electronic, easy listening, female vocals.

This song is an intriguing one for me, I can never get enough of it! It's one of the easy listening classics from the early 70's and is one of the most perfect examples of the "Now Sound" genre, recorded by a Hawaiian bar band led by lead singer Liz Damon. Interestingly, it is a cover of a song written by Chicago soul songwriter Johnny Cameron and it was originally recorded by Betty Everett on the Uni label. I was lucky enough to find a copy of Betty's original version, but unfortunately her version has never been put on CD.

This song has a delightfully slow tempo and dreamy, romantic lyrics that somehow seem timeless. To me, the song always seemed to be in an older style than its early 70's release date would suggest. The bridge features great horn playing and a wonderful descending bass run.

The original 45 on White Whale Records had a song called "You're Falling in Love" on the flip side, and that song too is a classic, in my opinion.

Delicate instrumental by Dave Grusin, that grows with each listen and has all the charachteristics of late 60s arrangements i love so much. The instrumentation is diverse, rich, yet subtle with piano, organ, horns, flutes and wonderfully arrangened, smooth strings and some harp embellishments thrown in. The mood is mellow, romantic with a dose of melancholia. Another great instrumental from the soundtrack, "California Montage", has recently appeared on "The Get Easy! Sunshine Pop Collection", while this one unfortunately is only available on vinyl.

The "Softrock Drivin'" series is a terrifically compiled collection of japanese soft rock and bossa nova gems from the late 60s/early 70s. And it clearly shows that the japanese interest in all kinds of easy listening music wasn't solely influenced by contemporaries like Burt Bacharach but by native artists as well. This track by Emma Sugimoto is a delightfully light and fluffy piece of japanese pop and sounds like a blueprint for some kind of "Shibuya-Kei" track artists like Pizzicato Five could have produced. With shimmering strings, harpiscord embellishments, slightly funky electric guitar and a wonderful trumpet on top. With the clear, transparent production and fine arrangement it's a true standout track of the series.

This track is simply outstanding, a showcase for Nicolai as well as for Edda Dell'Orso. It's insane how this is put together: funky rhythm section with drums, bass and acoustic guitar, loads of brass throughout, reverb-laden plucked strings interchange with sweeping, floating strings and an incredible vocal performance by Edda Dell'Orso. Hard to describe how magically this is woven together...

To me this is certainly a pinnacle of pure late 60s sunshine pop. Composed by pop genius Roger Nichols the timeless, idealistic lyrics were written by Tony Asher (who wrote most of the lyrics with Brian Wilson on Pet Sounds) not by his regular partner Paul Williams. Sunshine pop hardly gets any sunnier than on this track: great production, strings galore, Beach Boys-esque vocal harmonies, great bassline & trumpet and catchy as hell with it's uplifting chord progressions throughout. While the album version (recently included on the highly recommended "The Get Easy! Sunshine Pop Collection") is good already, the single version is just crisper, lusher, just perfect.

Come closer and listen carefully, this is the best kept secret of the so called music industry.
The Monochrome Set have changed my life and the ones of thousands (Well..maybe hundreds..ok, maybe 5 or 10). They came out of nowhere in the late seventies with a serie of singles on Rough Trade and were signed by Virgin in 1980 for 2 albums then by Cherry Red for a third one (Eligible bachelors) and by Warner for the last one (The lost week end). It is not an easy task to describe their music, it is always unpredictable, brilliant, clever and funny.

To finish, this is a quote from the cover of their second album :
"Once this record is in the house two's company and four is a party, roll back the carpet, switch out the light and dance in the glow of the firelight as the Monochrome Set provide your very own music far from the maddening crowd of the dancehalls"

Oh by the way, Apocalypso is an exquisite little song with a marimba and percussion break.

For me, this perhaps the absolute apex of the much-admired Italian 'Easy Tempo' series of compilations (it's on Volume 8). The formula is similar to other tracks I've recommended - a sexy wordless vocal, a light bossa beat, some strings. But that really doesn't tell the story! The chord sequence is extremely catchy and uplifting. This is a truly incredible three minutes.

Easy lovin', reminds you of than warm fuzzy sunshine love feelings you get when with that special companion, just nice groovin' love tunes, "let go of your heart, let go of your head"

Beautiful summery easy-bossa arrangement of this Villa-Lobos orchestral piece. The tempo floats along at a lazy pace, augmented by gorgeous piano and flute solos, then comes to an abrupt end with a very cool bass riff. Apparently, Schifrin recorded another version of this song in 1996 on the "Gillespiana" album, and that features Karlheinz Stockhausen's son Markus playing trumpet!

Put some SPF-40 on your ears before listening to this unadultered mix of bossa-pop sunshine from the duo of Miho Hatori (Cibo Matto) and Beck session man Smokey Hormel.

An infectious guitar joined by percussion and horn slinks around and through Miho's precise, breathless vocal.

Four plus minutes of aural ecstasy. (You have to work awful hard to make something sound so easy.)

This is part of the De Wolfe library collection. A good library collection has just been reissued in Japan that includes some of the better selections that this catalog has to offer. Now that most of the great music libraries have found snug homes, this CD is an easy way to avoid the price gouging and hassle of scoring a song you just want to listen to. I like this song because it has a unique cool and light tone, while being somewhere in between bossa and uptempo dancefloor jazz. Something to listen to in the shade at the beach. It only clocks in at 1:41, but you couldn't ask for more or less.

The finest moment of a legendary 80s UK indie label which fused a post-punk spirit with the best elements of 60s pop style - bossa nova, light psychedelia, girl groups. And pre-empted the lounge/easy listening revival by about 10 years. The Would Be-Goods were two sisters, Jessica and Miranda, who couldn�t sing and did so beautifully. The �l catalogue is being re-issued on CD by Cherry Red Records. Well worth checking out.

