□Īs for the basic definition (and excluding the TTK approach which has its points) I somehow tend to agree with Dan Gould's coarse-brush working definition of "uninteresting music" which WOULD put Easy Listening and MOR in the same bag. One example I remember was that at what actually were R'n'R (i.e REAL pre-Beat(les) era R'n'R) record hops back in the 90s where other (more or less related or contemporary) 50s/60s genres got played too, the typical Elvis 60s movie score tunes (starting with "Viva Les Vegas" and the like) were commonly refered to as "Easy Elvis". And this even applied to the generation that you might lump in with your "younger days". That's (also) because Easy Listening acquired a sort of "cult" niche status in some circles long, long ago - not because it was taken all too seriously by record collectors (but rather had an "easygoing" fun aspect to it). ![]() You don't tend to see an MOR section at record shops, whereas Easy Listening often did, even in my younger days. I'm not really sure of the definition of MOR, but always saw it as an adjective for boring or mature versions of pop or rock, whereas Easy Listening was sort of its own, omnivorous, genre. But for the period 1975-1995, the equivalent demographic seemed to have been instead listening to pop, rock and 'urban contemporary'. I think that the first glimmerings of a return of the easy listening 'concept' might have been in the 1990s (alongside the revival in the older stuff) with the emergence of new forms of non-pop music "genres": light vocal jazz, ECM, and the marketing niche of 'world music', all of which were designed to appeal to mature adult audiences looking to show off their sophistication. ![]() soft rock and disco, and why did soft rock and disco not 'easify' as earlier youth genres had done? Why did all that happen at precisely the point in which aging demographics and more conservative social and musical trends might have led one to expect more easy listening, rather than less? Why did adults suddenly turn off the idea of glossy sophisticated background sounds, and switch to e.g. The so-called 'audio wallpaper' phenomenon of generic music produced to fill algorithmic streaming niches being the best example.īut I'm particularly interested in what sparked the 'dying time' in Easy Listening in around 1975-1980. I think that circa 2022 there are some very clear analogies to the old easy listening industry. I agree with the points on lo fi hip hop. ![]() Your question, though, is complicated by the fact that a huge range of music got filed in the "easy listening" section because no one knew where else to file it. For example, ambient and downtempo electronica for contemporary audiences are the functional equivalent of Jackie Gleason for the WWII generation. The short answer is that other genres or sub-genres of music essentially filled the "easy listening" void for more recent generations of listeners. The question is spurred by a Christmas period spent listening to either George Shearing or dreary Spotify playlists of music that is clearly made in studios, so-called "audio wallpaper", which is arguably a revival of the old Easy Listening concept. Some of this stuff is really great and a lot isn't, but aside from that, you'd think that the concept of Easy Listening would be as permanent as Pop. I don't just mean the specific genre Easy Listening ( the Korean will no doubt have views) but anything that sounds sophisticated, but sits in the background, whether Henry Mancini, George Shearing, bossa, Yma Sumac, Herb Alpert, whatever Gary McFarland's thing was, Muzak, Beatles with Strings, down on their luck cool jazz guys in the late 60s, Singers Unlimited or whatever. I'd be interested in people's views as to why easy listening as a concept seems to have gone away in the 1980s (barring the 1990s 'revival').ĥ0s - 70s there seems to have been a wide appetite for the stuff.
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