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Easy listening (also known as orchestral pop) 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 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 so-called elevator music provided by Muzak Holdings 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 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. Orchestras and groups include Percy Faith, André Kostelanetz, The Melachrino Strings, The 101 Strings, Herb Alpert, Stan Getz, Antonio Carlos Jobim and Paul Mauriat. Vocals have been provided by popular artists such as Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Matt Monro, Henry Mancini, Jack Jones, Barbra Streisand, Vikki Carr, Dionne Warwick, Nancy Wilson and others, and vocal groups or duos such as The Beach Boys, Simon & Garfunkel, The 5th Dimension, Harpers Bizarre, The Lettermen and The Sandpipers. ==History== The name "easy listening" was used by Claude Hall, radio-TV editor of ''Billboard'' magazine to describe the sound of WPIX-FM in New York. The format was developed by Charlie Whitaker, Program Director of the New York Daily News' station, broadcasting from the "Pix Penthouse" in the Daily News Building. Whitaker had designed the format as program director of KODA FM in Houston, where it achieved top ratings in that market. WPIX FM also quickly became the top-rated FM radio station in New York and ranked among the top five of all stations, AM and FM, with adults 25–49 from 1964 through 1968. The format was emulated by many syndicated programmers (including Whitaker himself) and became the most popular format in FM radio nationwide. It later became known as Adult Contemporary, and this signaled an end to the instrumental content of the format. An attempt by Whitaker and his partner Lynn Christian, formerly GM of WPIX FM, to revive the original format in the late 1990s was unsuccessful because of problems with delivery. It remains one of the most popular radio formats of all time. A precursor to Easy Listening initially offered soft and unobtrusive instrumental selections on a very structured schedule with limited commercial interruptions. It often functioned as a free background music service for stores, with commercial breaks consisting only of announcements aimed at shoppers already in the stores. This practice was known as ''storecasting'' and was very common on the FM dial in the 1940s and 1950s. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Easy listening」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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