I watched a fascinating exploration of Library music's influence on modern music artists by Bandsplaining. My favorite bit:

The fact that library music was consumed subconsciously, building models of how you think, makes it an exceptionally powerful tool — Lulling you into a decades-old state of mind.

When talking to an artist about their influences, the most enthusiastic will drop specific names and bands.

(Allow me to over romanticise commercial music for a moment:)

There's something, though, to being influenced by a time and a place. That subconscious introduction — the music taken for granted, where you don't know the composer and you're not aware that you're listening to a song — in a way that sort of music can be more powerful because it's not relying on its own merits for impact and communication.

Some opinions would put music-for-music's sake on a pedestal as the truest form of the medium. Perhaps so. However, I seem to find myself drawn more and more to the music that played just a part in a greater whole of creating a mood and atmosphere.

Even if it was weather channel music.