New Age music has largely left the popular conscience — gone are the days when George Winston sold out the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. But pastor Jeff Smith sees the potential to reach people on a spiritual and emotional level with the music.

Read the interview with the piano playing pastor here.

But I am tempted to add; it is not new age music that has left the popular conscience – it is music altogether.

The article I have found for you today is from New York Times in June 1986 and it is entitled: New Age Music searches for its proper niche. It starts with:

The proliferation of so-called ‘’new-age’’ music into our record stores, our radio stations and our national consciousness poses a categorical confusion and an esthetic dilemma. The confusion has to do with just what this lulling, restful stuff actually is – new? old? interesting? boring? sincere? exploitive? – and where it should be filed in record stores, record catalogues and home collections. The esthetic dilemma is how one establishes any convincing critical standards for a music whose seeming purpose is to call as little attention to itself as possible.

It is easy to see that this is from another time! You get a feeling that music (not only new age music) really matters. Today it is all about Facebook, iPads and next generation home entertainment.

But back then, in the 1980s, music was important – and a new genre was both interesting and confusing at the same time.

Read the whole article here.

This is perhaps also why so many people doesn’t like new age music; by communicating such raw and deep emotions, it strangely enough sometimes comes trough as bland and uninspired. An example here is of course Enigma’s mix of Gregorian chants and club music, or Deep Forest’s mix of ethnical samples and deep synth pads. Or, to go even further back, how Mike Oldfield was inspired by English folk music and brought this into the prog rock scene of the ’70s with Tubular Bells.

It was, well, just too much for many ears.

Still I find it fascinating that you can actually mix very different cultural expressions and create a result that is highlighting not the culture itself, but the overall communicated feeling. An example here is the greatness of pyramids and the history of Egypt. Or the crusades and medieval Christianity. Or the history of a great country – like India – and its culture. All this in a flash.

It is the cultural and spiritual mix that is new age music.

Don’t you believe me? It is true, just sample this video of Enigma’s Rivers of Belief (1990):

This is taking the mix to its very limits; it is without a doubt a mishmash of elements, of great and important things that are not related. The quote from the Revelations: “And the lamb opened the seventh seal, and silence covered the sky” – and the devil part too – is perhaps taking it a bit too far. Enigma has never gone down this road again. But I still find it to be a very interesting mix of cultural and spiritual symbols, both in the music itself and the video.

Bottomline; it is all about emotions and how these are communicated through music. This is strangely enough both a strength and weakness for our genre; Strength since it is giving the listener a feeling that she cannot avoid being affected by - and a weakness, since it easily becomes too much, too heavy, like trying to eat a plate full of fudge. And when using strong symbols people start to think and ask questions:

Who said that this was easy listening? Not me

Picture copyright BigStockPhoto – MaX81r

The paper Ottawa Citizen had in December 1986 and article about this, starting with:

Yuppies, rejoice! Some of your favorite music has been given its own Grammy Awards category. Though there still are about as many definitions of New Age Music as there are artists performing it, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences board of trustees has voted to include New Age in the 29th annual Grammy Awards.

And more:

Generally considered the person most responsible for getting New Age accepted is Fred Catero, a San Francisco record company owner who spent three years trying to convince the academy to add the category.

“ I love the music,” said Catero, whose company primarily produces jazz, but also has some New Age product. “I think it’s a viable form of music – an extension of jazz and classical. I also think it’s a very creative form, especially now that it’s gotten out of its wind chimes and tinkling bells and whale sounds phase.”

I am not sure IF the genre has come out of this phase – but do read the whole article here (to the left). And be sure to check out the ads too, since you might get to buy a VHS player for only 999 dollars. 1986 dollars mind you.

But who won the first Grammy for New Age Music? Our friend Andreas Vollenweider with the excellent album Down to the Moon.

I will now tell you something about the state of new age music in Norway. Unlike the US, there was never a “1980s golden age of new age music”, and the genre has never been even close to mainstream. Today Norway is actually most famous for the darkest of death metal (!!!) – but the country has given the international new age music community some truly great artists too.

The most important event was without a doubt Secret Garden’s 1995 Eurovision song contest winning song Nocturne (see the video here – as you all know, the Eurovision song contest is a major thing.). This was the beginning of Secret Garden’s massive success (which has also given us the “You raise me up” phenomenon too).

But to see the Norwegian impact on new age music, we have to look a bit back into the 1970s and the history of Jazz – where Norwegian Jan Garbarek had a large impact and influenced many artists, also in the NA music genre.

In the 1980s and 90s, the group Bel Canto released albums that one could label as ethereal dreampop – but really is new age pop (in a highly creative way). The artist Biosphere must also be mentioned in this context.

One of the finest artists is our genre, which was released by the Windham Hill label and had several songs on the Billboard new age chart, is Øystein Sevåg (lots of Norwegian letters in his name). His music is still among the most popular albums on eMusic and he continues to amaze with each new release.

We must not forget Erik Wøllo – which is a major star in our genre too (and in the more electronic/ambient field), and has been active since the early 1980s

A very popular Norwegian New Age artist is Amethystium. The man behind the name is Øystein Ramfjord. His highly melodic synth music has made him a favorite on many online stations.

Other notable Norwegian artists are Helge Krabye (Homeless Balloon – a Circle member) and Bjorn Lynne (also in the ambient/electronika genres).

