Easy listening

{{More citations needed section|date=June 2016}}

{{external media |width=220px |audio1= You may hear examples of easy listening music performed by John Serry on his album Squeeze Play in 1956
[https://listenbrainz.org/artist/9ff7e10c-d72b-4948-9a2e-635b0ad19be0/ Here on listenbrainz.org]}}

The style has been synonymous with the tag "with strings". String instruments had been used in sweet bands in the 1930s and was the dominant soundtrack to movies of Hollywood's Golden Age. In the 1940s and 1950s strings had been used in jazz and popular music contexts. As examples in the jazz genre, there are recordings of Frank Sinatra.[https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781351553780/chapters/10.4324/9781315089669-8 Frank Sinatra Easy Listenning and TV] Retrieved January 28, 2021 Another example of a practitioner in the popular context was Dinah Washington's "What a Difference a Day Makes". In the 1950s the use of strings quickly became a main feature of the developing easy listening genre.

Jackie Gleason, whose first ten albums went gold, expressed the goal of producing "musical wallpaper that should never be intrusive, but conducive".{{cite web|title=Jackie Gleason Albums |url=http://music.aol.com/album/the-romantic-moods-of-jackie-gleason/191846 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120712164054/http://music.aol.com/album/the-romantic-moods-of-jackie-gleason/191846 |url-status=dead |archive-date=July 12, 2012 |work=AoL Music |publisher=AOL Inc |access-date=August 16, 2012 |author=AoL Music |year=2012 }}

Similarly, in 1956 John Serry Sr. sought to utilize the accordion within the context of a jazz sextet in order to create a soothing mood ideally suited for "low pressure" listening on his album Squeeze Play.The Cash Box, Album Reviews, Cash Box Publishing Co., New York, December 8, 1956, Vol.XVIII No. 12, p. 38 [http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Cash-Box/50s/1956/CB-1956-12-08.pdf Review of album "Squeeze Play" in Cash Box magazine, Pg. 38 on americanradiohistory.com][https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/Cash-Box-Magazine.htm Review of the album "Squeeze Play" in "The Cash Box" magazine - See Album Reviews column on December 8, 1956 p. 38 on americanradiohistory.com][https://books.google.com/books?id=hgoEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA22 The Billboard - Review and Ratings of New Popular Albums - Squeeze Play, December 1, 1956 p. 22 on books.google.com]

The magazines Billboard and Record World featured easy listening singles in independently audited record charts. Generally 40 positions in length, they charted airplay on stations such as WNEW-FM, New York City, WWEZ, Cincinnati, and KMPC, Los Angeles. Record World began their listings January 29, 1967, and ended these charts in the early 1970s. Billboard{{'}}s Easy Listening chart morphed into the Adult Contemporary chart in 1979, and continues to this day.{{cite book|last1=Hyatt|first1=Wesley|title=The Billboard Book of Number One Adult Contemporary Hits.|date=1999|publisher=Billboard Books|location=New York City|isbn=978-0-823-07693-2}}

During the format's heyday in the 1960s, it was not at all uncommon for easy listening instrumental singles to reach the top of the charts on the Billboard Hot 100 (and stay there for several weeks).{{Cite magazine|url=https://www.billboard.com/artist/walter-wanderley/chart-history/hsi/|title=Walter Wanderley Summer Samba (So Nice) Chart History|magazine=Billboard|access-date=December 16, 2017}}

Beautiful music, which grew up alongside easy listening music, had rigid standards for instrumentation, e.g., few or no saxophones (at the time, the saxophone was associated with less refined styles such as jazz and rock and roll, although Billy Vaughn was an exception to the rule), and restrictions on how many vocal pieces could be played in an hour. The easy listening radio format has been generally, but not completely, superseded by the soft adult contemporary format.[http://www.nyradioguide.com/formats.htm#liteac Radio Station Format Guide] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060327164156/http://www.nyradioguide.com/formats.htm |date=March 27, 2006 }}

According to the Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World, "The public prominence and profitability of easy listening [in the postwar years] led to its close association with the so-called 'Establishment' that would eventually be demonized by the rock counterculture."John Shepherd, David Horn (eds.) (2012). Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World Volume 8, p. 194. {{ISBN|1441148744}}. In Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981), rock critic Robert Christgau said "semiclassical music is a systematic dilution of highbrow preferences".{{cite book|last=Christgau|first=Robert|author-link=Robert Christgau|year=1981|title=Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies|publisher=Ticknor & Fields|isbn=0899190251|chapter=The Guide|chapter-url=https://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/bk-cg70/guide.php|access-date=March 30, 2019|via=robertchristgau.com}}

Easy listening/lounge singers have a lengthy history stretching back to the decades of the early twentieth century. Easy listening music featured popular vocalists such as Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, Patti Page, Tony Bennett, Nat King Cole, Rosemary Clooney, Doris Day, Perry Como, Engelbert Humperdinck, The Carpenters, The Mills Brothers, The Ink Spots, Julie London, and many others. The somewhat derisive term lounge lizard was coined then, and less well-known lounge singers have often been ridiculed as dinosaurs of past eras{{Cite news

| title = American Notes LAS VEGAS--- Stop the Music!

| magazine = Time

| date = August 21, 1989

| url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,958377,00.html

| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20071124054516/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,958377,00.html

| url-status = dead

| archive-date = November 24, 2007

}} and parodied for their smarmy delivery of standards.{{cite news|url=http://archive.salon.com/people/bc/2001/02/06/murray/index1.html|title=Bill Murray|author=Sean Elder|work=Salon.com|access-date=January 18, 2008|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080112153311/http://archive.salon.com/people/bc/2001/02/06/murray/index1.html|archive-date=January 12, 2008}}

In the early 1990s the lounge revival was in full swing and included such groups as Combustible Edison, Love Jones, The Cocktails, Pink Martini and Nightcaps. Alternative band Stereolab demonstrated the influence of lounge with releases such as Space Age Bachelor Pad Music and the Ultra-Lounge series of lounge music albums. The lounge style was a direct contradiction to the grunge music that dominated the period.{{cite news|title= Review/Fashion; Chic Prevails Over Grunge|author=Spindler, Amy M. |work=The New York Times |date=March 7, 1995|access-date=December 12, 2007 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/07/style/review-fashion-chic-prevails-over-grunge.html}}{{cite magazine |title=Ring-A-Ding Ding |author=Lacayo, Richard |magazine=Time |date= May 25, 1998 |access-date=January 17, 2008 |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,988394,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080203123148/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,988394,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=February 3, 2008}}

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• Soft rock
• Background music
• Elevator music
• Schlager
• Soft jazz
• Sentimental ballad
• Beautiful music
• Exotica
• Muzak

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{{Reflist|30em}}

• Borgerson, Janet and Jonathan Schroeder (2017). Designed for Hi-Fi Living: The Vinyl LP in Midcentury America. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. {{ISBN|978-0-2620-3623-8}}.

{{Easy listening}}

{{Pop music}}

Category:Radio formats