Genres like soft rock, soft pop, smooth jazz, and new age music all fall under easy listening music to some extent. With the increasing demand for easy listening music, Billboard and Record World magazines came up with their own easy listening music record charts, where songs were rated on the basis of their popularity and demand. Billboard's easy listening music chart morphed into an adult contemporary chart in 1979, and it still continues till date. Beautiful Music or also known as Nostalgic Music is also one of the subcategories of easy listening music.
Lounge music that we normally hear in restaurants and lounges, is also a subcategory of easy listening music. However, lounge music is more jazz-oriented and emphasizes on music improvisation.
Though, it is said that the origins of easy listening music are found in UK when BBC radio was launched, it has been more popular in the United States of America for many decades. In America, easy listening music was also referred to as mood music, because it would freshen up the mood of an individual with its charming melodies. Easy listening music is usually orchestrated by an arranger rather than improvised by a small ensemble.
Today, many of the songs are re-arranged and custom-made for the radio loops format as the demand for easy listening music still persist in many parts of the world.