Off the LP "Orlan Divo" Orlan Divo's first release on the Musidisc label. A collaboration with Ed Lincoln, Waltel Branco and other Musidisc luminaries. This LP/CD is available as a reissue from whatmusic.com

A laid back bossa/balanco track. Nice easy vocals by Orlan Divo who has a great voice (although I don't speak a word of Portugese so I couldn't say what he's singing about) and some really sweet understated organ licks from the usually over-the-top Ed Lincoln especially durring the vibes break. It's a great track off an even greater LP. I think the only other consistently solid LP like this one is that comes to mind would be Eumir Deodato's "Tremendao" on the equipe label.

Just discovered this cover of the Neil Diamond song on Youtube, along with several other videos by the Music Machine, and it really stunned me. It's a beautiful soft pop version of "Cherry Cherry" complete with flute solo-nothing like the other songs I've heard from the band. Nothing garagey about it at all, more in the easy listening vein...and I mean that in a good way!

Another great cover version that the Music Machine do is "Hey Joe"-their's is my favorite version of that oft-recorded chestnut.

The guitar is simple, yet effective and the melody is easy to get into. This is the perfect summer song for me.

The guitar is simple, yet effective and the melody is easy to get into. This is the perfect summer song for me.

Beautiful orchestration. Easy italian lyrics . Sandie's voice at her its best

"Easy fantastic, lonely together.." - I have listened to this song at least 100 times since receiving it on Audiogalaxy. Simple yet beautiful. I never knew Mos Def had such a pleasant and sexy voice! I am in heaven when he sings "I just go walking in the rain ... when I feel you passing by..." The back drop is provided by the talented contemporary 8 string jazz guitarist Charlie Hunter (once a member of Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprosy).

Very nice sound to it, you got your basic instrument set in this one, I like it because of the lyrics.. They're not totally simple. It's easy to understand today's pop and stuff like that, but Deathcab actually puts some more effort into their music.

If there is such a genre as psychedelic impressionist easy pop, this song should be its flagship. Dreamy, lulling, yet subtly disturbing, this seven-minute plus tune is like entering a watercolor painting.

Brian Wilson given the full-on 60s Brit-Girl treatment. It has wonderfully uplifting brass and some powerful vocals. The Paper Dolls had a couple of decent soulful easy hits in the UK in 1968. The CD is well worth checking out.

Italian film score Bossa Nova featuring lyric-less female vocal.

"Brasilian Beat '67 featuring Alberto on the Marimbas & the Juan Morales Singers"
This record came out on the Budget Label "DESIGN".
Great Record with great Cover which is similar to Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66.
cover is visible on my website: www.easylounge.org

This is pure fun, a track with that 'easy cheesy' sound which many people love to hate. But wait, this is brilliant! Although rather clunky and an extremely 'square' take on 'hip', this is quite magnificent, honestly. Backed by a relentless beat, Ronnie plays the tune on 2 pianos, while for the bridge section the superb harmonies in the Beach Boys original are played out beautifully by the London Festival Orchestra. Although it's something of a guilty pleasure, I have to recommend this track very highly. Listening to it now on headphones, I notice that it even has that stereo effect having each piano come out of a different channel, an effect used to great effect on his version of 'soulful strut'.

A nice funky instrumental with simple blues chords. Ramsey plays electric piano, and the beat is sweet, like a lot of Cadet label stuff from the late 60s. Groovy stuff, and quite easy to come by on the reissue 2 LP - 'Inside Ramsey Lewis'.

I know very little about Hal - I just picked up this LP for a dollar on a hunch that it might be good. It's pretty great. There are two or three very strong 'mod' tracks, and then this, an example of my favorite kind of easy listening cut. It's very pretty and reasonably slow, with nice strings, good piano and solid percussion. There are some vocals, but their involvement is minimal. If I have a complaint, it's that the piano becomes slightly overbearing. But it's a cool track all the same.

Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn in the early eighties were recording the same Bossa oriented songs that made "Sade" famous, but with more talent. Eden was their first album, both had recorded songs before for Cherry Red (a UK label) but to be on a major label Gave them the opportunity to really arranged their songs. Each and everyone opens the album with magnificence.
As soon as the second album the magic was lost, EBTG was just another name on the Warner catalogue.

Like most of the bruces' work, this song is melancholic but dreamy. It's an acoustic piece, with a fast pace and at least two or three less minutes than most bruces songs, which at times have reached 14min.
Great lyrics. Conor Oberst, from Bright Eyes and Desaparecidos, has taken much inspiration from this band.
Very good for melancholic nights where you don't plan on killing yourself. :o)

Has a heavy sound, ethereal and complex rhythm. Guitar, bass guitar, violin, 2 drummers. I like it because it is insanely groovy.

Knowledge is power and Stereo MC'S know how to preach it! Rob B turns out a great groove and a positive message reminding you to take the high road or get burned by your bad choices. I find it easy to get the memorable refrain "I wanna go higher" stuck in my head...

Might just well be the most dreamy, seductive, sexy song imaginable. Too bad it's only a bit over two
minutes long. From one of the million Italian thriller soundtracks that are, thank God, now available.

Easy listening. Not many lyrics, but good harmonies and beats. A song that doesn't get old.

Not quite as easy as I'd expect from A&C, having a more rocky almost Krautrock feel. An insistent bassline, nice harmonising vocals, shiny almost Can-like guitars, with these very, very nice pastoral breakdowns. Vaguely psychedlic almost.

An incredibly perfect easy listening piece, this opens with an other-worldly, John-Barry-ish synth sound, and then leads into a groovy, lightly funky piano riff, with shimmering strings. Francis Lai's signature organ sound carries the tune as the song builds into a dramatic orchestral pop masterpiece. A standout track, with superb wistful, lazy, summer day feel, rather like some of the best tracks on the 'Sound Gallery' compilation of a few years ago.

