I hate EZ Listening. Chime, Magik, Lite, Kool… When paired with radio frequencies, these butchered words run shivers down my spine. Is there any radio format more depraved, sterile or offensive than easy rock? Easy rock works as a vacuum, sucking any shred of originality, creativity and genuine human emotion from music and replacing it with, well… a void. But listen closely to that void and you’ll hear something deeply foreboding. EZ listening is the quiet before the storm; it is the low rumble heard seconds before the earthquake hits or the muffled hiss of typhoon waves before they reach the shore. Easy rock scares me. It is the sound of a waiting room; the soundtrack of hospital corridors and casket retail outlet showrooms. EZ rock is the sound of death.
I get my weekly dose of easy listening at the laundromat. For an hour each Saturday or Sunday I hole up in the filthiest laundromat in Kitchener, held captive by the damaged radio frequencies of Chime FM. Often I bring an MP3 player, but every once in a while I forget. After piling my laundry into the machine and plugging in quarters I instinctively reach for my MP3 player, and if it’s not there, well… it’s hard times. Something inside me doesn’t react kindly to easy listening. First I become hostile and agitated; slowly I’m overtaken by depression. If I were to let the situation continue long enough I would surely lapse into a coma.
Why is easy listening so offensive when its sole purpose is to be completely inoffensive? Perhaps that’s just it – there is something so inherently wrong about a genre that is absolutely unwilling to offend. What is so offensive about the inoffensive? Nothing really… the problem lies with the fact that the genre allows for zero display of real emotion. Real emotion is often heated, often excited, and most importantly, a display of real emotion is imbued with risk: it can turn away a potential lover just as easily as it can bring one close; it can offend as easily as it can placate. If you strip music of genuine human emotion, you leave it cold and dead. I use music vicariously, and this is probably why I flounder when in the company of easy listening; it’s empty, and I can’t use it to get my vicarious kicks.
If you work in an easy listening environment, I feel your pain. Hopefully you’re lucky enough to be listening to one of the better easy listening stations; some pit classics (usually soul classics like Marvin Gaye’s Sexual Healing) against dreck like Richard Marx or that song Listen to Your Heart. The nuggets are easy to spot, so if you’re thrown a bone grab on to it and don’t let go. Mariah Carey’s newer single We Belong Together* is a good example. Fiest’s Inside and Out is another. These may not be your first choice for music accompaniment, but try to appreciate the songs for the genuine emotion they inhabit. You may have to train yourself to do so, but the effort will help you to get through the day. Good luck.
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*How can you not like a song that name drops Bobby Womack? Listen to a choice Womack cut in the archives.
We Belong Together – Mariah Carey (lyrical excerpt)
I can’t sleep at night, when you are on my mind
Bobby Womack’s on the radio saying “If you think you’re lonely now…”
wait a minute, this is too deep, too deep, I gotta change the station
