Acclaimed author Lanza presents an informative and entertaining historical view of background music, from its beginnings in 1922 by a former Army general to alleviate the fears of passengers in the new-fangled "elevators," through its evolution from "lite" FM to New Age to movie soundtracks. Photos.

Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Muzak, Easy-Listening, and Other Moodsong

Arts & Photography

Lanza, Joseph

Music

St Martins Pr

Presents a cultural history of mood music and explores its psychological, social, and commercial aspects

Picador USA

A cultural history of the cocktail by the author of Elevator Music shows how cocktails have impacted politics, movies, popular songs, architecture, circadian rhythms, and social interactions.

The Cocktail: The Influence of Spirits on the American Psyche

Cookbooks, Food & Wine

Beverages & Wine

A cultural history shows how cocktails have impacted politics, movies, popular songs, architecture, circadian rhythms, and social interactions

Picador

An excursion into the effects of gravity--both positive and negative--offers prose on such topics as the horror of sagging body parts, the push-up bra, and the rise of skyscrapers based partly on science, history, and speculation. 20,000 first printing."

Gravity: Tilted Perspectives on Rocketships, Rollercoasters, Earthquakes, and Angel Food

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

It's campy, it's cool, empty, intrusive, trite, and treacly. It's Big Brother singing. Call it what you will -- elevator music, Moodsong ® easy listening, or Muzak ®. For a musical genre that was supposed to offend no one, it has a lot of enemies. Musical cognoscenti decry its insipid content; regular folk -- if they notice -- bemoan its pervasiveness; while hipsters and campsters celebrate its retro chic. Mindful of the many voices, Joseph Lanza's Elevator Music sings seriously, with tongue in cheek, the praises of this venerable American institution. Lanza addresses the criticisms of elites who say that Muzak and its ilk are dehumanized, vapid, or cheesy. These reactions, he argues, are based more on cultural prejudices than honest musical appraisal. Says Lanza, today's so-called mood music is the inheritor of a long tradition of mood-altering music stretching back to the ancients; Nero's fiddle and the sirens of Odysseus being two famous examples. Contemporary atmospheric music, Lanza argues, not only serves the same purpose, it is also the inevitable background for our media-dominated age. One of Lanza's premises, to quote Mark Twain, is that this music is "better than it sounds." "This book will have succeeded in its purpose," he writes, "if I can help efface...the distinction between one person's elevator music and another's prized recording." Joseph Lanza is an author, producer, and music historian. His most recent book is Russ Columbo and the Crooner Mystique.

Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Muzak, Easy-Listening, and Other Moodsong; Revised and Expanded Edition

University of Michigan Press

It's campy, it's cool, empty, intrusive, trite, and treacly. It's Big Brother singing. Call it what you will -- elevator music, Moodsong ® easy listening, or Muzak ®. For a musical genre that was supposed to offend no one, it has a lot of enemies.Musical cognoscenti decry its insipid content; regular folk -- if they notice -- bemoan its pervasiveness; while hipsters and campsters celebrate its retro chic. Mindful of the many voices, Joseph Lanza's Elevator Music sings seriously, with tongue in cheek, the praises of this venerable American institution.Lanza addresses the criticisms of elites who say that Muzak and its ilk are dehumanized, vapid, or cheesy. These reactions, he argues, are based more on cultural prejudices than honest musical appraisal.Says Lanza, today's so-called mood music is the inheritor of a long tradition of mood-altering music stretching back to the ancients; Nero's fiddle and the sirens of Odysseus being two famous examples. Contemporary atmospheric music, Lanza argues, not only serves the same purpose, it is also the inevitable background for our media-dominated age.One of Lanza's premises, to quote Mark Twain, is that this music is "better than it sounds." "This book will have succeeded in its purpose," he writes, "if I can help efface...the distinction between one person's elevator music and another's prized recording."Joseph Lanza is an author, producer, and music historian. His most recent book is Russ Columbo and the Crooner Mystique.

Elevator Music

Quartet Books

The Hollywood Babylon-like story of the short-lived, Valentino-like crooner.

Russ Columbo and the Crooner Mystique

Biographies & Memoirs

Penna, Dennis

Arts & Literature

Feral House

Lanza turns his attentions to the production, reception, social climate, and impact of a movie that rattled the American psyche in the wake of Nixon, Watergate, and Vietnam. When Tobe Hooper’s low-budget slasher film, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, opened in theaters in 1974, it was met in equal measure with disgust and reverence. The film—in which a group of teenagers meet a gruesome end when they stumble upon a ramshackle farmhouse of psychotic killers—was outright banned in several countries and was pulled from many American theaters after complaints of its violence. Despite the mixed reception from critics, it was enormously profitable at the domestic box office and has since secured its place as one of the most influential horror movies ever made. Joseph Lanza transports the reader back to the tumultuous era of the 1970s defined by political upheaval, cultural disillusionment, and the perceived decay of the nuclear family in the wake of Watergate, the onslaught of serial killers in the US, as well as mounting racial and sexual tensions. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Its Terrifying Times sets the themes of the film against the backdrop of the political and social American climate to understand why the brutal slasher flick connected with so many viewers. As much a book about the movie as the moment, Joseph Lanza has created an engaging and nuanced work that grapples with the complications of the American experience.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre: The Film That Terrified a Rattled Nation

History & Criticism

Skyhorse

A survey of the work of the British filmmaker, his vision of a decentered world depicted in such films as "Don't Look Now," "The Man Who Fell to Earth," and "Walkabout."

Fragile Geometry: The Films, Philosophy, and Misadventures of Nicolas Roeg

Paj Pubn

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Lanza, Joseph. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Lanza, Joseph

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Lanza, Joseph. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Muzak, Easy-Listening, and Other Moodsong

Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Muzak, Easy-Listening, and Other Moodsong

The Cocktail: The Influence of Spirits on the American Psyche

The Cocktail: The Influence of Spirits on the American Psyche

Gravity: Tilted Perspectives on Rocketships, Rollercoasters, Earthquakes, and Angel Food

Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Muzak, Easy-Listening, and Other Moodsong; Revised and Expanded Edition

Elevator Music

Russ Columbo and the Crooner Mystique

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre: The Film That Terrified a Rattled Nation

Fragile Geometry: The Films, Philosophy, and Misadventures of Nicolas Roeg