# Easy Listening Guilty Pleasures.



## Badinerie (May 3, 2008)

OK so I admit it.. I have liking for the music of Bert Kaempfert. Love the Trumpet playing of Fred Moch and Charlie Tabor and of courseLadi Geisler's iconic Bass playing I have no reasonable explanation. I just do. How 'bout you lot?


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Manilow's _Copacabana_ and _Cindarella Rockefeller_ by Esther and Abi Ofarim, though if I give either an airing on the jukebox at one of my two favoured local watering holes goodwill isn't exactly in abundance.


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## geralmar (Feb 15, 2013)

East of Suez, 101 Strings:


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

I dislike the term "guilty pleasure" because I never feel guilty about what I like. Nevertheless, in the spirit of the thread, I like the easy listening sound of the Ray Conniff Singers, the Mike Sammes Singers, and in the soft pop repertoire, the Carpenters.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

They're generally not classed as Easy Listening, but I find these fairly easy:

Leonard Cohen
Comedian Harmonists
Marlene Dietrich
Ella Fitzgerald
Judy Garland
Billie Holiday
Ute Lemper
Gordon Lightfoot
Max Raabe & Palast Orchester
Frank Sinatra

 I just realized that I don't have a Frank Sinatra album on CD yet!


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## tortkis (Jul 13, 2013)

I don't feel guilty, but I'm glad to see this thread. Kaempfert is nice. I like Paul Mauriat (Love is Blue, etc.)

I recommend Joseph Lanza's book _Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Muzak, Easy-Listening, and Other Moodsong_. Kaempfert, 101 Strings, Mantovani etc. are mentioned.









I also liked background music you can hear when you push some buttons in a hotel room. It was otherworldly, almost scary sometimes.

_"I'm not in the least musical; I don't own a record player or a single cassette. In fact, I used to be the despair of my girlfriend when we traveled because I so clearly enjoyed canned music and used to turn it on in hotel rooms. But the subject is fascinating - all part of mood-control. [...]"_ - J. G. Ballard (Elevator Music, Lanza)


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## Guest (Jan 15, 2016)

I like to name a few of my "so called quilty pleasures".
Juliet Greco, Frank Sinatra ,Bert Kaempfert and Henri Mancini


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

ABBA, Henri Mancini, Manheim Steamroller.


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## Badinerie (May 3, 2008)

A Swinging Safari. Classic! My ringtone for years.

Relaxing to some classic Bert. Just after some Classic Burt. Dusty sings the definitive "Look of Love" 
Where Flamingo's Fly is playing now from Bert's If I had you lp.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Has anyone here heard anything by Combustible Edison?


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## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

There's nothing wrong with so-called Easy Listening. We can't have a steady diet of Filet Mignon only. Sometimes we eat hamburger. 

Henry Mancini, Percy Faith, Herb Alpert & TJB are my favorites.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

arpeggio said:


> Manheim Steamroller.


I've always loved this one! Chip Davis is a fine composer, and he knows how to obtain the maximum musical impact with the least amount of notes.


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## Jos (Oct 14, 2013)

From my parents recordcollection.

Also check out "sounds from worn grooves" at http://snapcrackleandpops.blogspot.nl/. Some great gems there, and a few horible ones too !!

Another blog : http://sleazy-listening.blogspot.nl/


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## tortkis (Jul 13, 2013)

I am listening to Mantovani's All-American Showcase, after Boulez. So smooth, no edginess.


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## Badinerie (May 3, 2008)

Not sure if this is really good or really bad but I like it anyway!


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## MrTortoise (Dec 25, 2008)

All Barry Manilow (or as I like to affectionate call him 'Barely Man-Enough') before 'One Voice' 
ABBA. More hooks than a tackle shop!
Andrew-Lloyd Weber up to 'Cats', sorry, can't get into Phantom 

and I don't feel guilty, well, at least not about listening to this stuff!


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## Badinerie (May 3, 2008)

Or as we call him round here Manny Barrowload...


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Badinerie said:


> Or as we call him round here Manny Barrowload...


My reworked name for the current portrayer of Sherlock Holmes is: Cummerbund Bandersnatch. My grandfather always referred to a well-known Russian composer as Nicky Rinsya-KawfeeKup. Some people have no sense of shame.


