Sorry, don’t have a sound file-but you know what I’m talking abot-that kind of mindless elevator music that accompanied all kinds of ad (for banal products), in the 1950’s and 60’s . My question: who composed thsi crap? Has anyone ever issued a collection of this “music”?
Inquiring minds want to know (and ruin their ears!)
Do you mean the “Latinesque” music of Esquivel and Perez Prado?
Sorry can’t help, but just seconding your OP. I absolutely LOVE that stuff. Optimistic, buzzy 50s background music is great.
Zinc! come back, Zinc!
(Wasn’t born in the 50s, but I lived through enough twenty year-old school films in the 70s to be able to totally grok this stuff).
It’s those swingin’ bongos, baby!
That’s definitely lounge.
When I saw the OP, I was thinking of the Typewriter Song, and the music so often heard in 1950s progress-themed propaganda films with subjects like the virtues of suburban living. What’s the name of that style of music?
Since this OP will pretty much be discussing music, let’s flip it over to Cafe Society, where they can answer questions factually and are pretty smart along these lines.
samclem General Questions Moderator
A lot of the collections in the Ultra Lounge series have this stuff as welll.
This stuff is a guilty pleasure for me. Lounge music like Esquivel comes close, but the best collection of the very 1950s-sounding production music the OP refers to is the Music For TV Dinners compilation album.
While you’re at it, get some Raymond Scott, a composer who created some truly bizarre and quirky music many of you will have heard in old cartoons.
Often referred to as production music, library music, or stock music. The libraries of Associated Production Music are often used for this sort of thing, most often in comedy, animation, and advertising (for example, The Daily Show and Ren & Stimpy), either to satirize old educational films or to provide an ironic contrast to the action on-screen. Music For TV Dinners (Scamp SCP 9721-2) is a good commerically-available collection of some oft-used APM cues.
Esquivel and Perez Prado were brilliant musicians; not sure why you’d call it a *guilty *pleasure.
I was talking about the stock production music, not them.
What was that 1950s style of production music called, though?
Are you talking about Bossa Nova music? Sorta like this: http://youtube.com/watch?v=FnSZDoVDcc8 (no it’s not Rick Astley!!!)
I think the quintissential example of what the OP is talking about is the rather garish and awful Holiday for Strings (which can be found on one of the UltraLounge collections).
Wait, that’s the Austin Powers song isn’t it?
I had no idea it was a real song.
-FrL-
Ha! Thanks!
I just downloaded an Esquivel album.
-FrL-
Does anyone remember this sketch with Horatio Sanz hosting a morning show where the theme music just doesn’t stop playing?
This is the kind of music I think of as the Latin-y elevator pop music as described in the OP. What was the name of that piece from the sketch? (Seriously, if anyone knows, I’d forever be in your debt. I’ve been trying to figure out what this music is called and who wrote it ever since that sketch first aired.)
Herb Albert and the Tiajuana Brass
My favorite by them is What Now My Love.
This is a song to throw yourself off a cliff by.
Here is the first verse
What now my love?
Now that you left me
How can I live through another day?
Watching my dreams turning to ashes
And my hopes into bits of clay
Once I could see
Once I could feel
Now I am numb
I’ve become unreal
I walk the night
Without a goal
Stripped of my heart
My soul
But HA&TB make it a happy bouncy instrumental song! WOOHOO!
Too bad there’s no actual video available of this… 
There were many conductors that took pop music and arranged it for orchestra. Mantovani, 101 Strings, Andre Previn, etc. Henry Mancini’s music could probably fall into this category, although some of his stuff was quite jiggy.