Easy Listening
Easy listening music is a style of popular music which emerged in the mid-20th century. Around 1980, it was the most listened to radio format in America, although it soon became scarce as a format not because its listeners were too few but because they were getting too old and therefore less desirable for radio advertisers. This type of music features simple, catchy melodies, cool, laid-back harmonies and occasionally rhythms suitable for dancing. While it is mostly instrumental music, some singers, such as Andy Williams, Jack Jones, Engelbert Humperdinck and Eydie Gorme had vocal styles which were highly compatible with this style. Much of the work of some other pop vocalists, including Frank Sinatra, Tom Jones, and Mel Torme was too frenetic or swing-oriented to be played in an easy listening format. 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 term has sometimes been applied negatively in the years since this format went out of fashion. It is similar to what is called "lounge" or "lounge core", but lounge music is much more jazz-oriented and dependent on improvisation than easy listening. Easy listening music is almost always orchestrated and is more analagous to classical music than to jazz. Since easy-listening music is rather unknown to the younger generations, the term easy listening is often incorrectly applied to soft pop or new age music. Easy listening music is also sometimes known as "mood music" or "MOR", or more pejoratively as "Muzak" or "elevator music".
Artists and music
- Easy listening orchestras
- Mystic Moods Orchestra, ''as popular for their sexually explicit album covers as for their music''
- Mystic Moods Orchestra, ''as popular for their sexually explicit album covers as for their music''
- Lawrence Welk* Easy listening vocal groups
- Lawrence Welk* Easy listening vocal groups
- The Laurie Bower Singers
- The Laurie Bower Singers
- The Ray Charles Singers
- The Ray Charles Singers
- The Ray Conniff Singers
- The Ray Conniff Singers
- The Mike Curb Congregation
- The Mike Curb Congregation
- The Anita Kerr Singers
- The Anita Kerr Singers
- The Lettermen
- The Lettermen
- The Living Voices
- The Living Voices
- The Norman Luboff Choir
- The Norman Luboff Choir
- The Johnny Mann Singers
- The Johnny Mann Singers
- Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66* Easy listening pianists
- Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66* Easy listening pianists
- Ferrante & Teicher (Arthur Ferrante & Louis Teicher)
- Ferrante & Teicher (Arthur Ferrante & Louis Teicher)
- Roger Williams* Singers with high deployment in easy listening
- Roger Williams* Singers with high deployment in easy listening
- Perry Como, ''later material''
- Perry Como, ''later material''
- Andy Williams* Singers with some deployment in easy listening
- Andy Williams* Singers with some deployment in easy listening
- Perry Como, ''earlier material''
- Perry Como, ''earlier material''
- Olivia Newton-John, ''earlier material''
- Olivia Newton-John, ''earlier material''
