"The Strange Death of Easy Listening"

This goes to show that times have changed

 

Palm Springs CA has two genuine "Adult oldies" stations, none of which are pure easy listening tho one is about 1/3 classic instrumental slush, 92.3 FM---the other one 107.3 MOD FM a more pure 'great american songbook' of sinatra and sinatra-esque stuff mostly. But both "Adult pop" from olden days. I prefer the one that plays a fair amount of instrumental slush, with the other two thirds being that GAS stuff, plus some real old-school jazz and just strange soft pop hits of the "26 Miles Across the Sea" variety.

 

Indeed.
It was a biting, but well-written article. As a kid in the 60s, all I heard on the local radio (and I remember this well) was stuff like Up, Up & Away and MacArthur Park (Richard Harris version). My older brother listened to Hendrix, Cream & Grand Funk, so that was the cool stuff my parents hated. But when you turned the radio on, most of it was light rock fluff - and that's what was in the stores, in the well-lit aisles. The Doors? Those LPs were in the hippie record stores, period.

 

You don't need to get snippy because I keep answering your complaint correctly. You are re-writing history when you crow bitterly that the All-Cheese format and the All-Saxophone format are not the same thing because you hear crooners in one, and saxophones in the other. What you are missing is...nobody is accusing one of being the other. They are just alike in their branding strategies as a formatic business model, which indeed makes them similar. Perhaps there is some societal baggage you resent about "elevator music" so much you blanch when others try and point out that, "smooth jazz" is only a marketing term, with little or no similarity to the actual jazz that the musical identity of our country's individuality was based on.

Repeating "nuh-UHHH..!" over and over, doesn't really work here. On the other hand, considering this thread is about a clickbait article that misreads actual pop music history in an effort to squeeze all the buzz-words into mis-researched copy inches, and you are just starting to sound stubborn for not considering when people with a little familiarity of your subject are trying to give you a little background...perhaps sticking one's fingers into one's ears and just yelling "LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LAAAAAA!", would at least allow you a little similarity to the actual subject at hand.

End of War & Peace Book II: Electric Bugaloo

 

OK. That’s just too good. I think I love/hate you.

 

I've wondered sometimes if, in middle age, I've gravitated to particular kinds of music, such as dream-pop (Beach House) or ambient electronic music (Air) or jazz on ECM (Tigran Hamasyan), to unconsciously piece together for myself an umbrella genre of lively (and probably, I confess, critic-approved) easy-listening music.

 

This comment reminds me of when I mentioned to Mrs. mschrist about ten years ago that adult-contemporary music seemed to have disappeared, and her answer was no, it hasn't, it's just that it's John Mayer and Sara Bareilles rather than Celine Dion. It's as if the artists change, and the style of music might even substantively change, but the audiences they reach and the things that those audiences want from their music stay mostly the same.

 

Apparently, there are a bunch of videos of 'slow-weather-jamz' on YouTube...
does THIS count?

 

The 'kids' are calling it; 'Vaporwave'!

 

Here's an article about it:
The Weather Channel's Soothing Music: Millennial Rebellion - Faine Greenwood

 

Who cares what the masses are doing? If you like this kind of music then buy from the thousands of titles available and listen to them.

Don't join the sheep herd.....

 

Judging by the number of 'plays', I wouldn't necessarily call it 'massively popular'.......

 

You missed the point. I wasn't commenting on you post - sorry about that. If I was I would have quoted your post.

What I am stating is whatever is popular - who cares? If you like easy listening then buy it and listen to it. Don't join the sheep listening to the flavor of the day,

 

Oh.....
ok.

 

I don't know about that. I know quite a few people who listen to music mostly in the background but that wouldn't be classified as easy listening and they wouldn't consider it noise. They do enjoy it and might even hum along in some circumstances. Nevertheless they treat it as "easy listening." They want a pleasant mood lifter, something to put a little pep in their step while they are doing something else. They wouldn't sit down for concentrated listening, and are definitely not looking for art or an immersive experience of any kind. I imagine fanatical music lovers such as are found on this forum are in the minority - I'm not sure how far. As far as rock being a lifestyle, perhaps it is, or perhaps it has that image - many have argued that it's not even really about the music. I had one guy argue with me on this forum that "it's not just a bunch of notes contained on a CD." I have little to no interest in lifestyle or image (especially the stereotypical) - just the music itself. What I like, beyond just things that sound pleasing to me - are creations that feature music and lyrics, the best of which, in combination, aspire to approach the status of art and poetry. Some rock music fits that description. Call me pretentious.

 

Yeah, I've always liked that kind of stuff. As you said in that other post, there are modern-day equivalents to 50's/60's easy listening, and have been for some time.

 

...I think the elephant in the room here (I've only read the first page of this line.) is that a lot of those abandoned Andy, Herb, etc. albums in thrift stores belonged to people who are now dead. Funny, that.

 

There were no soccer moms in the 1960s. Moms didn’t come to games. Dads sometimes did.

Kids rode their bikes or walked to practice. Carpooling? Yep, but mom wouldn’t stick around.

Housewives/homemakers maybe. Not soccer moms.

 

Angel pressings of Beethoven are classical, which defies his earlier point on Easy Listening. The entire genre, to me, is middle of the road schmaltz for middle of the road people. Not anything particularly exciting. What the author is basically driving at is that it is background music to be listened to while engaged in other activities. So maybe Easy Listening really means not listening. You hear it, but don't listen to it.

My fondest memories of the Easy Listening genre was the instrumental music they used to play while stuffing my face at the Swedish Smorgasbord in my youth. It was great music to chew that fried chicken to. If you watch the Cohen brother's film Fargo I believe they captured that scene of '60s and early '70s Americana with great skill.

 

Easy listening dominates the music world now (and for the past few decades) - i.e. the absence of juicy guitar solos

 

'Hey, hey, my, my/
M.O.R. can never die....'

 

The comment that Sinatra (I lost essentially ALL! of this first draft!) isn't generally considered Easy Listening spills over into not all categories of music identified with
being something the parents of the Boomers listened to being EL, necessarily. Think of Broadway musical cast albums, for one! A much bigger part of the pop music mainstream 50-6/ years ago.
For the great number of Andy, Herb, etc. LPs inin tho Goodwills, I'll argue that, too, possibly " our " parents'' generation, though they enjoyed music, were perhaps less emotionally invested in " our music " than " we " tended to be, and were more likely, even if alive, to get rid of old LPs. Also, LPs tended to be kept more than cassettes and 8-tracks. And, I'll argue that we should consider the " before the Balkanization of pop culture " effect - Just as 1/3 of the country, more or less, used to watch Ed Sullivan or Gunsmoke, something widely popular might've sold proportionately more copies then.
Anyway, that writer was kind of amusingly " bad boy "/counter-the established narrative. BTW, I might argue that Captain & Tennille, Barry and Melissa M., etcetera were a different kind of easy listening than what he did discusses.Post-" rock ", reflecting rock'n'roll's influence.

 

I must say, though that a few times when I've been in a fairly nice restaurant, music was being played over their in-ceiling sound system that featured aggressive, screaming electric guitar solos. I sort of wondered to myself, is this what customers want to hear over dinner? Especially elderly folks from my parents' generation. I find myself cringing and wanting it turned off, even though I might listen comfortably to it at home or in my car.

 

The easy listening music of the 50/60's wasn't background music no one listened to. In fact, it was often referred to as 'exotic music', artists like Les Baxter, Jackie Gleason were enjoyed best lounging at night with a wind down cocktail You know "lifestyle" music.