Easy listening is a radio format that emerged on FM radio in the early 1960s, related to middle-of-the-road music as played on many AM radio stations. It encompassed instrumental recordings of standards, hit songs and popular non-rock vocals. It was differentiated from the instrumental format known as "beautiful music" by its variety of styles, including a significant percentage of vocals, arrangements and tempos to fit various day parts during the broadcast day. Easy listening music is often confused with so-called "elevator music" provided by Muzak and other music services for malls and elevators, 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 part of easy listening music was pure 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 jazz and even some rock and roll. Orchestras and groups included Henry Mancini, Herb Alpert, Stan Getz, Antonio Carlos Jobim and Paul Mauriat. Vocals were by the popular artists of the day such as Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Matt Monro, Jack Jones, Barbra Streisand, Vicki Carr, Dionne Warwick, Nancy Wilson and others, and vocal groups or duos such as Simon & Garfunkel, The Fifth Dimension, Harpers' Bizarre, The Lettermen and The Sandpipers. Wikipedia [ - ]

Easy listening is a radio format that emerged on FM radio in the early 1960s, related to... [ + ]