# Whats your favorite easy listening or instrumental music?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-easy-listening-or-instrumental-music/554884
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [September 24, 2010, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-easy-listening-or-instrumental-music/554884 "2010-09-24T15:25:53Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2010, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-easy-listening-or-instrumental-music/554884/1 "2010-09-24T15:25:53Z")
I’m putting together a collection of mp3 music for my mom. One of her favorites is Mantovani. I’ve got 6 of his CD’s for her. Once in awhile I like to listen to it too. His orchestra music was recorded in the 50’s,60’s, and 70’s. Is there a contemporary orchestra that’s as good you could recommend?
Last year I bought her Susan Boyle’s cd and Mclaughlin. I also have some broadway musicals.
Can you recommend some easy listening? Instrumentals or vocals are fine.
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### Author:  [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2010, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-easy-listening-or-instrumental-music/554884/2 "2010-09-24T15:33:48Z")
that’s Sarah Mclaughlin.
stinking timeout, struck again ☹
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### Author:  [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2010, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-easy-listening-or-instrumental-music/554884/3 "2010-09-24T15:39:15Z")
Contemporaries:
Melachrino
Billy Vaughn
David Rose
Percy Faith
101 Strings
Roger Williams
Peter Nero
Hugo Winterhalter
Bert Kaempfert
Henry Mancini
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### Author:  [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2010, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-easy-listening-or-instrumental-music/554884/4 "2010-09-24T15:42:55Z")
I have about 500 hours of music on my laptop. The only pieces fitting your specifications are “Rise” by Herb Alpert and “Feels So Good” by Chuck Mangione.
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### Author:  [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2010, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-easy-listening-or-instrumental-music/554884/5 "2010-09-24T16:12:03Z")
I found Clebanoff Strings and Orchestra on youtube.
great stuff
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlglBYfUU2g)
Zeldar thinks for that great list. 😉 I’d forgotten about Melachrino. He’s very similar to Mantovani.
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### Author:  [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2010, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-easy-listening-or-instrumental-music/554884/6 "2010-09-24T16:12:29Z")
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> Is there a contemporary orchestra that’s as good you could recommend?
The CD Baby search engine is pretty good; I put “Mantovani” in there and got [this](http://www.cdbaby.com/Search/bWFudG92YW5p/0) list; you can also search by genre. Under “easy listening” there are subtypes including “ballads,” “easy pop,” “instrumental pop,” “musicals,” and many more. On most you can listen to samples before you buy to see if it’s the kind of thing your mom would like, and many are downloads.
If you go to the [$5 sale page](http://www.cdbaby.com/Sale) and find three or more you like, they’re $5 each (hard copy only).
Each listing says “Recommend if you like . . .” and gives an artist name, so if you like, for example, Jim Brickman, you might like [Marc Vaillancourt](http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/marcvaillancourt).
Your mom might like [Lorie Line](http://www.amazon.com/Simply-Grand-Lorie-Line/dp/B00000K2CH/ref=sr_1_1?s=gateway&ie=UTF8&qid=1285344702&sr=8-1).
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### Author:  [@multimediac17](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/multimediac17)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2010, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-easy-listening-or-instrumental-music/554884/7 "2010-09-24T16:16:13Z")
Enya!
I love Enya in a completely sincere, non-ironic way even though she’s the only new-age artist in my music collection that leans more towards dance/hip-hop.
_Watermark_ is a perfect album, one of my all-time favourites, I’d recommend it to anyone looking for nice, inoffensive (so inoffensive it hurts) easy-listening music.
In conclusion, I love Enya.
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### Author:  [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2010, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-easy-listening-or-instrumental-music/554884/8 "2010-09-24T16:25:09Z")
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> Zeldar thinks for that great list. 😉 I’d forgotten about Melachrino. He’s very similar to Mantovani.
Quite welcome! I used to work in a record shop in that era and was just rattling off names from memory.
For a broader array of music in that overall genre, try:
> **[The Space Age Pop Music Page](http://www.spaceagepop.com/)**
>
> Encyclopedia of Space Age Pop, Exotica, and Lounge Music and Musicians
> **[Space age pop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_age_pop)**
>
> Space age pop or bachelor pad music is a subgenre of easy listening or lounge music associated with American and Mexican composers, songwriters, and bandleaders in the Space Age of the 1950s and 1960s. It drew on contemporary fascination with technology, outer space, and "exotic" locations, exploiting new audio technology such as stereophonic sound, multitrack recording, and early electronic instruments. Irwin Chusid identifies the heyday of the genre as "roughly 1954 to 1963—from the Among the m...
