Easy listening

Easy listening (sometimes known as mood music) is a popular music genre and radio format that was most popular during the 1950s to 1970s. It is related to middle-of-the-road (MOR) music and encompasses instrumental recordings of standards, hit songs and popular non-rock vocals. It mostly concentrates on music that pre-dates the rock n' roll era, mostly concentrating on music from the 1940s and before. It was differentiated from the mostly instrumental beautiful music format by its variety of styles, including a percentage of vocals, arrangements and tempos to fit various day parts during the broadcast day. Easy listening music is often confused with elevator music ("Muzak"), or lounge music, but while it was popular in some of the same venues it bore only modest resemblance to the background sound of this kind of music. A significant portion of easy listening music is purely instrumental and included some big band and orchestral arrangements of standards, themes from movies, bossa nova hits and small instrumental ensembles playing instrumental versions of popular songs, including light jazz and even some soft rock. However, it was distinguished by slower tempo, and the large prominence of strings. When reed instruments such as saxophones were employed, they were used in a gentle, as opposed to brash, tone.