (middle-of-the-road) music as played on many AM radio stations. It encompasses the exotica, beautiful music, light music, lounge music, ambient music, and space age pop genres. The range of lounge music encompasses soft rock music-influenced instrumentals, modern electronica (with chillout, nu-jazz and downtempo influences), while remaining thematically focused on its retro-space-age cultural elements.

The earliest type lounge music appeared during the 1920s and 1930s, and was known as light music. Contemporaneously, the term ''lounge music'' also denotes the types of music played in hotels (the lounge, the bar), casinos, and piano bars.

It was mostly instrumental music format that was prominent in American radio from the 1960s through the 1980s. ''Lounge music'', ''beautiful music'', and the often derogatory terms ''Muzak'' and ''elevator music'' are other common terms for the format and the style of music that it featured. Beautiful music can also be regarded as a subset of the middle of the road radio format.

Easy listening is broad and may include instrumental arrangements of popular music designed for playing in shopping malls, grocery stores, department stores, telephone systems (while the caller is on hold), cruise ships, airports, doctors' and dentists' offices, and elevators. The term is also frequently applied as a generic (and often derogatory) term for any form of easy listening, smooth jazz, or middle of the road music, or to the type of recordings once commonly heard on "adult contemporary" radio stations.

Easy listening music for malls and elevators is typically set to a very simple melody, so that it can be unobtrusively looped back to the beginning. In a mall or shopping center, elevator music of a specific type has been found to have a psychological effect: slower, more relaxed music tends to make people slow down and browse longer.

A good deal of easy listening music was pure instrumental (i.e., no main vocal part, although there could be minor vocal parts), which was called lounge music. Sometimes, this music would be theme music from movies or TV shows, although such music could be produced independently from other entertainment productions. These instrumentals could be produced with an orchestral arrangement, or from an arrangement of instruments very similar to that found in jazz, or even rock and roll such as the Hammond Organ or electric guitar.

History

The name "Easy Listening" was coined in 1965 by Claude Hall, radio-tv editor of Billboard Magazine to describe the sound of WPIX-FM. The station quickly became the top-rated FM radio station in New York and ranked among the top five of all stations, AM and FM, from 1964 through 1968. The music itself was common prior to the coining of the label; and was the most popular format along with pop vocalists, before the advent of rock and roll.

The original Easy Listening format was emulated by many syndicated programmers and became the most popular format in FM radio nationwide. It later became known as Adult Contemporary, and this signaled an end to the instrumental content of the format. An attempt to revive the original format in the late 1990s was unsuccessful due to problems with delivery. It remains one of the most popular radio formats of all time.

It was initially offered soft and unobtrusive instrumental selections on a very structured schedule with limited commercial interruptions. It often functioned as a free background music service for stores, with commercial breaks consisting only of announcements aimed at shoppers already in the stores. This practice was known as ''storecasting'' and was very common on the FM dial in the 1940s and 1950s.

Popularity

The magazines ''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, 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. Beautiful music is a subset of easy listening music, since, as a radio format, it had rigid standards for instrumentation, ''e.g.'', few or no saxophones, 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.

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 Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Tony Bennett, Dionne Warwick, Astrud Gilberto, Matt Monro 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 any event, these lounge singers, perhaps performing in a hotel or cocktail bar, are usually accompanied by one or two other musicians, and they favor cover songs composed by others, especially pop standards, many deriving from the days of Tin Pan Alley.

Many well known performers got their start as lounge singers and musicians. Although he claims not to have worked for very long, Billy Joel worked as a lounge musician and penned the song "Piano Man" about his experience. Not all lounge singers, however, sing lounge music.

''Lounge'', a more modern term for easy listening, emerged in the late 1980s as a label of endearment by younger fans whose parents had played such music in the 1960s. It has enjoyed resurgences in popularity in the 1980s and 1990s, led initially by ironic figures such as Buster Poindexter and Jaymz Bee.

In the early 1990s the lounge revival was in full swing and included such groups as Combustible Edison, Love Jones, The Cocktails, Pink Martini and Nightcaps. Alternative band Stereolab demonstrated the influence of lounge with releases like ''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.

In the 2000s Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine has added to this resurgence by covering (usually profane) hit songs of other genres (primarily metal and hip hop) in the style of a lounge singer. Other artists have taken lounge music to new heights by recombining rock with pop, such as Jon Brion, The Bird and the Bee, Pink Martini, the ''Buddha-Lounge'' series, and the surrounding regulars of Café Largo.

Instrumental-vocal mix

Most stations adopted a 70-80% instrumental - 20-30% vocal mix, a few offered 90% instrumentals, and a handful were entirely instrumental. Initially, the vocalists consisted of artists such as Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Johnny Mathis, Perry Como, Doris Day, and others. By the 1970s, softer songs by artists like The Carpenters, Anne Murray, John Denver, Barry Manilow, Barbra Streisand, Elton John, Nancy Wilson and others were added to the mix on many stations. Also, some of these stations even played soft songs by artists like Elvis Presley, Beatles, Billy Joel, and other rock-based artists.

All vocals on such stations had to be extremely soft. Therefore, on one hand a song like "She's Out Of My Life" by a non-core artist like Michael Jackson would be heard on some of these stations; similarly, "Crazy for You" or "Live to Tell" by Madonna. On the other hand, even uptempo jazzier songs by standards artists, such as "Detour" by Patti Page, would not be heard on easy listening music stations except during specialty shows.

