Harold Budd said, "When I hear the term 'new-age' I reach for my revolver... I don't think of myself as making music that is only supposed to be in the background. It's embarrassing to inadvertently be associated with something that you know in your guts is vacuous." Vangelis considers it to be a style that "gave the opportunity for untalented people to make very boring music". Yanni stated that "I don't want to relax the audience; I want to engage them in the music, get them interested", and that "New age implies a more subdued, more relaxed music than what I do. My music can be very rhythmic, very energetic, even very ethnic." David Lanz said that he "finally figured out that the main reason people don't like the term new age is because it's the only musical category that isn't a musical term". Similarly, pianists such as Yanni and Bradley Joseph use this term as well, although they use keyboards to incorporate layered orchestral textures into their compositions. Yanni has distinguished the music genre from the spiritual movement bearing the same name. The term "contemporary instrumental music" was also suggested by Andreas Vollenweider, while "adult alternative" by Gary L. Chappell, which was the term by which Billboard called the new-age and world-music album charts.

Tony Scott's Music for Zen Meditation (1964) is sometimes considered the first new-age recording, but initially it was popular mostly in California, and was not sold nationally until the 1980s. Another school of meditation music arose among the followers of Rajneesh; Deuter recorded D (1971) and Aum (1972), which mixed acoustic and electronic instruments with sounds of the sea. Kay Gardner's song "Lunamuse" (1974) and first recording Mooncircles (1975), which were a synthesis of music, sexuality and Wiccan spirituality, were "new-age music before it got to be new-age music". Her A Rainbow Path (1984) embraced Halpern's theory of healing music from that time with women's spirituality, and she became one of the most popular new-age sacred-music artists. Mike Orme of Stylus Magazine writes that many key Berlin school musicians helped popularise new-age.

Paul Winter's Missa Gaia/Earth Mass (1982) is described as "a masterpiece of New Age ecological consciousness that celebrates the sacredness of land, sky, and sea". His work on the East Coast is considered to be one of the most important musical expressions of new-age spirituality. On the West Coast, musicians concentrated more on music for healing and meditation. The most notable early work was Steven Halpern's Spectrum Suite (1975), the musical purpose of which was described as to "resonate specific areas of the body... it quiets the mind and body", and whose title relates "to the seven tones of the musical scale and the seven colors of the rainbow to the seven etheric energy sources (chakras) in our bodies". In the 1970s his music work, and the theoretical book Tuning the Human Instrument (1979), pioneered the contemporary practice of musical healing in the United States.

In 1976 the record label Windham Hill Records was founded, with an initial $300 investment, and would gross over $26 million annually ten years later. Over the years many record labels were formed that embraced or rejected the new-age designation, such as Narada Productions, Private Music, Music West, Lifestyle, Audion, Sonic Atmospheres, Living Music, Terra (Vanguard Records), Novus Records (which mainly recorded jazz music), FM (CBS Masterworks) and Cinema (Capitol Records).

Between the intentional extremes of the U.S.' coasts are some of the most successful new-age artists, like George Winston and R. Carlos Nakai. Winston's million-selling December (1982), released by Windham Hill Records, was highly popular. Most of the major record labels accepted new age artists by the beginning of the next year. In the late 1980s the umbrella genre was the fastest-growing genre with significant radio broadcast. It was seen as an attractive business due to low recording costs. During The Wave's new-age period, management told the station employees to refer to The Wave as a "mood service" rather than a "radio station". DJs stopped announcing the titles of the songs, and instead, to maintain an uninterrupted mood, listeners could call a 1–800 phone number to find out what song was playing. News breaks were also re-branded and referred to as "wave breaks".

In the 1990s, many small labels of new-age style music emerged in Japan, but for this kind of instrumental music the terms "relaxing" or "healing" music were more popular. Enigma's "Sadeness (Part I)" became an international hit, reaching number one in 24 countries, including the UK, and number five on the US Billboard Hot 100, selling over 5 million worldwide. At the time Holland was the home of two leading European new-age labels—Oreade and Narada Media. Oreade reported that in 1997 the latest trend was "angelic" music, while Narada Media predicted that the genre would develop in the direction of world music (with Celtic, Irish and African influences). In 1995 some "new-age" composers like Kitarō, Suzanne Ciani and Patrick O'Hearn moved from major to independent record labels due to lack of promotion, diminishing sales or limited freedom of creativity.

In 2001, Windham Hill celebrated its 25th anniversary, Narada and Higher Octave Music continued to move into world and ethno-techno music, and Hearts of Space Records were bought by Valley Entertainment. Enya's "Only Time" peaked at #10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and the album A Day Without Rain at #2 on the Billboard 200, making Enya the number one new-age artist of the year.

Nu-new age

Nu-new age (also known as New Wave of New Age or New Millennium Exotica) is a style of music that emerged in the 2000s to describe a revival of new age music. Stellar Om Source and Oneohtrix Point Never. Independent record label Leaving Records was labelled a "bastion" of the movement.

See also

  • Adult contemporary music
  • Biomusic (natural soundscapes and animal songs)
  • List of new-age music artists
  • Lounge music
  • Music and sleep
  • Pure Moods, a popular 1990s new-age music compilation album
  • Sentimental ballad
  • Progressive music

References

Sources

  • AllMusic (New Age)
  • Reviews New Age