mood music

English

Noun

mood music (uncountable)

1. Any of various styles of light popular music.
2. (figurative) The general mood around a topic.
   • 2016, Robert Dover, Europeanization of British Defence Policy, page 96:

     The mood music for Iraq had looked ominous from the end of 2001 and got demonstrably worse when President Bush delivered his now infamous 'axis of evil' State of the Union address (January 2002) […]

   • 2020, Max Blumenthal, The Management of Savagery, page 303:

     No organization had been more instrumental than the White Helmets in supplying the mood music for Western military intervention.

References

• “mood music”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.