The custom recordings were usually instrumental versions of current or recent rock and roll or pop hit songs, a move intended to give the stations more mass appeal without selling out, but also disgusted some longtime listeners of the format. Some stations would also occasionally play earlier big band-era recordings from the 1940s and early 1950s.

Many beautiful music stations would air a few Christmas songs. The stations' vocal content would typically increase to about 40 to 60 percent of the playlist during this period, as well. This concept was later borrowed (and expanded upon) by Soft AC, Oldies, and even some country music and Hot AC stations.

The predominantly instrumental-vocal mix is still in use today, mainly by smooth jazz stations.

Notable artists

Easy listening orchestras and conductors

*101 Strings

*Living Strings

*Longines Symphonette

*Midnight string quartet

*San Remo Golden Strings

*Sauter Finnegan Orchestra

*Sounds Orchestral

*The Three Suns

*Andre Kostelanetz

*André Rieu

*Arthur Fiedler

*Arthur Greenslade

*Arthur Lyman

*Art Van Damme

*Bert Kaempfert

*Billy Vaughn

*Burt Bacharach

*Boston Pops

*Caravelli

*Charles Williams

*Danny Davis

*David Rose

*Edmundo Ros

*Enoch Light

*Eric Winstone

*Fausto Papetti

*Franck Pourcel

*Frank Chacksfield

*Frank De Vol

*Geoff Love

*George Melachrino

*Gerhard Narholz

*Helmut Jederknüller

*Henry Mancini

*Hollyridge Strings

*Horst Wende

*Hugo Montenegro

*Hugo Winterhalter

*Jackie Gleason

*James Last

*Johnny Douglas

*John Schroeder

*Juan García Esquivel

*Lawrence Welk

*Leroy Anderson

*Leroy Holmes

*Les Baxter

*Lester Lanin

*Lex de Azevedo

*Mantovani

*Martin Denny

*Nelson Riddle

*Nestor Torres

*Nick Ingman

*Paul Mauriat

*Paul Weston

*Percy Faith

*Raymond Lefevre

*Ray Conniff

*Ray Martin

*Robert Farnon

*Roberto Delgado

*Roland Shaw

*Stanley Black

*Syd Dale

*Ted Heath

*Waldo de los Ríos

*Werner Müller

Easy listening pianists

*Ferrante & Teicher

*Bradley Joseph

*Carl Doy

*Earl Grant

*Eddie Heywood

*Emile Pandolfi

*Fariborz Lachini

*Floyd Cramer

*Frank Mills

*Horst Jankowski

*Jim Brickman

*Joe Harnell

*Johnny Pearson

*Liberace

*Miranda Wong

*Peter Nero

*Raul Di Blasio

*Richard Clayderman

*Roger Williams

*Ronnie Aldrich

*Alberto Semprini

*Peter Duchin

Guitarists with high deployment in easy listening

*Al Caiola

*Chet Atkins

*Earl Klugh

*Francis Goya

*Laurindo Almeida

*Tony Mottola

Other instrumentalists with high deployment in easy listening

*Charles Magnante

*Zamfir

*Herb Alpert

*Hubert Laws

*James Galway

*Jerry Murad

*Jyotsna Srikanth

*Kenny G

Easy listening vocal groups

*Boney M, disco group

*Sérgio Mendes & Brasil '66

*The Anita Kerr Singers

*The Bachelors

*The Cliff Adams Singers

*The Doodletown Pipers

*The Free Design

*The Johnny Mann Singers

*The Lettermen

*The Lighthouse Family

*The Mike Curb Congregation

*The Norman Luboff Choir

*The Puppini Sisters

*Pink Martini

*The Ray Charles Singers

*The Ray Conniff Singers

*The Sandpipers

*The Singers Unlimited

*The Swingle Singers

Vocalists with high deployment in easy listening

*Al Martino

*Andy Williams

*Anne Murray

*Astrud Gilberto

*Dean Martin

*Dionne Warwick

*Ed Ames

*Engelbert Humperdinck

*Eydie Gorme

*Helmut Lotti

*Jack Jones

*James Taylor

*Joe Dolan

*John Gary

*Johnny Mathis

*Kenny Rogers

*Matt Monro

*Perry Como

*Robert Goulet

*Roger Whittaker

*Shirley Bassey

*Steve Lawrence

Vocalists with some deployment in easy listening

*ABBA

*Captain & Tennille

*The Beatles

*The Carpenters

*Andrea Bocelli

*Barbra Streisand

*Barry Manilow

*Bobby Vinton

*Dan Fogelberg

*Daniel O'Donnell

*Dean Martin

*Dido

*Don Ho

*Doris Day

*Elvis Presley (softer selections)

*Gerry Rafferty

*Glen Campbell

*Gordon Lightfoot

*Frank Sinatra

*John Barrowman

*Jerry Vale

*Jimmy Buffett

*John Denver

*Josh Groban

*Martin Nievera

*Michael Bublé

*Nana Mouskouri

*Nat King Cole

*Neil Diamond

*Olivia Newton-John

*Perry Como

*Regine Velasquez

*Sammy Davis Jr.

*Sarah Brightman

*Stephen Bishop

*Tony Bennett

*Vic Damone

See also

New age music

Light music

Ambient music

Exotica

Soft rock

Adult Contemporary

Muzak Holdings

References

Further reading

Lanza, Joseph. (1994). ''Elevator Music: a Surreal History of Muzak, Easy-Listening, and Other Moodsong''. New York: St. Martin's. ISBN 0-312-10540-1.

Category:Radio formats

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