(Madacy)
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Easy listening has so many facets and applications now but it's never ceased to be a dirty word. With the sort of lite-jazz and adult contemporary material that currently pipes in to the discount stores and rest stops of the world, that makes sense. But what of Beautiful Music ("mood music" colloquially), the once-bustling radio format that started it all, a perverse space-age lite classical with lounge elements and considerable quirk, evocative of mythical early 1960s bachelor pads and chic parties, and with an impressive alt-pedigree -- it's one of the many key inspirations for the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, and its principles are not leagues apart from Brian Eno's ambient creations of the '70s and '80s.
As an example of what Beautiful Music has to offer, a lot of people will point you to the many 50-cent bin vinyl offerings of the Hollyridge Strings or the Mystic Moods Orchestra, or even the Jackie Gleason Presents series. Not this guy. Your money's well spent on any of the above; if you've got a taste for this stuff, you'll love them all. But along with Herb Alpert and Bert Kaempfert, 101 Strings are a cut above. Their arrangements will be indistinguishable from those others first, even to the Muzak aficionado, but there is some actual legitimate lounge in their catalog, particularly early on during their Latin/Mambo period. And the lush impersonality fades on many of their covers until a surprisingly adventurous layer of verve and swing appear. Their take on "Girl from Ipanema" is just about the best that exists; their "Moon River" is haunting, their "Music Box Dancer" destroys the hit, their "Scarborough Fayre" and "Call Me Irresponsible" are downright trippy.
And I'm not kidding, they deserve your attention beyond novelty; as an artistic figure, they have a certain mythic quality -- actually 125 strings, and existing in various parallel arrangements and nations, their brand stamp betrays a whimsy of purpose that often takes them in bizarre directions. Take their Play the Blues album, which finally answers the burning question of what raw B.B. King songs sound like with massive string arrangements behind them. Or the deservedly legendary exotica piece Songs of the Seasons of Japan. Or just listen to "Guantanamera," which has such lilt and bounce and boom it fits perfectly on a dance floor.
If debating the relative quality of five versions of "This Guy's in Love with You" and studying some of the most stunning art-deco LP covers of all time sounds like fun to you, and if maybe you have a jones for the saccharine kitsch of a good Jack Nitzsche or Percy Faith, perhaps you are an easy listening or Beautiful Music buff in the making. Few things are more fun (and cheap) to collect. Here's all you need to do: 1) Go to your library and check out (or go to your bookstore and buy) Joseph Lanza's Elevator Music, a definitive, fascinating look at the subject that you won't be able to put down -- one of the best books on pop music of any kind that I've read. 2) Go to your local goodwill or, preferably, record store and start digging through the cheap bins of the stuff nobody wants. The rule in kitsch, exotica, lounge, and easy listening is that the cooler and/or more offensively funny the cover is, the more you want the record. And it's fifty fucking cents (or less), for Chrissake. Just buy it. That's how you build a damn collection.
Beautiful Music hasn't really moved into the CD era, but the notoriously roughshod reissue company Madacy has brought out a lot of the 101 Strings material. And if you want a basic sampling of what this weird obsession is all about, you could do worse than picking up this CD, which is only about $5 at most places. Drawing mostly from late-'60s material (and very little from the more "legit" early records, which are far easier to track down on vinyl), it contains a few bits of Andrew Lloyd Weber nonsense, but the rest of it will brighten your evening. It's well-recorded, unbelievably lush and silly, and feels like a good frothy mixed drink. The weirdos and the old folks understand.
Great "Elvira Madigan Theme" on here too, by the way.
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