Post #521452 by aquarj on Thu, Apr 1, 2010 2:50 PM

Yes, this topic has been discussed MANY times on TC, both explicitly and in the context of other topics. It comes up every once in a while when someone posts about something in this forum that some people feel is NOT tiki music. But I'm not trying to discourage anyone from adding to this particular thread. In fact, I've got some thoughts to add too.

For me, this kind of question is only meaningful if you've got a context in mind. There's any number of contexts:

• What is appropriate for discussion IN THIS FORUM. I believe Hanford came up with the forum description. In that sense, it doesn't really matter what individuals may consider "tiki" music in one form or another. It's very simple to stick to the convention that anything within the listed genres is good for the Tiki Music forum, and any other music is still fine to discuss, but just in Beyond.

• What kind of music fits for a "tiki event". Depends on the event - Oasis, Hukilau, music between sets at a live show, bus music on a crawl, music at a house party, ... It's tough to please everyone at an event like Oasis, because some people are really wanting something danceable, while others would prefer more constant sedate exotica. So I think the "rules" are a bit more lax at big events, where it's fair game to play most anything that's likely to have common appeal for the audience.

• What kind of music should the ideal tiki bar have playing. This one might be the most interesting or contentious, because it relates to the feeling that the "wrong" music can pop the escapist fantasy bubble. One of the earliest TC discussions along those lines was about Taboo Cove, where the Bosko decor was fantastic, but the atmosphere was kind of compromised by the music.

• What kind of music do YOU like to listen to (in your home tiki room, or while carving, or...). It's always interesting to hear what people like. And obviously even where tastes differ, no one's trying to tell anyone else what they should or shouldn't listen to. A radio show or podcast is like this, where the host has the leeway to use any constraints he chooses, and hopefully people listen because their tastes align.

So I'm not sure which of these this thread is trying to define. Maybe any/all?

It's possible to draw links to punk, reggae (and calypso, rock-steady, etc.), garage, frat, jazz, and many other genres. But the more you do that, I think you're actually moving away from "Tiki Music Defined" and more into something vague with no meaning at all. For me personally, I think of tiki music pretty narrowly. But I rarely confine my listening to that narrow space, and I'd argue that few of the contexts above are restricted to that space either. So in practical terms, it doesn't really affect anything whether my definition is narrow or broad. And I think something like Sven's cd is an interesting take at the narrow definition, without any dogma about what YOU should like.

So personally, I would exclude rockabilly and even most surf. Surf is an interesting one because a lot of songs share some of that minor key exotic feeling, but it's oriented toward more of a teenage audience. The kids at the dance, as opposed to their parents at the bar. But surf was mostly still from the era of ballrooms and matching jackets. The same transition over just a couple years that carried the shift to more garage, psych, and later punk, coincided with the beginning of the end for the classic poly pop culture that we celebrate on TC. So that's part of why these other genres seem more clearly excluded to me, but that somehow surf almost fits.

-Randy