Preface / Karen Pinkus vii
1. The Tiki Hour 1
2. Mondo Exotica 17
3. Exotic Fragments 34
4. The Laboratory of Dr. Les Baxter 45
5. Martin Denny: The Frog and the Prince 57
6. The Age of the Grand Expositions 67
7. Cocktails All Around 78
8. The Tribes of Exotica 96
9. A Venus in the Lounge 111
10. Destination: Space-Age Pop 121
11. The Moon in Stereo 145
12. Crime Jazz 168
13. Shaken and Stirred 180
14. Italian Style, from Spies to Exotica-Erotica 192
15. Italy's Exotic Adventures 211
16. Lounge Italia 226
17. La Dolce Vita 235
18. Hangovers? 262
Notes 267
Discography 307
Index 355
Tiki, cocktail music, and other odd cultural phenomena of the mid-20th century
Francesco Adinolfi is an Italian journalist and radio host. He oversees the production of “Ultrasuoni,” a weekly music supplement in Il Manifesto, one of Italy’s daily newspapers, and he hosts the radio show Popcorner, a mix of electro lounge, funk, and ultrabossa. Previously, he hosted Ultrasuoni Cocktail, a cult hit program on Rai Radio 2, Italy’s national station. The author of the book Suoni dal ghetto: La musica rap dalla strada alle hit-parade, he has written for magazines including Melody Maker, Sounds, and Record Mirror (Great Britain); Revoluciones Por Minuto (Spain), Music Express (Canada), Juke (Australia); and Crossbeat (Japan). Karen Pinkus is Professor of French, Italian, and Comparative Literature at the University of Southern California. She is the author of The Montesi Scandal: The Death of Wilma Montesi and the Birth of the Paparazzi in Fellini’s Rome and Bodily Regimes: Italian Advertising under Fascism. Jason Vivrette is a graduate student in comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley.
"You want alternative culture? Here's the real thing. Francesco Adinolfi looks beyond the camp value and discovers the exotic urges that drove a generation that was supposed to be respectable. This terrific book reminds you that some of the most unique records ever made can still be found at your local garage sale--and that it's never too late to discover how to live."--Brett Milano, author of The Sound of Our Town: A History of Boston Rock & Roll and Vinyl Junkies: Adventures in Record Collecting "Mondo Exotica is a cornucopia of data documenting lounge music and culture and their mid-1990s revival. Francesco Adinolfi has written a book that is as fun to read as the lounge lifestyle is fun to live!"--Otto Von Stroheim, DJ, founder of Tiki News, and organizer of the annual Tiki Oasis weekend event "... Mondo Exotica is less a tribute to the Cold War era of musical exoticism than revealing testimony to the fads and fancies inhabiting the deep millennial fold separating the 20th century from the 21st... the 'cocktail generation' alluded to in the book's subtitle is firmly located in the 1990s rather than the 1950s... What emerges from the pages of Mondo Exotica is a view of 'exotic Easy Listening' as a form of cultural pathology rather than a closely defined musical genre ... [a] fascinating study."--Ken Hollings, The Wire, April 2008 "Crammed with facts about sounds, composers, their histories, reminiscences and a whole lot more, Adinolfi has more than done his research, which, in such an odd, diverse and obscure field of music, has to be applauded...a very worthy edition to any bachelor pad." Jonny Trunk, Record Collector, September 2008 Named in the Record Collector's 2008 list for Books of the Year: "Rammed full of information and essential for any bachelor pad." Record Collector, Jan 2009
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