Tiki Music Defined - Tiki Music

H Hibiscus Member Boston-ish Joined: Sep 22, 2008 Posts: 211	H Hibiscus Posted posted on Thu, Apr 1, 2010 10:42 AM On 2010-04-01 09:52, Digitiki wrote: A Very interesting topic indeed!!! When I first started doing my podcast, I did something that has turned out to be quite eye opening. I made a playlist in my iTunes and threw all the standard exotica/Hapa haole, etc into it. Then I began to through in modern electronica( not the thumping club stuff, but styles called Ambient & Chill), swing (40's), crooners (Sinatra, Fitzgerald, etc), surf and even some trip hop. The interesting thing is that most of it fits nicely when I have a cocktail party or just relaxing in tiki-ville. I have found that there is quite a number of radically unrelated genres of music that, when mixed together, can actually complement each other. John-O's first line in this thread is the best "Tiki music is whatever we want it to be". Tiki music is whatever sets the tiki mood and/or the environment that you're in. Having said that, it IS true that "tiki music" is generally thought of as exotica, and vintage Hawaiian music because that is the most obvious and most often played within a tiki environment. [ Edited by: Digitiki 2010-04-01 09:52 ] YES! to all of this. I pretty much start with exotica/hapa haole and branch out from there. And John-O's line about anything you want it to be totally works for me (with certain limits - we all draw our lines at some point). While learning about sub-genres and offshoots and such is interesting (Beach vs. Surf? Who knew? Thanks, Jeff!) and sort of fun to know, in the long run I guess I just don't care all that much about that aspect. It's the mood that works for me, not the pedigree or a strict historical breakdown, and while I really appreciate the scholarship behind it (and is one of the reasons TC is so much fun,) that's more of a "oh, that's nice..." sort of thing. I appreciate that a lot of folks really like to dig into the historical aspects, and that's awesome, because someone has to preserve the knowledge. It's just not why I'm into tiki culture. Luckily it's a pretty big tent!

On 2010-04-01 09:52, Digitiki wrote:
A Very interesting topic indeed!!!

When I first started doing my podcast, I did something that has turned out to be quite eye opening. I made a playlist in my iTunes and threw all the standard exotica/Hapa haole, etc into it. Then I began to through in modern electronica( not the thumping club stuff, but styles called Ambient & Chill), swing (40's), crooners (Sinatra, Fitzgerald, etc), surf and even some trip hop. The interesting thing is that most of it fits nicely when I have a cocktail party or just relaxing in tiki-ville.

I have found that there is quite a number of radically unrelated genres of music that, when mixed together, can actually complement each other.

John-O's first line in this thread is the best "Tiki music is whatever we want it to be".

Tiki music is whatever sets the tiki mood and/or the environment that you're in. Having said that, it IS true that "tiki music" is generally thought of as exotica, and vintage Hawaiian music because that is the most obvious and most often played within a tiki environment.

[ Edited by: Digitiki 2010-04-01 09:52 ]

YES! to all of this. I pretty much start with exotica/hapa haole and branch out from there. And John-O's line about anything you want it to be totally works for me (with certain limits - we all draw our lines at some point).

While learning about sub-genres and offshoots and such is interesting (Beach vs. Surf? Who knew? Thanks, Jeff!) and sort of fun to know, in the long run I guess I just don't care all that much about that aspect. It's the mood that works for me, not the pedigree or a strict historical breakdown, and while I really appreciate the scholarship behind it (and is one of the reasons TC is so much fun,) that's more of a "oh, that's nice..." sort of thing. I appreciate that a lot of folks really like to dig into the historical aspects, and that's awesome, because someone has to preserve the knowledge. It's just not why I'm into tiki culture.

Luckily it's a pretty big tent!

Post #521388 by Hibiscus on Thu, Apr 1, 2010 10:42 AM