The last time an easy listening record hit the pop music top 40?

In New York, there was at least one FM "Beautiful Music" station. I guess Mantovani would be most indicative of the sound of these stations. Very slow tempos, minimal rhythmic thrust, lots of strings, not very adventurous harmonies or chord voicings. There would also be what might generally be called "easy listening" stations that leaned more to the standards side of the spectrum, featuring both vocals and instrumentals, and music with more of an overall jazz bent, while not being jazz stations per se.

By the 70s, all of these artists would be lumped together in the "easy listening" sections of record stores. It always kind of amazed me that you could file something as adventurous as Les Baxter's exotica albums in the same section as Montavani. I guess if kids didn't listen to it, they could all be thrown into the same section.

 

It was used in the TV adaptation of "The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy", for reasons that escaped me at the time and still do. the song seemed to have only a very tenuous connection with the story. I guess the producers just liked the song.

 

Barbra Streisand & Neil Diamond - You Don't Bring Me Flowers

 

The best "easy listening" single ever, at least out of those that topped the charts, is surely "Love Is Blue", one of the first 45s that I bought. I was surprised to learn that parts of the song have been sampled many times over the years, particularly that bit between the verses that sounds like a harpsichord. Sampled in places you might not expect, such as hip hop (which of course uses samples all the time, but not unusually that kind of sample).

 

Like I said in post #1, we probably won't be able to avoid defining 'easy listening.' And that said, I doubt we'll come up with a definition we'll all agree on.

As the OP, I learned a long time not to try to control what people say in discussions I initiate. People will say things that contradict guidelines or go off in different directions, and that's just part of the discourse here.

Examples of what I consider easy listening: 101 Strings, Lawrence Welk, Mantovani, maybe the Boston Pops. These are clear/safe examples. Nelson Riddle is in there but is slightly less of a prototype of the genre.

Examples of what I consider adult contemporary: Kenny G, Celine Dion, etc. (And sure, there are other labels they can fit under.)

I would not consider Etta James' 'At Last' to be easy listening, though that arrangement with another singer could well be so I could see where davebush is coming from.

I also do not necessarily consider show tunes to be easy listening. (But then I think of The Sound of Music and am tempted to delete that sentence.)

Is 'adult contemporary' a rebranding of 'easy listening'? Well it's not just a name change. The older form consists almost entirely of acoustic instruments, often lushly orchestrated. Adult contemporary will likely have an electric bass, frequently has synthesisers, electric pianos, etc. At some point, it seems the older easy listening audience, who didn't grow up on rock-influenced pop, just gave way to a younger audience who did. Adult contemporary is more a replacement than a rebranding.

Forcing myself to think about it, I would not consider most famous singers to be easy listening. Sinatra, Nancy Wilson and others have done albums with easy listening arrangements, but they had genuine talents that I wouldn't want to dismiss as easy listening. In trying to name singers who are easy listening, Doris Day and Dinah Shore come to mind. I don't want to say they don't have talent, but I think the key here is that their output is unchallenging (and hence 'easy').

So this may say more about me than anything else, but I guess when it comes to easy listening, an artist either is or isn't easy listening. Queen's 'Love of my Life' or the Beatles' 'Long and Winding Road' could be considered easy listening songs, but the artists themselves are certainly not so I don't consider those songs to really be easy listening. (The Beatles example is so over-the-top schmaltzy that it's harder to justify though.) (And the Queen example has electric guitars.)

I would consider easy listening to be fairly synonymous with muzak, provided that: (1) we're not talking about Muzak in its legal defintion (music owned by the former Muzak Holdings company); and (2) we're not using the term to dismiss any music we don't like (Lennon's use of the word in 'How do you Sleep?').

So if you look at how I define the two, I guess it comes down to a matter of time as much as style. By the late 70s/early 80s, 'lite' music (to use an umbrella term for both) was being produced and/or consumed by people who had been influenced by Elvis, the Beatles and rock'n'roll in general, and in a way that even 101 Strings Orchestra Plays the Beatles wasn't.

I don't pretend that I've provided a water-tight definition of either style, but I hope you can get my gist of how I personally draw the distinction.

And again, no one is expected to strictly observe my definition to provide an answer.

 

I can define easy listening music in two words… Paul Mauriat.

