New Age

New-age music is a genre of music intended to create artistic inspiration, relaxation, and optimism. It is used by listeners for yoga, massage, meditation, and reading as a method of stress management or to create a peaceful atmosphere in their home or other environments, and is associated with environmentalism and New Age spirituality.

New age includes both electronic forms, frequently relying on sustained synth pads or long sequencer-based runs, and acoustic forms, featuring instruments such as flutes, piano, acoustic guitar and a wide variety of non-western acoustic instruments. Vocal arrangements were initially rare in new age, but as it has evolved vocals have become more common, especially vocals featuring Native American-, Sanskrit-, or Tibetan-influenced chants, or lyrics based on mythology such as Celtic legends.

New-age music was influenced by a wide range of artists from a variety of genres. Irv Teibel's Environments series (1969–79) featured natural soundscapes, tintinnabulation, and "Om" chants and were some of the first publicly available psychoacoustic recordings. In 1973, Mike Oldfield's progressive rock album Tubular Bells became one of the first albums to be referred to under the genre description of new age. Steven Halpern's 1975 Spectrum Suite was a key work that began the new-age music movement. By 1989, there were over 150 small independent record labels releasing new-age music.