Music For TV Dinners

These sixteen production library compositions, used variously in educational shorts, commercials, television shows and feature films, constitute some of the most invisible, yet best remembered, musical melodies in American culture. Even stranger is that most of this music was produced by the British KPM company. Further examples (including EMI and Pye's contributions to the canon) can be found on UK anthologies such as "The Sound Gallery" and "The Sound Spectrum." The collected composers and arrangers construct brilliantly memorable productions whose purpose is to serve as musical beds beneath narration or to signal mood and plot shifts in films and television programs.
Though not designed as firmly for the background as true Muzak [tm], there is still an unnerving contextual shift in compiling these tracks for foreground listening. Though originally used in more subliminal contexts, these tunes have been drawn on in recent years as a simple way to evoke nostalgic moods, with or without irony in mind. In addition to appearances on boomer throwbacks like Nick at Night and Ren & Stimpy, these titles also appear in films like "The Hudsucker Proxy" and "Natural Born Killers." The most recognizable tune (at least, for 1960's television viewers) will be Wilfred Burns' "Stop Gap," which served as the theme to "Truth or Consequences." You can't help but feel that Bob Barker will step out in front of the curtain at any moment.
As calculated as this music may be, its composition, arrangement and performance hold tremendous charms. This is more mood music than easy listening, in that its purpose is to attract your attention and shape your experience, rather than provide any sort of sedation. Many of the musical cues will haunt you with inscrutably faint memories of products like Vaseline Intensive Care Lotion and Midol. This is an excellent volume for listening or for adding unique musical cues to your home video.
Combine this one and the one above on 1 disc for about 79 minutes of kitschy bliss. Yowza!

1. In the Limelight - David Lindup 2. Happy Go Lively - Laurie Johnson 3. Hackney Carriage 4. Trafficscape - Eric Winstone 5. Work-A-Day World - Jack Beaver 6. Curley Shirley - Otto Sieben 7. Bell Hop - John Shakespeare 8. Man About Town - Laurie Johnson 9. Holiday Playtime 10. Bargains Galore 11. Speaking Guitar - Gerhard Narholz 12. Shopping Spree - Laurie Johnson 13. Stop Gap - Wilfred Burns 14. Toys for Boys 15. Gala Performance - Laurie Johnson 16. Sleepy Shores - Johnny Pearson

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Music For TV Dinners 60’s

Here is a collection of British 'adverts' music. Fans of the 'Sound Gallery' collections will enjoy this stuff, which is heavy on sixties kitsch in all the right ways. It's light, frothy, and wonderful. There is a very comfortable, vaguely familiar, and even poignant quality to this music; sort of the aural equivalent to chicken noodle soup or macaroni and cheese. Anyone who enjoys lounge and retro culture will find it to be a welcome retreat from the harsher elements of today's culture. Get it and bask in the glow!
1. Disc a Go Go - Syd Dale 2. Pop Promotion - Gerhard Narholz 3. Free Life - James Clarke 4. Riviera Set - Syd Dale 5. Shopping Centre 6. Piccadilly Night Ride - Alan Hawkshaw, Keith Mansfield 7. Party Shaker 8. Rio Magic - Neil Richardson 9. Beauty Parade - Syd Dale 10. Holiday Commercial - Alan Hawkshaw 11. Sporting Highlights - Keith Mansfield 12. Convenience Shopping - Alan Hawkshaw 13. Mexican Ding Dong - Syd Dale 14. Chase That Car - Laurie Johnson 15. Rosese Today - John Scott 16. Pop March - Johnny Pearson

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Ben Vaughn - Instrumental Stylings

Retro-rocker Ben Vaughn attracted attention for his faithful re-creations of pre-Beatles rock & roll, pop, and roots music, all of which were filtered through his quirky sense of humor. Vaughn began playing around Philadelphia with a band dubbed the Ben Vaughn Combo, after the band broke up, he did a few compilations and went solo.

Instrumental Stylings, 1995, an eclectic album that incorporated bits of his film scores. In fact, a couple of the album cuts were originally written for a 1991 muscle car documentary, Favorite Mopar, and a few others originally appeared in his score to the documentary Wild Girl's Go Go Rama. Sure enough, following the release of the album, he contributed the award-winning theme song to the television series Third Rock from the Sun, and much of the music from Instrumental Stylings was subsequently featured on the show. Vaughn went on to serve as music director for That '70s Show throughout it’s 8 year run.

Instrumental Stylings is not a soundtrack album, but it certainly tackles its fair share of instrumental touchstones. Vaughn shies away from no genre: bone-crunching surf, spaghetti western, drag-strip stompers, country-blues boogie, Italian soundtrack, breezy bossa nova, Tex-Mex cowboy ballads, noir Indian music, and numerous mix-and-match hybrids thereof. One of the most surprising aspects of the album is his ability to evoke a wildly eclectic array of sources and styles and create a palpable mood and atmosphere with each one using virtually the same basic instrumentation. The constants on the album are Vaughn's crazily reverbed guitar and rock-steady drumming. He also douses many of the songs with simplistic organ runs and a bevy of alien effects. Amazingly -- and it is a testament to his estimable skills -- Vaughn manages to make the album sound like a compilation of the finest camp sounds from exploitation flicks of the '50s and '60s. He is as gifted at replicating B-movie styles as Todd Rundgren is at reproducing pop/rock ones. It is virtually impossible to be put off by the retro stance of the music because it exudes such a joyous quality and is crafted so impeccably. It hangs together as a tribute that is often better than the music it is meant to acknowledge.


1. Aqua Blue 2. Gumpstumper 3. Enfermo 4. Pipe Bomb 5. Aldente
6. Battery Acid 7. Heaven Above 8. Toestubber 9. Snake Pit
10. Dreadnaught 11. Hydroplane 12. Tarot Reader 13. Descafeinado
14. Constellation Drive 15. Illusion 16. Stretch Limo

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