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## Badinerie (May 3, 2008)

I once called him Domenic Blunderbuss by genuine accident, My brother in law nearly had a rupture.


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

I think a lot of people look at classical as an "Easy Listening" experience. 
Shows the ignorance that they have towards it. If they only knew how to enjoy it.....


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## jim prideaux (May 30, 2013)

Badinerie said:


> A Swinging Safari. Classic! My ringtone for years.
> 
> Relaxing to some classic Bert. Just after some Classic Burt. Dusty sings the definitive "Look of Love"
> Where Flamingo's Fly is playing now from Bert's If I had you lp.
> ...


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

My favorite version of _The Look of Love_ is the knockout version by Sergio Mendes and Brasil 66. The close miking of the lead singer makes it sound like she is singing softly in your (my) ear, and then the whole ensemble wraps it up in an irresistible Latin beat, with horns, etc. Bacharach is a genius, no doubt about it. Anyone who had a heart (or ears) would agree.


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## Badinerie (May 3, 2008)

This German pressed Bert Kaempfert LP from 1982 is all his own compositions. Lovely Stuff!


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

Jackie Gleason Orchestra.

















"There I've Said It Again"


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

I like the voices of Ella Fitzgerald an Dusty Springfield very much.
So my guilty pleasures are out in the open


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Patrick Swayze - She's Like The Wind ft. Wendy Fraser


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

brotagonist said:


> ....
> I just realized that I don't have a *Frank Sinatra* album on CD yet!


Classic Sinatra, Sinatra at the Sands, Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely, appear near the front of a Amazon search for "Frank Sinatra", and rightly so.

The favorite in my FS collection is this 2CD, a 2007 remastering...


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

Pugg said:


> I like the voices of Ella Fitzgerald an Dusty Springfield very much.
> So my guilty pleasures are out in the open


There's no way Ella Fitzgerald should count as a guilty pleasure. Patrick Swayze's music, sure, but not Ella.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

My favorite from Dean.


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## Belowpar (Jan 14, 2015)

Starting to question that I understand "easy listening"? To me it's innocuous background stuff that is pleasant, but you wouldn’t listen to twice if you really paid attention to it the first time.

Dusty, Frank, Ella and Dino? Not easy listening background music for me.


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## Badinerie (May 3, 2008)

I agree. I mean Ella is the Queen of jazz standards, Dusty is sublime, and the Lads are rat pack leaders, sometimes guilt can be unreasonable though. Like the way I feel about loving the 'Dirty Dancing' Movie


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

Belowpar said:


> Starting to question that I understand "easy listening"? To me it's innocuous background stuff that is pleasant, but you wouldn't listen to twice if you really paid attention to it the first time.
> 
> Dusty, Frank, Ella and Dino? Not easy listening background music for me.


Your definition makes sense. I think the trouble started when record stores started filing pop which was a few decades old under Easy Listening, which came to mean 'music for old codgers that isn't classical or some kind of really hardcore jazz'. I remember being mortified when I went to Our Price to buy Elvis cassettes and found them in the Easy Listening section. I knew he was pretty uncool in the mid 80s, but to put him in with all the granny music like James Last just seemed unnecessarily cruel.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

Figleaf said:


> Your definition makes sense. I think the trouble started when record stores started filing pop which was a few decades old under Easy Listening, which came to mean 'music for old codgers that isn't classical or some kind of really hardcore jazz'. I remember being mortified when I went to Our Price to buy Elvis cassettes and found them in the Easy Listening section. *I knew he {Elvis}was pretty uncool in the mid 80s, but to put him in with all the granny music like James Last just seemed unnecessarily cruel.*


Twas. But one must remember, the "crossover" was largely his own doing. Such as, the cheesy Vegas ensembles with wrestling belt. My impersonation...


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## EarthBoundRules (Sep 25, 2011)

I love ABBA.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

Did I say this already?

RAMMSTEIN
RAMMSTEIN
RAMMSTEIN

as loudly as possible


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## Jos (Oct 14, 2013)

Bought these today at 50 cents each. Seemed fair when I was in the shop. After first listening I'm not so sure...
Two Conniff tracks are nice, almost real music ! Need...more... wine


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## Adair (Feb 9, 2016)

Easy Listening or "Elevator Music" is full of musical delights. At its best, from the 1950's-1960s, it is a kind of orchestral Impressionism created by arrangers of considerable talent. I'm thinking, for example, of some of the Paul Weston mood albums, or the early 101 Strings (the musicians of which were actually members of the Stuttgart Symphony! Talent was cheap in post-war Europe and many American budget labels sought it out). If you can find lps in thrift shops that are in good condition, buy them!


