New Age Music in the history of Rock

Here on .nu we do our best to give you, the fan, a complete presentation of our beloved music genre. In order to understand the music of today and be able to look ahead, you also need to know history. New Age Music did not spring out of thin air – it was, is and will be a part of the international music scene. Last week we listened to the very first new age album – Tony Scott’s Music for Zen Meditation – and this week we bring you another piece of music history. It is not an album, it is the segment about new age music in Piero Scaruffi’s 800 hundred page long History of Rock Music (2003).

In this book, the perhaps most interesting period of New Age Music is presented; the time between 1976-1989, when the genre went from obscurity to widespread popularity.

Piero Scaruffi writes:

New-age music was, first and foremost, a synthesis. It was a synthesis of cultures (high and low), moods (upbeat, ecstatic, melancholy, spiritual), genres (folk, electronic, jazz, classical, psychedelic), formats (song, symphony, suite, jam) and lifestyles (western and eastern). Since each of these components had existed for decades (if not centuries), new-age music pre-existed itself.

And more:

Whatever vehicle they chose, new-age musicians shared the simple, unassuming, laid-back quality of their music with the music meant “not to listen to” (as Brian Eno put it): easy-listening orchestras (Richard Clayderman), lounge music (Burt Bacharach), and supermarket muzak (the RCA Victor series of “Moods in Music”). Despite the wildly different ideological underpinnings, these genres converged towards the same concept of music for relaxation, which became the fundamental dogma of new-age music.

The complete segment about new age music can be read on Piero Scaruffi homepage.

An excellent read!