Freakishly cool jet-set jazz from the great Benny Golson. A Gary Mcfarland tune that he wrote for his "In Sound" LP, and I must say his version seemed pretty hard to top,until this. A mindblowing mix of styles from the period are included in this one track:Gary Mcfarland's easy-latin swing(complete with whistles),The elecrtrified sax sound of Eddie Harris, and a swirling vocal ensemble thats almost in a Hugo Montenegro mode! Wild!!

A lovely, sugary piece of easy-pop, with a nice flute, some subtle strings, fingersnaps and terrific lyrics. "We were swinging oh so nice/bubbly pink champagne on ice"...plus a few "la la la doobie doobie doo"s for good measure.

The definition of phenomenal: known through the senses rather than through thought or intuition. If you like Jefferson Airplane, download this song. So clever.

What a great blend of electronica and easy listening this track is. Think of it as a trippy, chillin' "A Summer Place" in outer space with gentle male/female vocals, some french whisperings and sparse, delicate electronica intertwined with the memorable, lush string melody sample of "A Summer Place".

Yes it is the title tune from the hit musical, but this Dutch band played it fast and funky. Kind of like Speed Lounge. The single comes from a five CD set which has plenty of other wonderful garage/pop tunes from the 60s.

It has piano and bass and drums
It sounds amazing
I love it because it is slow and easy listening

Keith Carradine composed 'I'm Easy' and performed it in Robert Altman's 'Nashville'. His rendition won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Song in a Motion Picture in 1975.

Tolan McNeil of Carolyn Mark and the Room-mates covers it to great effect on the album 'Nashville', a tribute to Robert Altman's film.

Also appearing on this tribute album are Neko Case, Kelly Hogan, Carolyn Mark and Dallas Good (of Toronto's 'the Sadies').

This is a gorgeous summer tune in a similar vein to "Heartbeat" by Tahiti 80. This song makes you want to dance, a bit disco, a bit easy listening and a smudge of retro. I can't recommend the entire album - it's all over the place but this single is stunning.

Slow-burn, easy-listening intrumental. (Harder to find are the later UK versions by Alan Haven and 'The Now Sound of Vic Templar & His Mood Orchestra'.)

Who?

As a 60's girl group collector who's been at it for a number of years, I'm always delighted when some compiler somewhere turns up an absolute gem. As this is from the sleevenotes-shy semi-legal Marginal records, I had to find out on my own that this is infact Jill (with bonus "l") Gibson, Jan-of-Jan-and-Dean's girlfriend and rock photographer. Jan and Dean also recorded this song.

Very quiet vocals in contrast to a lot of 60's girl groups - almost a little Margo Guryan in there if it weren't for the stomping in the background. No info at all on the production. If anyone can fill me in, I'd love to hear it.

style: pop, downbeat. Smooth, easy, just the right amound of bossa, drums, synthesizers. Kim is just a great song all around and only 7 some minutes long. But you don't ever want it to end. Keeps your head nodding. Burgalat is the master of instrumentation as much as Sean O'Hagen is to the High Llamas. He can produce a mellow, warm, lush sound like no one else at the moment.

A great, very represantive Easy Listening/Bossa Nova song. The lyrics is acctually Websters dictionary's description of love. I know this song has been recorded on some other Dorough album but this is the definitive version. It has a great female choire and a nice bossa groove. Really a must! The record containes a bunch of other grat songs like I'm hip, The stranger and oblai de oblai da.

Although I'm very interested in the batch of cool Italian soundtracks from the 60s and 70s which have recently been reissued, I often feel pretty overwhelmed by the volume of stuff out there. So I was pleased to find a used copy of Piero Umiliani's 'Angeli Bianchi...Angeli Neri'. It really is an intoxicatingly brilliant record, and this track is one of the highlights. The musical setting moves around a lot over four minutes - the opening sounds almost like fairy tale music; this then fades out, and some spooky and very cool sounding wordless vocals come in, accompanied by a slick, hip easy listening-style sequence with strings, bass and drums. As this builds, the wordless vocals continue, backed by increasingly beautiful and unexpected chord changes. I'm not doing a great job of describing this record, but happily in this case you can hear the whole song (streamed, real audio) at the excellent 'atrecordings.com' site. Anyway, it's a wonderful track, up there with my absolute favorite soundtrack pieces.

A surprisingly hip easy-listening orchestral version from the decidedly unhip Kirshner. Very funky drumming and a cool girl chorus make this my favorite version of this song.

The definition of a groovy, instrumental easy listening disco tune. Makes me wanna jump on the first plane to somewhere warm and swinging. Great piano and acoustic guitar accompaniment from this Spanish lizard with a hairy face. And that girl backing choir.. there are two single versions of this that are slightly different and a full length version which is the best.

A simple and groovy, mid-tempo easy pop tune with a nice wah-wah guitar riff and Jane B.'s trademark teen fox vocal. Everything apart from the words "Lolita go home" is sung in French. Jane B. didn't really know French and it sounds quite funny. Gainsbourg and Birkin must've had a hell of a relationship! Another classic in my dj set which again shows Gainsbourg's tremendous ability to write sunny bubblegum pop as well as arrange it deliciously.

First of all let me say that I have been violently blindsided by this group! ...they very quickly entered my favorite 60's pop group stratosphere and have not budged from my rotation for months now. I first got "From you unto us", the singles collection which is good for what it is, but I think the best introduction to the band is the albums themselves, original ordering of songs in this case is vital to the listening experience.
I liked the singles collection OK, but my first impression was muted and okish until I noticed a couple songs later on sticking in my head for hours... picked up the first album on CD (Wondering the whole time if I should be doing this as I have most of the tracks on the comp, CD right? I like the original ordering BEST! Glad I did, no regrets at all...) and have played little else for some time...

