Elevator music

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Elevator music, also known as piped music or Muzak, refers to the gentle, bland instrumental arrangements of popular music designed for play in shopping malls, grocery stores, telephone systems (while the caller is on hold), and elevators.

The Muzak corporation is perhaps the best-known supplier of such music. However, the Muzak Corporation discontinued this type of music in 1982 and now uses only "original artists" for its music source.

The term is also frequently applied as a generic term for any form of easy listening or MOR music, or to the type of recordings once commonly heard on "beautiful music" radio stations. While some people find this style of music pleasant or soothing, others find it annoying to the point of vexation. The term muzak has become an epithet for excessively bland music.

Elevator music is also a term used disparagingly by jazz purists to describe smooth jazz.

There is, however a distinct difference between instrumental music that is deliberately created to calm listeners down and to mask noise and instrumental music that truly entertains. Some people are unable to be entertained by songs without lyrics. Others are amazed at the inventiveness and complexity gifted arrangers can put into their instrumental charts.

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