1960s Exotica music was introduced to me by my good friends Vanessa and Paul, who love 1960s culture and mid-century modern architecture, and most definitely have a bar cart in their living room. Exotica music is a genre of fantasy– an absolutely inauthentic representation and imagination of “exotic” cultures from the Polynesian islands, latin America, and Asia. The genre was pioneered by Martin Denny and Les Baxter, and features man-made bird calls, made up chants, and chimes. It’s very fun, very kooky, and totally immersive– the perfect musical setting for a vintage Tiki party or an evening relaxing and mixing mai tais at sunset. (Full disclosure, I have never made a mai tai and I don’t even know what goes into one. I know I can trust you to keep my secret!)
This playlist also features some non-exotica bits, (I threw in Quincy Jones’s Soul Bossa Nova, I couldn’t resist!) but I feel that it all meshes together quite nicely.
Preview the playlist on the player below, or click here to listen on Spotify!
Mai Tai
listen nowI wanted to open with something very representative of the Exotica genre, and I think Martin Denny’s Coronation does well to get the ball rolling.
Enjoy Peggy Lee’s exotic side in Similau, complete with a very dramatic wail around 1:44.
You may recognize a musical theme in Martin Denny’s Misirlou— which I imagine must’ve been the inspiration for the Black Eyed Peas’s Pump It.
The Enchanted Sea is one of my favorites by Martin Denny, I just love those human seagull calls and that ship bell ::ding ding::
pin me!
Listen Now on Spotify