I just got Timeless and I'm choosing one off their second album because the first album is one of the few immaculate pop albums of all time IMO and choices there are easy favorites... the second album seems to be less popular, but there are some serious gems here too and It's also a stone cold favorite...

I am choosing Look Away because I think the most distinctive sonic quality of Eternity's Children are these wonderful uplifting bouncy organ driven songs... ET have several tracks that deliver a great song, beautiful and original atmospheric production, great performances in a deeply satisfying way that is rare... This song is pure pop bliss from the opening notes to the end. I honestly can't think of a better compliment than that this song makes me glad to be alive.

For those of you who played in the band and stumble across this:
From the bottom of my heart THANK YOU!

This is one of those songs that really sounds nothing like any of the artists' other songs. This is off Lani's first solo album "Sundown Lady" and was produced by her husband and label executive Herb Alpert. The song is the first song on the album and sets the tone with a nice easy bass line accented by the tinkling of an electric piano. The real money is the combination of Lani's impassioned vocals with whoever (maybe Herb?) singing a simple male vocal complement during the chorus. The song is effortlessly funky, understated and oh-so-deep. I haven't played this song for someone who hasn't loved it.

Nouvelle Vague is the project of Marc Collin and Olivier Libaux, who basically took classic late 70s/early 80s new wave songs and transformed them into light, easy going, predominantly bossa tinged tracks, including heavily accented, whispery Longet-esque vocals. They claim these young vocalists never even heard the original songs. It works brilliantly for sure on "Love will tear us apart" where they manage to interpret the song as a melancholic, chilled stroll down a beach with sparse percussion, acoustic bass and guitar, vibraphone and some samples of waves rushing on the seaside. I'd like to think even Ian Curtis might smile down on this cover version...

english language version of "l' amour a 3", available as a bonus track on the american release of "musique automatique".

cute electronic pop song about threesomes, courtesy of french-german electro-rockabilly-breakbeat-chanson-disco-pop sensation stereo total.
features some great moaning samples.
the ooohohouou- sound in the chorus remind me of a norwegian children's programme i used to watch when i was a kid. i just love the vocals in this version. they might not be technically perfect, but the french-german accent is really cute, and adds a lot to the feel of the song.

"it's absolutely out, i know it's hippie shit/
but i say it loud, with the three of us, i love it"

(by the way, stereo total are very nice people. they deserve your love)

A song that lives up to it's name. On the surface, a very easy-going trumpet, harpsichord and xylophone flutter about over a very tense rythm that hints as something sinister. An excellent use of contrasting elements to set a particular filmic mood.

Such a very sad song, with simply wonderful melody and harmony. This arrangement, originally issued on an album of the same name, makes the very most of its poignancy and drama. Bacharach himself sings beautifully,while carrying all the intelligence and emotion of his song. I don't think I've conveyed what it is that's so superb about this record, so will return to this review at a later date.

Always loved this song by Burt Bacharach and this version sounds just heavenly. From the credits, it's easy to spot why: Claus Ogerman. He's in top form here, transforming the song into a gentle bossa nova with all the Ogerman magic of that time, very similar in sound and texture to his work on Antonio Carlos Jobim's "The Composer Of Desafinado Plays": Gentle basic rhythm section, subdued piano, airy flutes and trumpets and of course those impeccably arranged strings swirling in and out during the song.

I love the heartfelt lyrics, pretty guitar,

An unusual sounding piece from a recently reissued Library LP, the overall sound here reminds me of the lush tropical easy listening/rock hybrid which Les Baxter achieves on his superb 'Que Mango' LP from 1970. However, on this track the strings and guitar sound very slightly out of tune in a way which our man Les would never have tolerated. Still, it’s a very pleasant sound, which takes some unexpected turns (e.g. the wild guitar solo in the middle).

The version I heard was actually just done acoustic, I've always liked acoustic guitar when I'm in an easy listening mood (good mood?) it was the words that attracted me to it Chorus:Mr.Jones and me/tell eachother fairy tales/stare at the beautiful women/she's looking at you/oh no no she's looking at me. The song is fun, okay? that's why I liked it.

A cool portion of that underated genre, easy soul. Bradford's vocals (a less roaring Shirley Bassey is the nearest comparison I can think of) complement the light arrangement perfectly. Fits in with that whole John Schroeder Orchestra vibe. Sometimes you just want a lovely vocalist singing a nice song.

A nicely groovy easy listening instrumental from an album which is a very common item in British charity shops. It's nicely percussive from the start, with some nicely strummed guitar and Helmut's bizarre sounding low solo violin. It builds up to a full and funky orchestral sound - a real stomper...

When you consider just how wonderful it is, Les Baxter's 'exotic' work is under-represented on this site. From a superb and reasonably easy-to-find album, this cut is an intoxicating mix of shimmering 50s style strings and gentle bongo rhythms.

'Nightingale' is a Xavier Cugat original that is very much in the style of classic Lecuona songs like 'Taboo'. Melodically, it also reminds me of another standard, 'Invitation'.

"Hammond Explosion"-Dieter Reith
German Hammond Organist
There are brilliant funky breaks and Hammond sounds on this awesome record!
Record Cover is visible on my website: www.easylounge.org

beautiful
-yes-
beautiful acoustic cover of the campy iron maiden song. nice driving beat. great melancholy vibe going on, it manages to give the �berstupid lyrics some sense of metaphorical meaning.. I first heard it on the soundtrack to the film "spun" by jonas �kerlund, where it plays during the opening credits. however, i don't think there's an official soundtrack out there, but it's pretty easy to find on various file-sharing networks.

This short track opens the classic 1995 easy listening compilation The Sound Gallery. I'm sure it's well known to anyone with a remote interest in the whole revival scene. It's a really beautiful track, with funky drums, organ, a gentle, whispery vocal chorus, and some great jazz piano. Evocative and glamorous, this evokes a swinging party attended by people wearing sparkly dresses. For me, this is perhaps the ultimate stylish/glamorous 60s recording.

