Post #693270 by tiki mick on Thu, Sep 12, 2013 7:34 AM

My take: It's an artificial yet technically correct distinction in that wiki article, which is agreed on by many here.

I don't agree, of course.

The idea is that Martin Denny and Arthur Lyman were based in Hawaii and did polynesian themed albums mainly, but removed the ukelele and steel guitar from their sound and added exotic percussion instead.

Whereas the music of Les Baxter and Chaino and others was not specifically polynesian themed, but more a world theme...including Africa and Latin.

For me, all mid century exotica has the same intent and sentiment. I count albums such as Stan kenton's "Cuban Fire" to be exotica, for example.

In those days, they didn't have labels for this and that like we do now. All of this music (and the restaurants and drinks and cuisine) were designed for the urban savage and they didn't say "TIKI" was a style or distict from any other exotic concept the way this forum does.

I don't remember the name of it, but there is a restaurant someone posted here from maybe new mexico or colorado that was mexican themed, and was very well done with rocks and mountains and waterfalls, much like the famed "TIKIS" in Monterrey park. Nothing to do with tiki, but built with the same intent and attitude and designed for the same urban savage that went to a tiki bar or restaurant.

Edit: here it is:

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=40915&forum=6&hilite=casa bonita

My point is most of the distictions between what is tiki and what is not tiki are based on someone's opinion or interpretation. Back in the day, there were no distictions really. It was all mid-centurty culture and I doubt the word "Poly Pop" ever came up. Likewise, "exotica" did not have any other labels such as "tiki" or "Jungle".

[ Edited by: Lucas Vigor 2013-09-12 08:11 ]