Nicole Pasulka profiles David Young, the man behind much of the easy listening music in funeral homes today:
Songs on Young’s CDs vary between "downtempo," "upbeat," and "spiritual." They bring to mind waiting for customer service. There are lots of wind chimes and bird sounds. There are no large leaps in volume or changes in meter, no unpredictable or complex chord progressions. This is music as single-issue sloganeering, a made-for-TV movie of sound. Young’s oeuvre is one of distillation, melding classical, opera, pop, and folk. It always sounds familiar, even when you hear it for the first time.
But Pasulka believes the Muzak-like sound is an appropriate way to mitigate grief:
A natural disaster or presidential election may go completely unnoticed when mourning a loved one, while the slightest gesture—a smile from a familiar-looking face in a crowd—can bring paroxysms of grief. Cutting back on stimulation, retreating away from anything that swells, or pains, or carries contradiction can be an act of self-protection or therapy. To play Young’s music at a funeral, because of its ability to either enable an exaggerated emotional response or be ignored entirely, is to choose not to choose.
The Dish 