I love the Clash. I love the way they were four disparate individuals each bringing their own stuff to the mix. Topper's excellent drumming, Simonon's cool, Mick Jones musicality and street smarts, and Joe Strummer's....umm...Strummer-ness.

I love the fact they didn't play Top of the Pops. I love the fact that Strummer admitted that this was mainly 'cos he was crap at miming rather than out of any significant political stance or anything.

I love how gooood they were live. And I love the fact that I was lucky enough to see them.

I love the fact that Strummer picked 'Crawfish' as his favourite Elvis song. I also love the fact that sometimes, to my mind, they got things badly wrong, sounded a bit gauche or wrongheaded or worse. I'm thinking of Red Brigade t-shirts, using Belfast as a photo opportunity, and maybe singing about ghettos and Brixton, for the 'romance' of it when they weren't necessarily the closest to either. I dunno. That side makes me feel uneasy at times, but that's fine - makes me think.

This song is great. Reggae influenced rock, Strummer belting out 'one more time in the ghetto...'.

Its been so sad losing Joe, Johnny (Cash) and John (Peel) over the last couple of years. Good men, you feel.

ultra-trippy middle east-influenced song celebrating the joys of gasoline, from french avantgarde easy listening composer/arranger michel magne. very heavy in the strings department.
it sounds like it was written for a commercial or something, what with the moany female vocals and all, but my french is pretty goddamn terrible, so i wouldn't know:)

Interesting Beatles related Exploitation Record with a nice Cover!
The Sound is much similar to the Original Beatles from Liverpool!

Go to http://www.easylounge.org to see the cover and look for other interesting Records! (Organ Sounds, Easy Listening, Funky Big Band Beats, Cheesy Listening.....a lot of them with sound samples!)

Cubismo Grafico -- aka Gakuji Matsuda -- has quickly become my favorite J-Pop act, and this here is one of my favorite tracks. My impression of J-Pop has been that it is either too overtly dancy or sickeningly cute for my tastes. (To be fair, my bias is based on a relatively small cross-section of music.) Anyway, this track is neither. This is an extremely well-constructed selection that strikes me as both very modern and very "easy" in a way that sounds good to my ears. On this track, Gakuki Matsuda is credited with guitar, steel pan, rhodes piano, mc-303, turntable, and voice. So, yeah, he seems like a talented guy. The music is structured around a child's narration of an amusement park attraction (found on the fascinating "Sounds For Little Ones" compilation of a few years back). The sample lends a fun, playful atmosphere. Delicado thinks he has spotted two of the musical samples used here (or at least the compositions used), and I'm pretty sure he is right. They're both very well known, and, much to the credit of this song, I'm amazed I didn't spot them myself. I'll give you a hint: one of them is one of Burt Bacharach's biggest hits.

The B-52's were one of several late-'70s bands for which there was no real category. With their modified surf guitar sound, their thrift-shop fashion sense, and their jokey demeanor, they certainly weren't in the rock & roll mainstream, but they exhibited none of punk's sneering rebelliousness or musical aggression, either � the only anarchy that seemed to interest the B-52's was of the sartorial variety. "Rock Lobster" was the first B-52's song to catch popular attention, and it's easy to see why. The minimalist guitar lick is like a beach-bum's rendition of the James Bond theme, the one-note organ ostinato complements it perfectly, and Fred Scheider's campy sprechgesang jumps out at you immediately. Yet despite the song's self-consciously weird texture and silly lyrics about earlobes falling off and communal towel coordination, there's a thread of darkness weaving through it. Make no mistake � this is not a song with hidden meaning lurking below the surface. But its surface is a little more complicated than it seems to be at first. For one thing, it's almost seven minutes long, and it does start to drag toward the end. Right when it does, you notice the mood getting darker � Schneider delivers lines about "having fun" and "baking in the sun" in a hoarse croak, and the guitar starts sounding repetitive in a slightly creepy way. Suddenly you realize that the whole song has been in a minor key, and as Schneider shouts and the guitar barks out its angular riff over and over, you start to wonder if maybe there's some kind of commentary going on here. But then Kate Pierson's angelic voice comes in with a surprisingly pretty falling harmony part that can only be described as a descant, which repeats several times, gradually paring itself down to a single phrase, and abruptly the song is over. The whole song ends up being a goofy party confection with a slightly crunchy center � a pretty satisfying overall flavor combination.
(AMG)

Al Cooper is a great overlooked songwriter.His album,Easy Does It,is a double length tour de force.He wrote more than half the tunes for this double LP,and played a myriad of instruments as well!This one is my favorite right now, mainly because it mixes well with my miserable winter. Instumentally, it has a sort of"Indo-blues"quality, with sitar(played by Mr. Cooper himself) and tablas against a lilting string ensemble.It's a song of lost love and it's dreaded illumination:"...As the sun it slowly rises, there is judgement in it's glare/And it seems too much to ask, to light a face that isn't there..." A real treat of a tune, and a must for any fans of american songwriter stuff with a touch of sad humor.Also check out his sprawling version of the Big Joe Williams tune "Baby Please Don't Go" and another original,"She Gets Me Where I Live".

The consistent high quality of the ever expanding oeuvre of Fay Lovsky doesn't make it easy to pick one song to examplify her work, so I'll just go by the moment and will choose my present favorite Sequoia, a humorous ode to a wooden californian characterised by a laid back bluesy pizzicato groove and tremelo glissandi especially towards the end, where they tickle the tree to a dramatic finale. All instruments on this track are acoustic (drums, bass, guitar, violins) and the sound is warm and direct as usual.

