06-01-2022, 06:17 PM
Well, I remember the highly-polished "easy-listening" instrumentals of the 1970's. There might be gimmicky orchestration, but in general the cornerstone was a large string orchestra without violas. Basically, you do not hear violas in an orchestra, but you certainly recognize their absence. Without them, a pure string piece develops an 'etherial' sound that sounds great at first and then gets tiresome. It is the musical equivalent of relying upon candy as one's sole food.
The musical selections were TV and movie themes. show tunes, or even pop tunes utterly bowdlerized of any wit or edge. . Maybe it well served people stressed out at work; after all this was not going to cause one to drive drunk as might be a session at a cocktail lounge. Every big city and many small ones had an FM station that played this insipid stuff, and the call letters usually had the letters "EZ" in them. Eventually these stations ("WBOR" would have been a perfect fit) couldn't sell advertising because people quit listening. The radio stations found something else, and typically dropped call letters with the letters "EZ" in them.
I found far more wit in Handel and more edge in Stravinsky. That is all that I need say of musical tastes that I developed around age 20 and that I have never outgrown.
The musical selections were TV and movie themes. show tunes, or even pop tunes utterly bowdlerized of any wit or edge. . Maybe it well served people stressed out at work; after all this was not going to cause one to drive drunk as might be a session at a cocktail lounge. Every big city and many small ones had an FM station that played this insipid stuff, and the call letters usually had the letters "EZ" in them. Eventually these stations ("WBOR" would have been a perfect fit) couldn't sell advertising because people quit listening. The radio stations found something else, and typically dropped call letters with the letters "EZ" in them.
I found far more wit in Handel and more edge in Stravinsky. That is all that I need say of musical tastes that I developed around age 20 and that I have never outgrown.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.