Exotica

Leading up to Hawaii becoming the 50th US state, American culture in the mid to late 1950s developed a fascination with Polynesia and the South Pacific. Musical innovators such as Martin Denny, Arthur Lyman, and Les Baxter combined western recording styles, including the new stereo technology, with traditional instruments and rhythms from the tropics to popularize a sound that was marketed as exotic to Western audiences. The genre takes its name from the Martin Denny album Exotica. The music that was considered exotic was not limited to one region and did not generally feature the traditional sounds of that region, but rather music that might have tourist appeal. Latin American artists such as the Mexican band leader Esquivel and the Peruvian singer Yma Sumac became popular as part of the same trend. Exotica, along with most forms of Easy Listening fell out of favor from the mid 1960s through the 1980s, but gained a new following and new appreciation as the music re-appeared on various artists CD series in the 1990s, such as Ultra-Lounge and RE/SEARCH: Incredibly Strange Music, Volume I, often alongside Lounge and Space Age Pop.