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## Belowpar (Jan 14, 2015)

Jos said:


> View attachment 81228
> 
> 
> Bought these today at 50 cents each. Seemed fair when I was in the shop. After first listening I'm not so sure...
> Two Conniff tracks are nice, almost real music ! Need...more... wine


Don't know that album but Billy Butterfield played the single greatest solo on any of Sinatra's recordings.
Easy listening...


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## Adair (Feb 9, 2016)

Butterfield was an awesome trumpeter. Listen to his masterpiece, "Narcissus," on youtube.


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## AndreyGaganov (May 16, 2016)

Late 60's and 70's Bee Gees ... and early 70's The Carpenters.


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

I love Il Pulcino Pio ('The Little Chick') - a high-pitched reggaeton summer hit from a few years back. It has been recorded in many languages (Italian, Spanish, German, English, French, Portuguese, Romanian, Greek, Georgian, Arab, Chinese, Polyglot) and genres (Gangnam, Extreme Metal, Batman, Karaoke). There are chicken revenge versions etc. A lot of fun to compare them!


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## geralmar (Feb 15, 2013)

An excellent resource for easy listening music:

http://spaceagepop.com/index.htm


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Israel Kamakawiwoʻole - Somewhere over the Rainbow


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## acitak 7 (Jun 26, 2016)

*acitak7*

love mein land by rammstein, video is great as you say very loud is best


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

Jos said:


> View attachment 80315
> 
> 
> From my parents recordcollection.
> ...


Just loaded up some Prado. Love it.


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## Chibi Ubu (11 mo ago)

*Maaya Sakamoto: Gyakko -unplugged session- *





Beautiful voice, intoxicating chord progressions...


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## Chibi Ubu (11 mo ago)

'60s movie music themes popular on AM radio. Those were the last days of being a truly cohesive society, being aware of and respecting each other's taste.


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

I spent hours and hours, growing up, laying on the living room floor right next to my dad's Klipschorn copy that he built from plans in Popular Science. We would put on Arthur Lyman and I'd be washed over by the deep bass waves.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Any love for Bacharach's albums 'Reach Out' and 'Portrait in Music'? I got to know these in my teens whilst playing jazz guitar and was seduced by his chords. The songs on these albums have some quirky and distinctive orchestration and use of unusual instruments like the Ocarina. Turns out he was a good arranger as well as songwriter. Hell even his strained and out of tune voice had character.


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## chipia (Apr 22, 2021)

Can somebody enlighten me why Easy Listening is a guilty pleasure? I thought Easy Listening was just a marketing term for some of the best music of the 50s and 60s including the Great American Songbook and Bossa Nova.


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

chipia said:


> Can somebody enlighten me why Easy Listening is a guilty pleasure? I thought Easy Listening was just a marketing term for some of the best music of the 50s and 60s including the Great American Songbook and Bossa Nova.


"Easy Listening" was what was pushed off the radio by The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Prior to the British Invasion, Herb Alpert and Sergio Mendez and Paul Mauriat ruled AM radio. The Baja Marimba Band outsold the Beatles in 1964.

Therefore, "guilty pleasure" because it's what our parents listened to, for most of us.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Two songs written by a musical genius, Alberto Dominguez--_Perfidia_, Vikki Carr version, and _Frenesi_, Natalie Cole's version. Can't get enough of them.


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## Chibi Ubu (11 mo ago)

NoCoPilot said:


> Therefore, "guilty pleasure" because it's what our parents listened to, for most of us.


That makes me your odd uncle, if not your parents  The first album I bought was "Hatari" a movie soundtrack by Henry Mancini. We rocked out to the Peter Gunn theme in high school pep band!


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Chibi Ubu said:


> That makes me your odd uncle, if not your parents  The first album I bought was "Hatari" a movie soundtrack by Henry Mancini. We rocked out to the Peter Gunn theme in high school pep band!


I also grooved on _Hatari. _Played at ear-destroying volume, there was nothing like it as it builds in volume. A friend of mine got fired from a summer job at a record store for cranking up _The Sounds of Hatari_ to extreme limits over the shop's background sound system and thus "frightening the horses". He said he was going to quit anyway.


