NONFICTION - May 1, 1994

ELEVATOR MUSIC: A Surreal History of Muzak, Easy-Listening, and Other Moodsong by Joseph Lanza. (St. Martin’s: $22; 280 pp.) Many people, if they think of Muzak at all, immediately imagine elevators, endless waits in the telephone, or worse, being in the dentist’s office. Not Joseph Lanza. In “Elevator Music,” a passionate account of Muzak’s rise to prominence, Lanza contends that far from being just an annoyance, that gentle version of a Pearl Jam hit you hear while eating your Big Mac is actually beneficial to mankind.

Lanza tells us that, “Elevator music (besides just being good music) is essentially a distillation of the happiness that modern technology has promised. A world without elevator music would be much grimmer than detractors . . . could ever realize. This is because most of us, in our hearts, want a world tailored by Walt Disney’s ‘Imagineers,’ an ergonomical Main Street U.S.A.” Jeepers! When does the next shuttle leave?

In terms of readability, “Elevator Music” has a meandering, good-natured style that is its strength as well as its downfall. Much like the Muzak it praises, this book has no real core, no spine to give it structural integrity. Instead of smooth transitions from subject to subject, “Elevator Music” seems to focus on one thing for a few pages, stop, and then abruptly begin a new topic. This gives the whole book a slightly homogenized feel with no one concept or portrait of a Muzak personality emerging as more pertinent than any other. Still, it will make many readers more interested and aware of Muzak’s ubiquitousness presence in our lives.