While soft passages of reed instruments such as clarinet and saxophone formed the signature tunes of the easy listening songs in the 60s and 70s, the was a dramatic turnover in the 80s with acoustic guitars, electric guitars and keyboards forming the major sound in the genre. Instrumental acoustic and electric guitar solos gave brand new identity to easy listening in the 80s and 90s.

In the 80s radio stations playing easy listening music started including acoustic rock songs and rock ballads in broadcasts, and this shaped a new path for easy listening rock songs. The folk movement paved the way for easy listening rock and in doing so attracted audiences from non-rock music formats. Easy listening rock songs came into prominence in the 70s. The soft textural sound gives the format its signature identity. The instrumentation in easy listening songs is known to calm the senses. While jazz standards and mellow hits songs in popular music were associated with easy listening in the 60s, over the year’s soft rock songs and slow rock songs have started being associated with easy listening rock. Here’s an epic list of the best easy listening rock songs. The easy listening genre is a format associated with soft and mellow songs.

Youtube soft rock songs