The original KSL-FM

[CAwasinNJ]

Do I understand correctly that the original KSL-FM (now FM 100.3) ran a beautiful music format for many years? If it was like other similarly formatted stations of the time it was primarily very slow tempo instrumental songs and similar sounding versions of popular rock or pop songs. Does that about cover it?

[oldiesfunhouse]

I can't speak for KSL FM. My earliest memories of "FM 100" were in the 1980s. They had the KSFI call sign by then but, at that time, they were exactly the kind of station you were talking about. I used to put them on to help me go to sleep. The change over to what they are now was very gradual. They started throwing in some vocal songs every once in a while. Then the instrumentals started becoming less and less. I don't remember when, maybe late 80s or early 90s, they started calling themselves Light FM100. I think they were trying to rebrand somewhat to let people know they weren't a "elevator music" station anymore. After some time, I don't remember how long, they dropped the "Light" from their branding and went back to FM 100. The "point three" came several years after that. Hopefully, someone else can answer your question about the KSL FM days.

[Terry]

Yes, the original KSL-FM, 100.3, played what we call “elevator music”. I don’t recall hearing any commercials on it, but I could be wrong about that.

KSL-FM was the second FM station in Salt Lake, after KDYL-FM, 98.7. I think they were both in mono.

[amanuensis]

My recollections are in line with those of oldiesfunhouse. FM 100 was my go-to station for music when I needed background music for studying or writing (I was a student at BYU at the time.) If I remember correctly, the first time I heard the station play a pop vocal song, I called the DJ and asked if that was the nose of the camel in the tent. I was told that yes, yes it was. I was very unhappy but not surprised. FWIW, I still listen to instrumental background music and in fact I am doing so right now. (Stingray's Pure Relaxation stream.)

I have never liked the "Beautiful Music" label. To me, that is a sub-genre known for being string instrument heavy. But that is what Wikipedia's article about the format uses. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beautiful_music As the article notes, Bonneville International was one of the big promoters of the format (probably because of initial reluctance to program Rock and Roll on Bonneville-owned stations). Lex de Azevedo (more well known for his Saturday's Warrior musical) was employed by Bonneville to create instrumental covers of pop music for their stations, and they also sold reel-to-reel tapes of their music to other stations.

What I have learned from the Wikipedia article was that Bonneville doubled down on the format as it started to decline, buying out the catalogs of other radio station format providers as those providers transitioned away from it. So I would love if someone who was at Bonneville at the time would write down what they remember about what lead Bonneville to thrown in the towel. Were rating starting to decline at FM 100? Sure, the 12+ ratings that the Deseret News' radio columnist Lynn Arave could write about still had FM100 at or near the top, but perhaps the demographics were starting to not look good to advertisers. (Too old?) Or maybe advertisers no longer wanted a format which, by its nature, was music for non-active listening, i.e., a pleasant background noise to aid productivity.

[amanuensis]

We all know that stations play what advertisers want, which may or may not be exactly what their listeners want. Lo-Fi Hip Hop is, according to my college age child, what everyone now uses for background music while studying -- but there are no commercial stations with the format, and very few with smooth Jazz. And to me, Lo-Fi Hip Hop sound a whole lot like what I listen to. Everything old is new again. www.youtube.com/channel/UCiTStejfKfTwy61IYWFEFZg

By the way, I mentioned that I don't like using the term "Beautiful Music" for describing what FM 100 played. Instead, I like the term "Instrumental Easy Listening".

[dspete]

My remembrance of ok I'll call it Instrumental Easy Listening was not FM 100 but my parents always had it on 570 KLUB which I know they were so upset when that station changed formats.
Growing up and in elementary school and when you got sick it was stay in mom and dad's bed watching Price is Right followed by Match Game and then taking Paregoric yes you old timers will remember that medicine..
And mom putting on the old clock radio to KLUB 570 to sleep to.
Miss you mom and dad....

[amanuensis]

There was also instrumental music on 700 AM for many years. But I liked FM 100's instrumental music a lot more. I think 700 played "older" music. More of the lush sound. More Jackie Gleason and less covers of pop. Maybe what 700 played was in fact "Beautiful Music".

In the Eighties, I recall 570 as being the station where parents of baby boomers listened to the songs that they grew up with. But thank you Wikipedia, I learned that KLUB did in fact air instrumental music in the 1970s. That was before I was paying attention. Back then, the kitchen radio was ALWAYS tuned to KSL 1160 (and only KSL). I had a pocket transistor radio but rarely used it. It wasn't until I was in college that I started listening to instrumental only stations. I guess because of all the aforementioned studying and report writing.

[CAwasinNJ]

The beautiful music stations I'm familiar with went one of two ways in the 80's. They either flipped to another format or "modernized" adding what we would today call Lite AC. In 1982 there were 3 beautiful music stations in New York City. I believe all 3 were gone by 1990. (Bonneville went the flip route with their WRFM when it became Soft Rock 105 WNSR in 1986.) Youtube has one of the WRFM "jingles" at www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9I7y5Q2Tv0 which should give you a pretty good idea of where their head was at.

I wouldn't put a lot of stock in that Wikipedia article. Some of it is correct, some of it is wrong and some of it I'm not sure. In other words, it's like most of Wikipedia.

I'm not sure where the name Lo-Fi Hip Hop comes from, but it sure seems wrong to me. ("Smooth Jazz" pisses me off.) Ignoring the name, it sure does sound like a modern synthesized version of beautiful music. Come to think of it, that would seem a perfect use for the machine learning models that are all the rage today. Maybe I just figured out my next business....

My go to example of beautiful music is this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=__1xOAjkn58 How does that compare to what was on KSL-FM/KLUB/KFAM?

[amanuensis]

I watched the WRFM jingle. Yes, the Beautiful Music tag for sure applies to that jingle. Very lush sound with the human voice used as a musical instrument (which I don't like). I guess what I like now that I can choose from the multiple streams of instrumental music that Stingray has is music with fewer string instruments and more electronic and in general more up-tempo.

I found a 1986 aircheck from WRFM and by that time they were sounding like what I remember KSL FM sounding like then. Not at all surprising since I suspect that much of the music in the aircheck came from Bonneville's own orchestra. But the second song in the set was an exception, slower tempo and more strings and more like what KFAM might have more often been then playing).
www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4-av8NpFZM

Amazing that there was a live DJ then in the middle of the night (something that FM 100 didn't always have then). Amusing that there was an LDS spot captured.

Now that I think about it more, probably another reason that I preferred listening to FM 100 was simply because it was in stereo on the radio that I had then in my room. My car had the flavor of AM stereo that KFAM was using, but I never listened to instrumental while I was driving -- it was my studying and reading music. I usually then listened to soft rock while driving or AC stations that blended music from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. I liked 106.5 back when it had the KBHV call sign and 107.5 when it was "Magic" KMGR.