Yes, Norway is a small country (about 5 million citizens), but has a lot to offer in New Age music category. Please tell about new age music in your country – and if you know about other Norwegian new age artists, please let me know

Today I have been looking for articles from the 1990s – and wow, the golden age was not meant to last. In 1992 Billboard published an article that was featured in the Anchorage Daily News. It reads:

A new age appears on the horizon for new age record labels, as a number of imprints depart from their traditional instrumental marketplace for forays into rockabilly, R&B, rock’n’roll and other genres.

Executives from such labels as Music West, Private Music, and Windham Hill Production, in particular, have taken roster diversity to heart, citing economic necessity and label maturation as key reasons for the apparent trend.

In other words; the labels had become wealthy in the late 1980s, but their market was shrinking and they had to adapt or die. We all know what happened… To quote mr. Sam Sutherland of Windham Hill Productions; “New Age was a classic boom-to-bust story”.

Read the article here.

Now this article entitled New Age Music hits the big time from United Press International from February 1987 is a treasure chest for all new age music fans – but beware, you might get a little melancholic too. It is a statement about the sudden and massive popularity of new age music in the mid/late 1980s. Quote:

Critics pan New Age Music as compositionally inferior. Store owners don’t know where to display its album. People buy it.

Oh, do they buy it.

Today? Well… The problem is not the new age music genre. It is the whole business that’s compositionally inferior.

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!

Tony Scott (1921-2007) worked with such artists as Billie Holiday and Dizzy Gillespie, and made a name for himself as a respected jazz soloist too. But it was his interests in Far East cultures that gave him an introduction to traditional oriental instruments and meditation. This resulted in a jam session like no other  – creating a totally new and different sound.  

Listening to Music for Zen Meditation today it is easy to pinpoint the more jazzy aspects of the release – but back then, the unknown sounds of New Age Music was all people could hear. It was clearly not a Jazz album.

While the flute and trumpet hit some of the jazz blue notes, the combination with other instruments (like the harp) create something new.

Music for Zen Meditation is – as the title implies – one of those albums instantly takes your mind on a journey to a relaxing, beautiful place – a sphere of your own. It is great background music too. But use with caution: there is a strong dose of melancholia here

And if people ask; are you listening to one of those cheap, uninspired meditation albums – you proudly say; no, this is a classical Jazz album from 1964!   

Sample the album on Amazon or iTunes. See the Wikipedia article about it here - and Tony Scott’s homepage.

The list with almost 70 different sub-genres is to be found on German new age music store Silenzio. The different genres are presented in German, but if you don’t understand the genre name – click the name and you will probably get its meaning by the selection of albums

Who said new age music was boring?

Movie Soundtracks & Film Scores have played an integral role for many classic moments in film history, transforming a great movie into an award winning motion picture. 

Time after time, New Age music is chosen to provide the chemistry to accomplish the director’s objective in bringing out the full emotion and depth of a character’s identity.

Our segment on movie music and scores takes a look at the popular Science Fiction thriller Blade Runner.  This movie directed by Ridley Scott & produced by Michael Deeley, remains a classic film with a long list of popular actors including Harrison Ford, Daryl Hannah, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Edward James Olmos.

Over the years New Age music has been the appropriate choice for many great movies, and we expect this to continue well into the future.  Perhaps more of the talented artists we currently interview and write about will be the next artists to perform some great movie moments for the film industry.

With many soundtrack scores to his credit, Vangelis provides the entire music score for this Science Fiction thriller.  For those who have already seen Blade Runner, do you remember when Roy the ” replicant ” human asks the age old question of how long do I have to live, and how much time do I have left to his ” creator “ Dr. Tyrell  ?  We soon discover the answer to that question, only to find out Rachael is an exception for the how long do I have to live question.  Deckard then must decide in the following movie scene whether to ” retire ” Rachael, or to fall in love with her.  Rachael’s character happily endures in both the storyline and in the timeless New Age music score provided by Vangelis Papathanassiou. 

The YouTube song video below from the motion picture Blade Runner, features this exact pivotal moment during the movie storyline, along with the song Love Theme by Vangelis. 

This song is also on rotation at our Stars Radio if you want to tune in.

She writes:

I often feel the new age label repulses people. It seems to mean, massage, yoga, meditation music, esoteric, new age era but not in a good sense. As if new age music was only meant to make you fall asleep!

It surely is a relaxing music at times but can’t it also be a good companion in the encounter of our true nature? A mean to connect with our inner world while dancing, walking, hiking?

I think this is spot on. It illustrates both the strong and weak aspects of new age music. The discussion about the new age music term is without a doubt the most important in our genre. It is in this discussion the lines between jazz, pop, dance, classical, new age ect. ect. are drawn.

Read the whole blog post here. It is very good!

When we look at lists on Amazon’s Listmania, it is easy to find playlists where an indie new age music title would fit perfectly! Like on the list to the right.

The hard part is to get music published by indie labels out to people who usually buy music released major label artists. These big labels still have control over the market. But there are ways for indie labels to sell music to a broader audience.

• They can for instance use social networks like Facebook and Myspace actively in their promoting, slowly but steadily building a fan base.
• Another way is to use the web radio medium and lead audience to online services like iTunes. On our New Age Stars radio, we try to play one major and one indie song after another; this gives great PR to the indie song, showing that they are just as good (if not better) than the major.
• And it is of course to link indie new age music to products and services, everything from yoga to massage, from crystals to theme holidays.

This is the dawn of a new age. Prepare to be amazed.