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Easy-Listening Acid Trip
An elevator ride through 60s psychedelic pop
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Check link for latest rating. ( 11 ratings, 3 reviews)
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Easy-Listening Acid Trip
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?
This book is ideal for readers interested in music history, 1960s culture, psychedelic pop, and the lesser-known evolutions of easy-listening music. Enthusiasts of cultural studies and those curious about the intersections between mainstream and background music will find it particularly engaging.
Pop music of the sixties and seventies embraced psychedelic youth culture yet appealed to listeners of all ages up and down the radio dial. Easy Listening Acid Trip explains the missing musical link between electric guitars and orchestral strings, from the Beatles to Lawrence Welk, and why we just can't help but liking songs we hear in the elevator.
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Description
In his acclaimed book Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Muzak, Easy-Listening, and Other Moodsong, author Joseph Lanza explored the forbidden beauty and social importance of an otherwise shunned musical category. Now, in Easy-Listening Acid Trip, he pushes the boundaries further by taking his subject into altered states, showing how psychedelic pop (as opposed to the ear-grinding jams of "acid rock") offered other worlds and strange sounds that took listeners through a mind-bending time travel back to vaudeville, Tin Pan Alley, British Music Hall, and the melodic traditions that made songs hits before your grandmother was born.
These influences, in turn, inspired many easy-listening arrangers and conductors to reinterpret the songs into instrumental wonders that were often just as (if not more) surreal.
Easy-Listening Acid Trip takes readers on a journey that includes the Hollyridge Strings' haunting version of the Beatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever," Paul Mauriat's lush treatment of Scott McKenzie's "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)," and Mariano and the Unbelievables' baroque-pop tribute to the Lemon Pipers "Green Tambourine."
The book also provides numerous anecdotes, such as how quickly after the Strawberry Alarm Clock released their 1967 hit "Incense and Peppermints," Muzak recorded an instrumental version by Charles Grean and His Orchestra that kept the electric guitar but re-contoured the tune with harps, horns, flutes, a tambourine, and other effects for offices, restaurants, supermarkets, and of course, elevators.
Delving into the songs along with the international roster of composers, arrangers, and conductors who recorded them, Easy-Listening Acid Trip celebrates the trippy paradox linking psychedelia to easy-listening: a netherworld where the Beatles meet The Percy Faith Strings, where Donovan meets David Rose and His Orchestra, and where other flower-power-pop favourites meld with the likes of Ferrante and Teicher, Lawrence Welk, and the Mystic Moods Orchestra.
Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?
Critics praise Lanza as an "expert's expert" on unique aspects of culture, commending the book's quirky and enlightening nature. Richard Metzger of Dangerous Minds highlights the book's exploration of a nearly unknown genre, while J. G. Ballard calls it a "fascinating tour". Entertainment Weekly appreciates Lanza’s serious treatment of background music, noting it as an engaging pop-history work that connects shopping-mall music to bands like Devo. Composer Wendy Carlos found it both educational and entertaining despite many musicologists' disregard for the topic.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9781627310956
Publisher: Feral House,U.S.
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 22 December 2020
Country: United States
Imprint: Feral House,U.S.
Illustration: 46 Illustrations
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Width: 205.0mm
Height: 205.0mm
Weight: 250g
Pages: 256
Collections
About the Author
Joseph Lanza, who writes mostly about film and popular music, is perhaps best known for his pioneering and critically acclaimed book ELEVATOR MUSIC: A SURREAL HISTORY OF MUZAK, EASY-LISTENING, AND OTHER MOODSONG.
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