Word: muzak
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...Fresno avoids the pitfalls of most TV parody -- gimmicks and overkill -- it errs on the side of politeness. The satire is too meek, there ^ are too many dead spots and blank expressions, and the dialogue often sounds like comedy writers' Muzak. (Grodin: "I'll see us all go to our graves before we lose this ranch!" Garr: "You go to your grave; I'm going to bed.") Burnett seems especially subdued, looking in vain for the precise parodic target that would launch her into an over-the-top lampoon of the kind she mastered on her old variety series...
...arrived. Five years ago, few outside Northern California had ever heard of it, but today the unthreatening, alpha- state instrumental music is not only found in record stores across the nation but wafts from speakers in chic boutiques and fancy bookshops as well. Like its predecessors, Muzak and Mantovani, New Age music is easily disparaged. Yet music that relaxes need not be devoid of content. Bach composed the Goldberg Variations to ease the slumbers of an insomniac, and his contemporary, Telemann, wrote reams of Tafelmusik, music intended as background to dining. Quality is not necessarily restricted by function...
...appeal is similarly diverse. New Age is the perfect music for washing one's BMW, which accounts for its stereotyping as yuppie Muzak. But, notes Hugh Ashcraft, owner of a record store in Charlotte, N.C., "we have a wide range of people buying this stuff. There's a good number of old hippies, and mothers and grandmothers." Jenny McEwen, a Charlotte nurse, listens to New Age music on Sunday nights because "it dissipates the dread of Monday mornings. I find myself actually looking forward to the week...
...spots, however, amidst Gabriel's first foray into the blissful world of pop. "Red Rain," though hampered by insufferable plasma images, conjures up memories of past highlights like "San Jacinto" and "Here Comes The Flood." On the flip side of the disk, "Mercy Street" successfully tiptoes the line between Muzak and minimalism on the strength of poetic images like "Mercy Street in your daddy's arms again." While they don't compare with anything on Gabriel's third eponymous album, these two songs at least show that the former art-rocker remembers something from his past...
...public shares in Lloyd Webber's company, called Really Useful. Last year the firm had pre-tax profits of $3.1 million, and it owns the rights to everything Lloyd Webber has written since 1978. Stockholders will get a share of royalties each time an elevator plays a Muzak-treated tune from Cats. Profits from Jesus Christ Superstar, though, will not be included...