"The Strange Death of Easy Listening"

It is not "Strange Death".

It's attrition.

Then again, if you're writing articles trying to connect with people young enough not to understand what happened to things that were there before the new readers were...maybe they just never heard of "death" in the first place...?

 

Younger people who listen to electronica are perhaps more hip to easy listening than the aging "rock" generation is.

 

Yer damn skippy...I programmed a whole radio station based on "what would 'today's' beautiful music' sound like", without the crooners and the show tunes. There was a load of electronica in there, amidst smooth jazz, unfamiliar, foreign pop, chill and singer-songwriters. It wasn't exclusively "beautiful music", but it definitely was coming at the term, "easy listening" from left field: less repetition and familiarity, focusing on groove and first-listen accessibility.

 

Here, here!
This band took a bunch of 'lounge & exotica', gave it an 'Art-Of-Noise'-style beat, and, while not really a 'big hit', it sure did 'turn me on'!

 

The term "Easy Listening" is actually a misnomer as music called that is rather hard to listen to.

 

I got new word for stuff like this that purports to be iconoclastic but ain't -'iconospastic'.

 

None of that makes the statement about Hendrix in the article any less ridiculous.....he moved the needle and it's measurable in sales and in influence.

Whatever point in general about easy listening the author was trying to make, that was a very clumsy way to kick it off.

 

I'm with you. I hate sentences that end with the word 'to' and I refuse to do it.

 

I like it.

I'll steal from you and add another word for stuff that is mindlessly, robotically iconoclastic (you see it on this forum) - 'iconoplastic'.

 

Audiophilia has a bad name, but it's certainly better than a number of other 'philias with which one could be prone....

 

And it must be said (The Hendrix owners) were far less likely to sell them and if they did people were far more likely to buy them than Mr Englebert and friends.

 

Actually, millions do listen to the radio.

 

That article (and a lot of folks here) are talking like it used to be an either/or situation with rock and easy listening. My parents were born in 1946 and graduated high school in 1964 (so the stereotypical Boomers). In their record collection when I was a kid they had Mamas and Papas, The Byrds, Elvis, Johnny Cash, AND Henry Mancini, Andy Williams, Al Caiola, etc. And in my dad's 45s which he probably stopped buying in high school, beside all the Elvis, Marty Robbins, and Fats Domino, was a surprising amount of Lawrence Welk.

 

Umm, Audionecrophilia anyone?

 

Good 'un.

 

Hmmmm that dead pre-amp is giving me the right horn speaker

 

Brilliant.

 

I'm sure he never had to worry about the draft.

 

Yours might actually be better, no unintended yet implied/perceived dis of the disabled...

 

And I refuse to do it, to!

 

Most of the bargain Goodwill bins are in horrible shape around here, be it Easy Listening, or anything else...


First of all, Easy Listening music and Pop music from the genres over the past 60 plus years are different animals. Perry Como, Andy Williams, Johnny Mathis, Sinatra, Julie London, Peggy Lee, Nat King Cole, etc.... were mainly right after the WW2 era, which reflected the popularity of the times up right through the early 60’s. Barbra Streisand mainly was a show tunes singer in the 60’s and later a pop singer from the 70’s onward. Engelbert, Alan Price, Tom Jones,(mainly after his first couple stabs at rock like Chills and Fever which was one), reflected the 60’s and 70’s pop singers era along with others....

Now the Easy Listening stuff IMO was stuff like Les Baxter, Esquivel, Jackie Gleason, Enoch Light, Hollyridge Strings, Nelson Riddle, Martin Denny Henry Mancini, Ferrante and Teicher, etc....That’s what I call the true Easy listening stuff.... Some of the true Easy listening acts like Baxter, Mancini, and Riddle and Denny had some interesting lp’s...others didn’t at all...The same can be said with some of the pop singers stuff as well...

Bottom Line: If you listen to any of this stuff and like ‘em, then you like ‘em....If you don’t, then you don’t.

And...I have tons of guitar driven stuff in my collection like Hendrix, Clapton etc... as well. Each has its place in history... Nothing is dead...

 

Had to take a break halfway through -- laughing hysterically -- this article is hilarious. Takes a lot of poetic license and exaggerates, yes, but seriously, it's true ain't it?!?

emphasis mine...I'm dying...literally killed, here...

 

I, too, refuse to do it.

 

If you look at the author's bio and the other publications he writes for, he's clearly a right-wing reactionary pining away for a time before the dirty hippies took over. Which is kind of weird since he looks to be about 26, but there are people like that in this world.

 

I wholeheartedly agree with smooth Jazz is not the Easy Listening genre. However, smooth Jazz has become such background filler these days with most of the stuff coming out, that it has become like a modern day easy listening genre. It’s hard to pay attention to it...I used to like smooth Jazz like Bob James, but even his stuff has a lot of droning homogenized texture to it. Pat Metheny, however has more going on with his music...