mood music

noun3

1. •
   Any of various styles of light popular music.
2. •
   A type of functional music to influence the listener's mood.

   • Today, functional music is a defining phenomenon of the streaming era, especially mood music for wellness and productivity, which self-improvement culture increasingly renders the same. — 2025
3. •
   (figurative) The general mood around a topic.

   • 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) […] — 2016