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## Tarneem (Jan 3, 2022)

LEN KAGAMINE MY BOY!


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

we all love Lem


we also love Kylie


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Another non-guilty pleasure--the songs and voice of Laura Branigan. She had a quite distinctive voice with its Celtic catch and she also would let her voice break into ragged glory in a song like _The Power of Love_, about as over-the-top as a love song gets. Here she is in _Show Me Heaven, _a song first sung by Maria McKee (who I also love) but Branigan knocks the song out of the park.....


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

I bought a boxed set of Frank Sinatra, singing with big bands, arrangements by Nelson Riddle. Not the schmulzy pop tunes he became known for, but serious American Songbook stuff. Gawd that man could sing.


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

Chibi Ubu said:


> That makes me your odd uncle, if not your parents  The first album I bought was "Hatari" a movie soundtrack by Henry Mancini. We rocked out to the Peter Gunn theme in high school pep band!


Aha -- I played in a high school pep band too, mostly at basketball games. My first arrangements were done for pep band -- tpt., trb., alto & tenor sax, pno., bass, drums. Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, etc. And then go out for cokes and hamburgers at the White Spot Drive-In restaurant in Vancouver. Pretty tame stuff, with psychedelia and metal soon to come and no more pep band!


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## geralmar (Feb 15, 2013)




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## geralmar (Feb 15, 2013)

1965






Actually composed for an Alka Seltzer television commercial.


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## nikola (Sep 7, 2012)

ABBA, Enya, Yanni... not feeling guilty at all.


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## geralmar (Feb 15, 2013)

Composed by Ronald Binge, first recording by Mantovani in 1951.


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## geralmar (Feb 15, 2013)

In 1957 RCA released a dozen "For Hi-FI Living" easy listening albums in the U.S. They sold for $1.98 each, half the price of a standard L.P., and featured mostly European light music ensembles (England seemed to be favored). All albums were monophonic releases, although I suspect most if not all were recorded in stereo-- however consumer stereo was yet to be introduced in the U.S. Some years ago by haunting thrift stores and resale shops I managed to collect all twelve albums. I must say overall they are a dreary listening experience-- torpid playing and tempi, and heavy on somnolent strings. In other words, "background music" in the most literal sense. 


My long deceased parents' album and why I still value the series.


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

If there's anything to feel guilty about it's the lumping together of a load of compositions and artists of such vastly different quality and with such vastly different intentions. But I think there are lots of good resources around now, including on the internet, that can help sort these matters out. For people of the rock generation like me, it used to be all too easy to put "what our parents listened to" in a vague "easy listening" category. Nowadays that doesn't cut it -- and major problems can develop.


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## SearsPoncho (Sep 23, 2020)

Jefferson Starship - Miracles (basically any of those Marty Balin ballads)

Looking Glass - Brandy

Al Stewart - The Year of the Cat

Steely Dan - everything. My favorite is Deacon Blues. They might have been hipper or more musical than other "easy listening" acts, but the music still sounds like easy listening, and I like it all.

...and Barry Manilow, sure.

'70's a.m. radio


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## Floeddie (8 mo ago)

*The Essential Dionne Warwick*


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

geralmar said:


> In 1957 RCA released a dozen "For Hi-FI Living" easy listening albums in the U.S. They sold for $1.98 each, half the price of a standard L.P., and featured mostly European light music ensembles (England seemed to be favored). All albums were monophonic releases, although I suspect most if not all were recorded in stereo-- however consumer stereo was yet to be introduced in the U.S. Some years ago by haunting thrift stores and resale shops I managed to collect all twelve albums. I must say overall they are a dreary listening experience-- torpid playing and tempi, and heavy on somnolent strings. In other words, "background music" in the most literal sense.
> 
> 
> My long deceased parents' album and why I still value the series.


Prestige records had a sublabel called Moodsville, where some great jazz players played a laid back set. I have several of those: Coleman Hawkins (2) and Red Garland. Easy listening maybe, but not a guilty pleasure.


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## Floeddie (8 mo ago)

I guess I should feel guilty for posting here? Perhaps if the thread is abolished, I won't be a pariah?


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Carpenters 
Sinatra 
Fifth Dimension
Gino Vannelli


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