> **[Lounge music](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lounge_music)**
>
> Lounge music is a type of easy listening music popular in the 1950s and 1960s. This music is meant to evoke in the listeners an emotion, or the feeling of being in a place with a tranquil theme such as a jungle, an island paradise or outer space. It emerged from Dixieland jazz, Latin dance, the croon, experimental music, and the gimmick song. The range of lounge music encompasses beautiful music–influenced instrumentals, and modern electronica (with chillout and downtempo influences), while Exoti...
> **[Easy listening](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easy_listening)**
>
> Easy listening (including mood music) is a popular music genre and radio format that was most popular during the 1950s to the 1970s. It is related to middle of the road (MOR) music and encompasses instrumental recordings of standards, hit songs, non-rock vocals and instrumental covers of selected popular rock songs. It mostly concentrates on music that pre-dates the rock and roll era, characteristically on music from the 1940s and 1950s. It was differentiated from the mostly ins Easy listening...
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### Author:  [@dmatsch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dmatsch)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2010, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-easy-listening-or-instrumental-music/554884/9 "2010-09-24T19:23:26Z")
“Silk and Steel” by – of all bands – Savatage off of Gutter Ballet.
A beautiful fingerstyle guitar piece. Hearing this for the first time made me buy the guitar I have today, 20 years later.
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### Author:  [@NetTrekker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NetTrekker)
#### Post date: [September 25, 2010, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-easy-listening-or-instrumental-music/554884/10 "2010-09-25T02:39:06Z")
Highly recommend [http://www.amazon.com/Greatest-Hits-Leroy-Anderson/dp/B000003FAG/ref=pd\_bxgy\_m\_img\_c](http://www.amazon.com/Greatest-Hits-Leroy-Anderson/dp/B000003FAG/ref=pd_bxgy_m_img_c)
Also a Chet Atkins collection if she’d like some nice country guitar instrumentals or Floyd Cramer for country-styled piano.
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### Author:  [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)
#### Post date: [September 25, 2010, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-easy-listening-or-instrumental-music/554884/11 "2010-09-25T16:35:19Z")
_[Scenes](http://www.last.fm/music/Marty+Friedman/Scenes)_, by Marty Friedman of **Megadeth** fame. Great New Age Fusion music. Even my parents like it.
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### Author:  [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)
#### Post date: [September 25, 2010, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-easy-listening-or-instrumental-music/554884/12 "2010-09-25T17:19:12Z")
Twin Peaks music by Angelo Badalamenti
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### Author:  [@Covered\_In\_Bees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Covered_In_Bees)
#### Post date: [September 25, 2010, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-easy-listening-or-instrumental-music/554884/13 "2010-09-25T23:55:28Z")
_[Halcyon & On & On](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV-hSgL1R74)_ -Orbital
[_Ressurection (Space Club Mix)_](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Zm0Z1M_zqI) -PPK
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### Author:  [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2010, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-easy-listening-or-instrumental-music/554884/14 "2010-09-26T00:26:28Z")
I don’t consider Broadway musicals ‘easy listening’! 😕 Just the opposite! I blast them in my car and sing along to rouse myself out of the glums.
The Weather Channel plays a lot of nice stuff, though I don’t know what it is. I’ll have to go to the website, they list the music they play, mostly jazz and new age stuff.
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### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2010, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-easy-listening-or-instrumental-music/554884/15 "2010-09-26T01:18:28Z")
Enya.
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### Author:  [@Rahne\_McCloud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rahne_McCloud)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2010, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-easy-listening-or-instrumental-music/554884/16 "2010-09-26T01:35:19Z")
Bette Midler, Josh Groban and Judy Collins.
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2010, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-easy-listening-or-instrumental-music/554884/17 "2010-09-26T18:13:58Z")
Harold Budd
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### Author:  [@Jaledin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaledin)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2010, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-easy-listening-or-instrumental-music/554884/18 "2010-09-27T07:31:42Z")
I’ll toss back gladly to the above Floyd Cramer. Booker T. and the MGs, as well. Solo piano records by NO guys like Dr. John and James Booker tend to be very much in an easier-listening vein, as well. So many others, but just to continue these above with some recs for now, it’ll have to do for now.
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### Author:  [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2010, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-easy-listening-or-instrumental-music/554884/19 "2010-09-27T14:59:48Z")
Thanks everyone! 😉 There’s been some great suggestions.
As I grow older I’m beginning to understand why my parents loved this music. I still love classic rock. But there are times I want a change. I’ve started listening to jazz, show tunes, Latin etc. Music in any style can be appreciated.
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### Author:  [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2010, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-easy-listening-or-instrumental-music/554884/20 "2010-09-27T20:35:03Z")
There’s a local guy I know named Donovan Johnson. I’ll bet your mom would love him.