Middle of the road (
MOR) music is
a commercial
radio format (rather than
a musical genre) which encompasses several styles. MOR music is
broadly
popular music, but not
technically
avant-garde; generally, it
is strongly
melodic and often features vocal
harmony technique and
orchestral arrangements. During the 1960s and the
1970s, the
Beautiful Music radio
stations were “MOR radio”, while its contemporary analogues are the
Smooth Jazz and the
Soft AC formats.
Conceived as a format that would include music of almost universal
appeal due to its pool of broadly popular performers and its gently
inoffensive sentimentality, it is often the format of choice for
doctors' offices, waiting rooms, department stores, and other
public and semi-public places of business. The combination of the
music's largely unchallenging, decorous quality and its association
with being piped in to places one is compelled to remain has drawn
the format its detractors. The MOR format has largely replaced what
was once referred to as
elevator
music, or
Muzak — anonymous, instrumental
versions of such popular but mild tunes in blander arrangements
designed to lull the listener. Yet, ironically, the stigma of being
unwelcome background music has transferred to the MOR genre if only
because of its similar usage.
The middle of the road music category usually includes these
genres:
As an AM radio format in North America, MOR’s heyday was the 1960s
and the 1970s.
The 50,000-watt AM radio stations WLW
in
Cincinnati, Ohio, WJR
in Detroit, Michigan, WNEW
in New York
City, New York, WCCO
in
Minneapolis, Minnesota, KMPC in Los
Angeles, California, and CFRB
in Toronto,
Ontario, Canada, were known as "full-service MOR" stations with
scheduled programming other than the MOR music. In that
time, as the listener demographic groups aged, and popular music
emigrated to FM radio, MOR stations competed with
adult contemporary FM stations and AM
stations broadcasting the
Music of
Your Life and
adult standards
formats, most eliminated music and transmitted only news and talk
programs; some continued to play MOR music until the early 1990s.
Currently, the MOR style of sound is in the catalogue of the modern
adult standards music format.
Contemporary usage
The term "middle of the road" is used
pejoratively by genre-specific music aficionados
to describe musicians who avoid "edgy" (innovative) material, and
who calibrate their musical appeal to
blandness — the
lowest common
denominator of commercial, popular musical taste. For example,
in writing about
Mariah Carey, critic
Sasha Frere-Jones characterised
her music as "appeal[ing] to people who don’t, otherwise, listen to
Pop. These are people who probably also like
Andrea Bocelli and
Céline Dion, singers who avoid the
sexual tug of the
blues, and the glorious noises of
rock and
hip-hop, in
favor of tremulous expressions of chaste emotion". Artists such as
Westlife (pop) and
Train (rock) are considered middle-of-the-road
musicians.
Moreover, MOR also pejoratively describes a musical band’s creative
and commercial progress — from the innovative path to the
tried-and-true-pop-catalogue path. For example,
Pitchfork’s review of
Duran Duran’s
Rio said: "The band peppered the 80s with a
number of hot singles (most of which can be found on the
unstoppable side A of
Rio) before departing for MOR
country." The lyrics to the song "Hit Factory" (by
Godley and Creme, in the record album
L) include the phrase: "MOR is safe. MOR is here. MOR is
you."; nonetheless, middle of the road music currently has a
following among people fifty years and older, and is found under
the rubric of adult standards and nostalgia radio.
See also
References
- Frere-Jones, Sasha. "On Top". New Yorker, 3 April 2006, pp.
76-77.
- Christmas in Popworld, Wembley Arena, London | | Guardian
Unlimited Arts
- Train - Train : She's On Fire - Track Reviews -
NME.COM
- Top 100 Albums of the 1980s. Pitchfork.
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