Elevator Music: a Surreal History of Muzak, Easy-Listening and Other Moodsong

Lanza, Joseph

ISBN 10: 0312105401 / ISBN 13: 9780312105402

Published by St. Martin's Press, New York, 1994

About this Item

8vo, 280 pp.

Seller Inventory # 026268

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Elevator Music: a Surreal History of Muzak, Easy-Listening and Other Moodsong
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press, New York
• Publication Date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0312105401
• ISBN 13: 9780312105402
• Binding: hardcover
• Illustrator: Illustrated
• Edition: 1st.
• Condition: Fine copy in fine dust jacket
• Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included
• Seller catalogs:
  • Music

About this title

Synopsis

Elevator music, a style that has maligned, misunderstood, or simply ignored, is here, for the first time, vindicated, explored, and exposed as the ectoplasm that soothes, haunts, and holds our world.
Acclaimed author Joseph Lanza covers every elevator music incarnation: the Aeolian strains of antiquity, Gregorian chant, Erik Satie's "furniture music," Muzak, easy-listening, New Age, and "elevator noir." Emerging as the elevator music conservatory is Muzak Corporation (started in the twenties by a former World War brigadier general), which helped set tone for music's role in today's electronic superhighway. Not cultivated by a distinct aesthetic school, elevator music evolved partly by accident as it permeated many previously distinct musical genres and became postindustrial life's most authentic art form.
Through in-depth discussion and interviews with such seemingly diverse composer/arrangers as Ray Conniff and Angelo Badalamenti, Elevator Music demonstrates how this moodsong (besides playing in elevators) elevates moods and induces a gravity-free vantage point, where life (like the movies) has soundtracks.

Review

"A fascinating tour of a genuine piece of American surrealism, diligently researched, sparklingly presented, surprising at every turn. Hilarious and at times terrifying."
--Phil Patton, author of Made in the U.S.A.: The Secret Histories of the Things That Made America

--Phil Patton (07/06/2012)

"Snobby musicologists ignore this fascinating topic, but I learned a lot while being well-entertained by Lanza's delightful book."
--Wendy Carlos, composer, soundtracks for "A Clockwork Orange" and "The Shining"

--Wendy Carlos, composer, soundtracks for "A Clockwork Orange" and "The Shining" (10/31/2003)