This is my first recommendation, so I will go easy on all of you. The following description is from my website. (it is the only way to do the song justice):

This can only be compared to something like "Retro-60's Upside-down Elevator Muzak".
(although it certainly draws from 20's/ 30's Big Band escapism)
The thing is, if this actually were playing in an elevator, the people there would certainly perform an odd ritual of alternately:
a. Merrily tapping their foot, and then
b. Looking up at the speaker, frowning and befuddled.
This is a song, which back in my partying days, we would use as a soundtrack for the following activity:
We would put our tiny baby Alligator Lizard, Festus
(who was an inch long, head to tail, and smaller around than a pencil)
...we would put him on this cheap little multi-colored fiber-optic "fountain" and put the clear cube back over it.
We would then watch as this "fountain" would very slowly spin around, Festus aboard, with this completely absurd (but oddly beautiful) music playing.
This produced near-catastrophic laughter because he would be looking up at you with this little tiny frown, as if to say;
"what the hell is wrong with you people?"
To this day, I cannot properly answer that question.
R.I.P., Festus.

Additional info:
The sax is not my favorite instrument, but it is perfectly utilized here. It wavers between slightly obnoxious and smooth as silk.
What really make the track sweet, however are the unique guitar stylings of Snakefinger.

great young girl "lala" vocals, catchy downtempo bassline. some fairly standard sax playing. originally from a series of german "educational" porn films from the sixties, and it�s pretty easy to tell. no moaning though. pretty similar to the more relaxed efforts of peter thomas, this is one good piece of horny sixties kitch.
how come porn music was so much better back then?

It's a cover of the Small Faces classic that's about as far removed from the original as it is possible to be. Instead of replicating the mod-beat pounder, producer Mark Wirtz slows the pace down, blends in all kinds of weird percussion instruments and gooes for broke with a kitchen sink finale. Some Small Faces rate this as bordering on blasphemy, I think it's an easy listening classic

Great soundtrack to a sun-drenched sunday afternoon. Birdie members Paul Kelly and Deborah Wykes met as tour musicians for Saint Etienne, and in fact they sound similar with Deborah Wykes sounding like a somewhat subdued, toned down Sarah Cracknell. But you can hear more influences, with all the warm instrumentation in the song (acoustic guitar, flutes, muted trumpet, various analogue keyboards) it's close to late 60s easy listening pop, Bacharach and The Carpenters.

This Melbourne, Australia 6 piece manages to mix dance beats and easy listening/soul samples in a much more interesting and moving way than recent artists working with similar ingredients. This track is sample happy, sampling the likes of the Main Attractions "Everyday," Klaus WUnderlich's "Let's do the Latin Hustle," and "By the Time I Get to Phoenix." I immediately recognized the Hustle's melody, acting as a primer for the wonderful 60s soul vocals. This is no doubt a feel good song!

I've been really connecting with this lately. It's mellow and easy to listen to, melancholy.

Bob Marley at his very best, this song seems all the more relevant considering current actions world-wide. "You see men sailing on their ego trips, Blast off on their spaceships, Million miles from reality, No care for you, no care for me"

This is my most favorite song in the world. I love it because it is a classic, latin, late 1970's, sultry, soft, dinner party or alone-with-someone-special type of track. The instrumentation is not totally typical of latin music (fast rhythm, very ornate), it is soft and easy. The vocals are absolutely velvety and very sensual. Although it is a "sad" song, it is one of those songs that makes you want think about that special certain someone.

great song. because it starts off in a relaxed easy listening mood, the big paul mccartney chorus caught me completely offguard on first listen. Hasn�t left my playlist since...the demo version is superb, too.

You probably wouldn't expect an amazing easy listening track by Morricone on a western soundtrack i guess, but that's what you get here. Except for the harmonica intro this is pure Morricone lounge and it features the most delicate use of a muted, toned down trumpet sound one can imagine. The way it's gently built up is just fantastic and it surely can make your hair raise, it's so subtly but overwhelmingly performed. After the harmonica there's piano chords fading in, then the song kicks off with subtle strings in the background and with a midtempo drumbeat. Wonderful melody, after a while the strings start to crescend leading into a swirl and a harpsicord is added in the right places. This track just melts in your ears like italian ice cream in the sun. Another gem by Ennio, the song was even issued as a single in Italy in 1972, together with "Sonny", recommended elsewhere on musicaltaste.

the fairly stereotypical genre song title aside, this is a brilliant, totally weird multiinstrumental exotica track from the mind of french avantgarde-easy listening maestro Michel Magne. I'm really astounded by the way the arabic flute-thingy works alongside the voices. there's always a sense of controlled dissonance, wich really makes it stand out from other examples of the genre. The sheer diversity of the instruments used is another attention grabber- listening to this could probably bring you to a cultural identity crisis.
what this track does so well, like all other great exotica compositions, is conjure up an image of some exciting, fictional jungle swamp culture straight from the pages of some old style pulpy adventure stories. Was that a headhunter i saw over there?

A simple blues/funk instrumental with a fuzzy bassline and an incredibly infectuous groove. It's short and sweet, and the drum sound super fresh and funky. This is typical of Pete Moore, who made some incredibly cool records in the easy-funk vein, which are rarely seen outside his native UK.

This entertaining track opens with Astrud talking over a groovy guitar and piano background. As she starts to sing the words, the percussion becomes more pronounced, producing a nice bossa/funk hybrid. The production is very different to a lot Astrud’s work, probably because this album was from an obscure label (Perception) with contributions from different personnel than on many of her Verve recordings (e.g. Airto Moreira, Maria Toledo and Eumir Deodato).

This is a very cool, sultry and funky Spanish version of Bread's "Make It With You". Of course the vocals are definately not par to the original, but I like it. This guy has like a million other translated 60's and 70 rockabilly tunes; La Chica De Los Ojos Caf� (Brown Eyed Girl), Uno, Dos Y Tres �Detent�! (1, 2, 3, Red Light), Rosa Marchita (Cracklin' Rose), Juntos Felices (Happy Together), Ven A Darme Amor (Come And Get Your Love), Estos Ojos (These Eyes). Check 'em out!

