Lounge music

Lounge music is relaxed popular music associated with hotel lounges and cocktail bars. It often uses easy-listening arrangements, jazz influences, and vocals.

Easy listening: Popular music arranged for an accessible, gentle listening experience, often using orchestral textures. Lounge music shares its polished arrangements and emphasis on unobtrusive listening.
Hotel music: Music performed or played in hotels to create atmosphere in public spaces such as lobbies and dining rooms. Hotel lounges supplied a defining setting for the style and its live performers.
Cocktail bar: A bar specializing in mixed drinks, often with seating and music suited to conversation. Cocktail bars are among the settings most closely associated with lounge music.
Swing music: A jazz style whose rhythmic feel and big-band arrangements became prominent in the 1930s and 1940s. Lounge music borrows jazz vocabulary but usually favors lower energy and softer dynamics.
Frank Sinatra: An American singer and actor whose recordings shaped popular vocal performance from the 1940s onward. His intimate phrasing and songbook repertoire became models for lounge vocalists.
Exotica: A mid-century popular music style evoking imagined tropical and foreign landscapes through unusual timbres and percussion. Its playful orchestration became a distinctive strand of lounge music.
Muzak: A brand and system associated with recorded background music for workplaces and commercial spaces. Its functional background-music model differs from lounge music’s foreground performers and distinctive arrangements.
Hotel lounge: A hotel common area where guests can sit, socialize, and often obtain drinks or refreshments. The hotel lounge is the style’s namesake venue and a classic performance space.
Big band: A large jazz ensemble organized around saxophone, trombone, and trumpet sections with a rhythm section. Its forceful ensemble sound contrasts with lounge music’s typically intimate scale.
Julie London: An American singer and actress known for understated vocals, including the 1955 recording of “Cry Me a River.” Her close, restrained delivery exemplifies a classic lounge vocal approach.

Linked from 4 pages

Nat King ColeNarrower topic: Cole’s smooth delivery helped shape expectations later associated with lounge singing.