musical wallpaper

Basically, Capaldi’s song gradually wormed its way into America’s consciousness—becoming omnipresent, relatively inoffensive, musical wallpaper.

“I knew ‘Guardians’ was a rather outlandish concept — it’s a talking raccoon, a bunch of space aliens, one character who’s from Earth but has been in outer space for nearly 25 years — so I needed a way to ground people emotionally,” says Gunn, who, at 46, grew up with songs like “Brandy” — which he counts as a personal all-time top-10 favorite — as part of his childhood musical wallpaper.

Eventually the name came to be shorthand for any kind of innocuous musical wallpaper, even if in recent years Muzak and its competitors have also developed radiolike playlists of pop hits and oldies.

The composer Max Richter wanted to “recompose” Vivaldi’s ubiquitous “Four Seasons,” a masterpiece all too often demoted to musical wallpaper.

Its musical wallpaper accompanies panoramic cinematography that soothes rather than catches the eye.