This is an "excelente" version of Billy Joel's version of "Just The Way You Are". This album was recorded in 1977, beginning his era with BMG/ Ariola records. The executives, happy to have a performer like JOSE JOSE, provided him with the best musicians, numbers and producers of the time. Included in this album are 2 numbers by Mexico's greatest: Juan Gabriel ("Ya lo pasado, pasado" & "Ahora No !"). Among others credited are Napoleon ("Lo que no fue, no sera"), Adan Torres("Almohada"). Of the 10 numbers included, 7 were top ten hits in Mexico, Colombia and the U.S. Leaving disco to other performers that needed to launch their productions to the international market, Jose Jose's album is just pure old-fashioned latin love songs, songs still heared today.

somewhat of a classic. great little easy listening track..her voice sounds very sexy, and the lyrics are so unbelievably kitchy/catchy i just keep returning to it.

Great bubblegum-pop theme to the Dean Martin spy flick done by Boyce & Hart, best known as one of the songwriting teams behind the Monkees. This track features some terrifically dated, non-P.C. lyrics like "blonde hair, brunette, redheads/lying like injuns in the grass/they're comin' through the pass/and buster/you're General Custer". It also features a great Tijuana Brass-esque horn arrangement, and since this came out on A&M, it may actually be Alpert and the boys themselves. The single is pretty easy to find, but it's also available on the fantastic "Mad, Mad World of Soundtracks" comp from Germany, with its accompanying book of soundtrack cover art.

very grassrootsy sound, simple, melodic beautiful guitar, great bass, expertly recorded drums, sincere vocals, it's just an all-around beautiful track.
the points in the song where they are just "jamming," in that trademark sonic youth style, are some of the high points for me personally (that's not at all to say that the vocals aren't elegantly done).

nice one! i discovered chris montez lately and i like what he has done.
this song is a cover of astrud gilbertos song from the album "beach samba" (which i didn't recognize until reading it at allmusic.com) and begins with a nice organ-melody as an intro. i especially like the sound of that organ, it's a very sweet and not to heavy one. so that it fits perfect into the mood of this song and giving it a little more sweetness.
as always chris montez sings like a woman and if one doesn't know this it wouldn't be necessarily clear to one. (correct english....?)
while searching for chris montez stuff i came across "the more i see you" performed by montez which was covered last year by a onehitwonderband here in germany and you couldn't escape to hear it at least twice a day no matter where you were leaving and going. the cover was very strict arranged along montez' version. i wonder how i would think of the montez original if this onehitwonder band wouldn't have done this cruelty?!
anyway, last years summer was great anyway...(sex every day...)
and now, you go and listen to that montez guy!!

In an easy listening mood today.
From the oft-panned disk two of the frank black francis release, comes this brilliant reinterpretation of the holiday song from the Pixies' glory days.
This version is driven by dubby, spacy trumpets and echo effect, with a lone guitar taking the back seat. I like how Frank's voice is mixed way in front, and the overwhelmingly happy tone of the whole thing. The Pixies for cocktail parties.

RYTHM HERITAGE WERE THE COMPOSERS AND PERFORMERS OF THE THEME FROM "SWATT", THE T.V. SERIES.
HEAVY INSTRUMENTATION SPICED WITH LOTS OF FEELING.
THIS THEME IS AT THE SAME TIME POWERFUL AND EASY GOING.

Gothic standard. I've recently found myself listening to it quite a bit more. It's not a complex song, but just grabbed me the first time I heard it. Lyrics are not complex so it's easy to sing along with.

Great soundtrack to a great film and composed by Dave Gruisin that some of you might know from the excellent the get easy! sunshine pop compilation from last year (2003). I think this was the one record who got me into the soundtrack genre. It�s got that typical 70�s funky soundtrack sound. Dig it.

When mentioning Swing Out Sister casual listeners often dismiss them as forgettable, mere 80s martini pop kitsch. Or worse, one hit wonders due to the fact that their 1987 offering Breakout is still, by far, their biggest single hit. But this is completely wrong. In fact, they're enjoying an ongoing career for almost 20 years, recording 8 studio albums. Nowadays they�re fitting a niche no other group fits in so comfortably: escapist, late 60s oriented sophisticated glamorous easy listening pop music with all the right influences that spring to mind of that era: Burt Bacharach, Jimmy Webb, John Barry, late 60s european soundtracks in general, Ennio Morricone specifically and sunshine pop. Since these guys aren't necessarily household names in mainstream pop culture today, Swing Out Sister were practically invisible from the mid 90s on in Europe and the USA, releasing their records primarily in Japan, where easy listening music still gets the biggest exposure. The Sisters� 2001 album �Somewhere deep in the night� is their most cinematic, most elegant and visually evocative album to date, where the Bacharach/Barry/Morricone spirit is prevailing the most: 60s arrangements with Bacharach-oriented songwriting, Barry-esque lush strings, Morricone-style harpsicord, saxophone, harps, jazzy guitars, muted trumpets, fluegelhorn, wordless vocals, blending vocal songs with atmospheric instrumentals, creating an imaginary soundtrack. The whole album is a truly underrated gem.

There's a great dynamics in this piece of prog-rock as it combines sharp and interesting melodies with great but simple soundscape. There's a lot of air in the record an Martin Barre's guitarplaying sounds easy on top of heavy riffing duet of bass and drums .Ian Anderson's vocals are just perfect for this song. I would not change a thing here.

