Lounge music is a type of
easy listening music popular in the 1950s and 1960s. It may be meant to evoke in the listeners the feeling of being in a place, usually with a tranquil theme, such as a jungle, an island paradise or outer space. The range of lounge music encompasses
beautiful music-influenced instrumentals, modern
electronica (with
chillout, and
downtempo influences), while remaining thematically focused on its retro-
space-age cultural elements. The earliest type of lounge music appeared during the 1920s and 1930s, and was known as
light music. Contemporaneously, the term
lounge music may also be used to describe the types of music played in
hotels (the lounge, the bar),
casinos, several
restaurants, and
piano bars.