false 269091 0 0 851968 0472089420 9780472089420 4 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178907023m/851968.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178907023s/851968.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/851968.Elevator_Music_A_Surreal_History_of_Muzak_Easy_Listening_and_Other_Moodsong_Revised_and_Expanded_Edition 3.79 14 </div><div>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.
</div><div>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.
</div><div>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.
</div><div>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."
</div><div>Joseph Lanza is an author, producer, and music historian. His most recent book is Russ Columbo and the Crooner Mystique.
</div>]]> 269091 3.55 51 9 1994 636426 0312155379 9780312155377 0 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1176573063m/636426.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1176573063s/636426.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/636426.Gravity_Tilted_Perspectives_on_Rocket_Ships_Roller_Coasters_Earthquakes_and_Angel_Food 3.17 6 269091 3.55 51 9 1997 851972 0312152485 9780312152482 1 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178907024m/851972.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178907024s/851972.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/851972.The_Cocktail_The_Influence_of_Spirits_on_the_American_Psyche 2.80 5 Elevator Music, exposes the cocktail as a ritual, a religious ceremony that sates the modern mind and soul. He shows how cocktails have impacted politics, movies, popular songs, architecture, circadian rhythms, social interactions, and yes, even the mythic power of such American patriarchs as George Washington and his contemporary incarnation, Frank Sinatra. A funny, informative, and stimulating read.]]> 269091 3.55 51 9 1995 851973 1555540341 9781555540340 1 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/851973.Fragile_Geometry_The_Films_Philosophy_and_Misadventures_of_Nicolas_Roeg 3.50 2 269091 3.55 51 9 1989 851969 1556526695 9781556526695 1 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178907023m/851969.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178907023s/851969.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/851969.Phallic_Frenzy_Ken_Russell_and_His_Films 3.33 3 Altered States, The Devils, Gothic, The Music Lovers, Tommy, and Women in Love, Russell redefined cinema in the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s, working with magnetic actors such as Jack Nicholson, Michael Caine, Ann-Margret, William Hurt, Gabriel Byrne, Vanessa Redgrave, and Glenda Jackson, who won a Best Actress Oscar for her role in Women in Love. Russell’s imagery, dialogue, and erotic metaphors are both outrageous and thought provoking, and he has explored the lives and works of such literary and musical luminaries as Claude Debussy, D.H. Lawrence, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Mary Shelley, Gustav Mahler, and Oscar Wilde. This intimate biography ranges over Russell’s entire life and career and highlights how creative differences stopped production of a movie version of Evita, how he grappled with censors and got accused of blasphemy for his adaptation of Aldous Huxley’s The Devils, how he creatively staged the love duet between Faust and Helen over a bowl of pasta in the opera Mephistopheles, and how Alan Bates and Oliver Reed compared their penis sizes before diving into Women in Love’s nude wrestling scene. </div></div>]]> 269091 3.55 51 9 2007 851965 1556525435 9781556525438 0 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178907021m/851965.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178907021s/851965.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/851965.Vanilla_Pop_Sweet_Sounds_from_Frankie_Avalon_to_ABBA 3.00 3 </div>]]> 269091 3.55 51 9 2005 851970 0922915806 9780922915804 1 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178907024m/851970.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178907024s/851970.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/851970.Russ_Columbo_and_the_Crooner_Mystique 1.00 1 269091 3.55 51 9 2002