 

Doris Day is one of the best popular music singers ever. Some of the material she sang & some of the arrangements might be considered lightweight, but I would never include her in Easy Listening. Now maybe if you erased her vocals on some of the tunes she recorded & substituted a super-bland chorus singing the lyrics, then you would have Easy Listening.

 

Michael Buble - Haven't Met You Yet (2009) #24

He's still to my knowledge the last core A/C artist to spread to top 40 radio with a non holiday song.

 

You beat me to "Love is Blue"... I would also think "Midnight Cowboy" (the version by Ferrante and Teicher) would qualify as well...1970, peaked at #10 on Billboard...

 

Not so. "Adult Contemporary" was a simple tweak that, constantly-refining itself, keeps modern music accessible for adults, while slowing-down (though not eliminating) the ever-more-challenging irritants of more youth-oriented music from the cutting edge of pop producers.

Sound like gobbledegook? Nope - just a simple positioning, which has been going on since before radio stations that try to appeal to the entire family, have had to deal with. Race records, Elvis, Beatles, underground rock, funk, album rock, punk, heavy metal, hip-hop, rap, and so on and so on...these up-and-coming influences and more, have all had to be either diluted or expunged from various radio formats, whose job it is to make current and relevant music palatable to general audiences who are not all on-board with all the latest musical influences.

This has been Adult Contemporary's mission since long before I signed my first engineering log...and it's a valid one. It has, however, nothing to do with the need in other audiences' lives for, "easy listening". That, is about a full-out rejection of the desire for any sort of claim to modern musical relevance, staking a much firmer hold on a musical contour than on staying stylish. It's a target demographic unto itself (as is, for instance, Country). And it's not "about" fitting into your day; more like, changing your day entirely.

And you can say what you need to about how "easy listening" fits or doesn't fit into your understanding of modern music, same as I can about how Limbaugh fits into news. They are both here because of how radio has been able to survive at different times in its' history because of them.

And they don't care of you just wanna boogie or not.

 

Kenny G is an ez listening powerhouse.

"Songbird" hit #04 in 1987 and #03 on AC
"Silhouette" hit #13 in 1988 and #02 on AC
"Forever in Love" hit #18 in 1992 and #01 on AC
"By the Time This Night Is Over" hit #25 in 1993 and #01 on AC
"Auld Lang Syne" hit #07 in 1999 and #03 on AC

PLUS about 12 more that charted on the AC charts, but not Hot 100. If you add in singles as a "featured artist" there are about another dozen.

Kenny G discography - Wikipedia

 

I also thought about Elton John's "Song For Guy" which I consider easy listening. The song is mostly a moving instrumental with a new age tilt. It hit #37 on the AC charts (#110 on the Hot 100) in 1979, but was a top hit in Europe. It peaked at #04 in the UK and stayed on the charts for 10 weeks.

For doubters, easy listening master Franck Pourcel covered the song in 1980 and it appears on several of his albums.

 

I think adult comtemporary is just another way of saying easy listening. Sure, the music may use modern technology, but given the chance, so would most easy listening records from the 50s and 60s.

Alexander Armstrong (a TV presenter in the UK) released an album. I would definitely class it as easy listening.

 

Mike Flowers Pops 1996, a number 2 hit in 1996. THIS is 'easy listening', the crooning, the massed choir, the bossa nova beat...

 

I like it! The added surface noise effect is annoying though. Does the audio only release have that effect? Surface noise heard on phonograph records was my main reason for abandoning that format.

 

Not to derail your thread, but you should check out the Doris Day/Andre Previn album if you have not already.

 

“Make You Feel My Love”. Words and music by Mr. Bob Dylan. Performed by Adele. Easy listening at its finest.

 

'Shallow' duet by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper. According to Wiki placed at #4 in the US Charts (a #1 in other countries). And 'I'll Never Love Again', same pair, same soundtrack, reached #36 in the US Charts. Both in 2018.

 

Does Enya count. Pretty easy listening.

 

That's it exactly! His hits "Love Is Blue" and "Love In Every Room" are definitive examples of the genre. Some others I'd include:

"More" -- Kai Winding
"Our Winter Love" -- Bill Purcell
"Dis-Advantages of You" -- The Brass Ring
"Summer Samba" -- Walter Wanderley