Easy Listening

Easy listening is a style of popular music and radio format that emerged in the mid 20th century, evolving from swing and big band music, and related to Beautiful music and Light music. Easy listening music features simple, catchy melodies, soft, laid-back songs and occasionally rhythms suitable for couples dancing. It is also sometimes referred to as "mood music", "elevator music" (and in the U.K. as "lift music").

The genre includes both instrumental forms (often played on light of tone instruments such as the Hammond Organ, "lush strings", or Ukulele) and vocal forms featuring pop singers such as Raphael, Barbra Streisand, Perry Como, Andy Williams, Jack Jones, Engelbert Humperdinck, Eydie Gorme, Barry Manilow, Harry Connick Jr., Frank Sinatra, Johnny Mathis, Bing Crosby, Tom Jones and Mel Tormé. Exotica music stylists such as Les Baxter and Martin Denny are often included within the purview of easy listening music as well.

This description is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses materials from the Wikipedia article "Easy listening".