| Contents |
Probing the Jell-O -- Lullabies from heaven and hell: mood music's antiquity -- The "canned" avant-garde -- Umbilical chords: the birth of Muzak -- The push-button ballroom: mood music and early radio -- Ghosts in the elevator -- Emotional archives: background music in the movies -- The moodiest years on record -- Mermaids after midnight -- Cathedralized classics -- Sizzle & suds -- Keyboards by candlelight -- Supermarket symphonette -- Gregorian cocktail -- Mai-tai melodies and the world of "queasy listening" -- That sex-behind-the-gauze sound -- World music originals: the 101 strings and the mystic moods orchestra -- Walls talk! -- "Beautiful music": the rise of easy-listening FM -- Violins from space -- Metarock -- Elevator noir -- Who's hearing things? -- The new sound of 1984 -- Channeling the phantom band -- Revised, expanded, annotated, and selective discography. |
| Abstract |
With an arsenal of historical anecdotes and facts, the author sings seriously, with healthy doses of humor and wit, the praises of this misunderstood musical genre. The author traces mood music's mystifying presence from the mind-altering sirens who lured Odysseus to the harp David played to soothe King Saul, but the tale gets more intriguing in the early twentieth century, with Erik Satie's "furniture music" experiment, the birth of the Muzak Corporation, and various science fiction stories that featured mood music as a futuristic staple. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references (pages 305-315), discography (pages 243-304), and index. |
| LCCN | 2003067178 |
| ISBN | 0472089420 (pbk. alk paper) |