More grist to my mill that there are lots of really good things going unsigned in the easy listening-folk- pop world - the fella that wrote this sits very close to me where I work. A really nicely-put together, low key pop song with a beautiful vocal melody. Available for FREE dammit at http://artists2.iuma.com/IUMA/Bands/Random_Bruce/. 'Sometimes anything' and 'had to be there' are also well worth a listen.

had this on a tape for ages and have recently found a japanese copy of the cd on impulse-awesome jazz/soft/easy vibes straight out of the free design school of harmonies-today [ a jefferson airplane cover i believe] is a jazzy/psych number that makes me half close my eyes and dream of places far away and times past-i would recommend the rest of the album too-all soft pop and sitar jazz...mush better than his fusion nonsense [bar the theme to starsky and hutch] from the 70's.the album is called the honey suckle breeze and is a revelation.

This song was ravaged by critics in reviews of the Stark Reality 2003 reissue (it was previously-unreleased and included as a bonus track), but I think it's frickin' great. It's apparently from a somewhat different incarnation of the group and is a Monty Stark composition - not one of the Hoagy Carmichael reinterpretations that made up the original version of the album. It has a naive, off-kilter, beautiful, and bizarre sound that I just love.

It's upbeat psych-jazz with extremely awkward cheery lead vocals. Stark's phrasing is kinda off (and his voice is WAY off) - it basically sounds like an easy listening number gone terribly wrong - but in a really good way.

Easy-listening Italian style with sax, synths, percussion, and a kinda groovy beat. Quirky mid-tempo from the twins.

A super cool instrumental track which for me is one of the highlights of the Italian 'Easy Tempo' series of film music compilations. A laid back funky beat drives the song forward. Strings seep in and out, twangy guitars play on. I guess if you're reading this you are getting the picture of the kind of stuff I like by now...

Flash and the Pan was an Australian New Wave group (essentially an ongoing studio project) formed in the late 1970s by Harry Vanda and George Young, both formerly members of the Easybeats. George Young is also an older brother to Angus Young and Malcolm Young of AC/DC.
The song has an infectious lead that pulls you along to the very end a one off attempt that worked..

lee marvin sings! i really like the simplistic string arrangements here, especially in the intro and chorus. lee marvin's unbelievably gruff voice fits the song well. wish he'd done some more musical work, he'd be fun for an even kitchier easy listening album.

"do i know where hell is? hell is in hello.
heaven is goodbye forever, it's time for me to go.
i was born under a wan'drin' star...."


"when i get to heaven, tie me to a tree
or i'll begin to roam and soon you'll know where i will be"
classic kitch.

In putting together a mix CD tentatively called "Far Out Sixties", this song immediately came to mind. Anybody who knows the Association from "Windy" or "Along Comes Mary" is in for a rude awakening when hearing this tune. It's quite a funky little jam with laid back, almost scatting vocals and droning sitars. So groovy you could picture the guys wearing love beads and nehru jackets while performing it!

very laid back song from kaji-kun with a retro feel. excellent usage of theramin.

Predating "Fast Food Nation" by a number of years, Wendy McDonald is a two and a half minute pop song critiquing our need to have things fast and easy..like fast food. I love this song because not only does it make you think, but it also has this hip-hop folk beat to it, that's reminiscent of artists like Beck, Bran Van 3000, or Self. If you're a fan of these artists,..you'd love this.

This is an R&B song that I first heard on BET. It begins with the hand claps from the song "Car Wash" and then goes into a typically groovy R&B dance song. I like it so much because it is very easy to dance to and the lyrics are about a girl going to a club and wanting to get her groove on while the guy she came with just stands there "like he's much too cool." This is typically how I feel when I go out. Hand claps continue throughout the song.

A gentle, easy-listening inspired song which is pretty much perfect so long as you can manage to avoid finding it overbearingly kitsch. The naively optimistic, yet sophisticated lyric is beautifully matched by the music and arrangement.

A great, spacey, upbeat track by music business impresario Bob Crewe. This is basically just very nicely dressed up brassy easy listening instrumental music. The arrangement has a cool 'Barbarella' sheen to it, with spacey sounds alongside the bouncy strings. A nice track from a great album.

ps. the inside gatefold sleeve of this album uses the same photo as the cover of The Smiths's 'Rank.'

This is a cover of Harry Nilssons song with the same name. Herb Alpert and the tijuana brass makes a wonderfull representation of the song, with very spare instrumentation. This is a song i can listen to on repeat for hours.
The song is really just this guy singing about how he cant live without her, and a guitar silently and spare playing along in the background, until the song explodes into lots of brass and horns playing with him.

Beatles were also fans by Harry Nilsson btw.

Yet another amazing Spanish version of an amazing song. Luis Miguel is a very suave latin crooner and this song especially demonstrates that. I love the late 80's instrumentation, it reminds me of late night in New Year City.

This is another one of those latin songs that was translated to English for the benefit of those that never heard of Roberto Carlos or his original version of this very popular song (Detalhes). It is a beautiful yet tragic love song. I prefer the original, although this version's orchestration and vocals are very similar to the original.

gorgeous four part harmonies, slow tempo, fantastic guitar sounds and solo, the lyrics are simple, and easy to hear, listen to, learn, sing along with at shows, and relate to. kelly scullin (formerly of second story man) had a knack for writing songs in a "simple" fashion, lending themselves to further embellishment and tasteful flourish as a sort of "icing on the cake" ideal. she is one of my favorite songwriters out right now. as stated before, the songs are simple, yet their textures were always thick and lush- just imagine a big, cushy purple velvet victorian-style couch.

This one of the most insanely catchy and infectious tracks I've heard in a long time. Opens with a sparse bongo beat, accompanied by 'mouth percussion'. A German voice sounding slightly like aging British radio DJ Tommy Vance starts talking ('Der man, das Zigarillo'), before a catchy piano riff and jaunty easy listening chorus come in. A fun track - nice that compilations like 'pop shopping 2' come out and save things like this from total obscurity.