Exotica is a musical genre, named after the 1957
Martin Denny album of the same title, popular during the 1950s to mid-1960s, typically with
suburban Americans who came of age during
World War II. The musical colloquialism
exotica means tropical
ersatz, the non-native, pseudo experience of insular
Oceania,
Southeast Asia,
Hawaii,
Amazonia, the
Andes and tribal
Africa. Denny described the musical style as "a combination of the South Pacific and the Orient...what a lot of people imagined the islands to be like...it's pure fantasy though." While the
South Seas forms the core region, exotica reflects the "musical impressions" of every place from standard travel destinations to the mythical "
shangri-las" dreamt of by armchair
safari-ers.