Post #521804 by JOHN-O on Sat, Apr 3, 2010 2:21 PM

On 2010-04-03 10:18, lucas vigor wrote:
And of course, some songs that are not usually considered exotica, but actually are..

Sounds of Hatari:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJmIYEExztE

Hatari , Yes !! More significant to me for "Baby Elephant Walk"…..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN2xQ2zqmCI

I can understand how most people's Tiki escapism takes them to far-away tropical paradises. Certainly that was the major appeal of Tiki in the late 1950's and early 1960's. These days however it takes less time to fly to Honolulu from Los Angeles than it takes to drive to San Francisco.

Having traveled regularly to the Hawaiian islands as well as Fiji and Micronesia, the "exotic" appeal of Tiki is different for me. My Tiki escapism is a time machine straight back to the days when JFK was in the White House (or shortly thereafter). To me, there's nothing better than enjoying a Tropical cocktail in an authentic mid-century Tiki bar which is pretty much unchanged from that time period.

The soundtrack is an important part of this experience. Good Exotica is timeless, and sounds as contemporary today as it did 50 years ago. That's all well and good but sometimes I like to hear popular music vocals that unquestionably date that time.

I'm talking about adult listening sounds like Las Vegas Swing music (Rat Pack, Louis Prima, Keely Smith, Wayne Newton) or the sounds of Burt Bacharach (Dionne Warwick, Tom Jones, Gene Pitney, Dusty Springfield).

OK, maybe it's not "Tiki Music" per se but I might argue this is what they regularly played on the local suburban neighborhood Tiki bar jukebox. It's mid-century Tiki BAR music. :)

(Also Lucas, you're flying so far over my head right now, I can't even hear the plane.)

[ Edited by: JOHN-O 2010-04-03 14:22 ]