There are different styles of lounge, depending on what you prefer. If
you like vocal lounge, you should check out cats like, among the most
popular, Dean Martin, Mel Torme, Frank Sinatra, and Harry Connick Jr..
Television themes like "Bewitched" , "Peter Gunn", or James Bond tunes
is another style of lounge that originated in that era, which was considered
to be serious music back then rather than just theme songs to tv shows and
movies. Critically acclaimed composers of that genre include Burt Bacharach
(yes, the dude that Austin Powers likes who sings "Raindrops keep falling on
my head") and Henry Mancini (themes to Pink Panther and Hatari!, among
others).
Then there's space age lounge, which came about around the same time
that stereo came out and Las Vegas was becoming big. Alot of the artists
become obsessed with recording really weird sounds which travelled from the
left speaker to the right and back again, and these records were actually
used as promos by stereo manufacturers and given to stereo shops to display
the power of stereo. Other space age lounge was really very heavily
orchestrated in a campy sort of way, as if meant to be performed in a Vegas
lounge, and alot of Space Age artists like the great Esquivel made their
living as Vegas acts. Combustible Edison is also another new lounge act
which borrows very heavily from Esquivel and acknowledges his genius. They
record on Sub Pop records, and you can also hear their stuff on the
soundtrack to the movie "Four Rooms"
Tiki (Hawiaan music and other island music with lots of ukelele and
bongos), or "Exotica" is still another type of lounge which was kinda
popular with a few of the young hipsters of the 50's, and they listened to
guys like Martin Denny, The Tiki Love Gods, and Herb Alpert and the Tjuana
Brass (again, amongst the most popular). Other lounge styles include Mambo
and Cha Cha.
Lounge in the 70's was very TV and film oriented and included alot of
themes to cop shows or sitcoms like Mary Tyler Moore. Alot of this stuff is
extremely funky and psychedelic and included really weirded out versions of
songs from bands like the beatles, the who and the beach boys. There's an
excellent compilation of this stuff called the Loungecore series, or the
Easy Project. I think that it's only three volumes, but it's
awesome stuff. It's out on a small label called Sequel records, and they're
really inexpensive comps if u can find them.
Another great and really inexpensive way to check out various lounge
styles is thru a lounge series put out by capital records, which they call
the Ultra Lounge Series. I know that the first 12 volumes were part of the
original series and they were pretty amazing (I especially like vol. 3-
Space Capades, and vol.4- The Crime Scene). The put out another 12 volumes
or so out in the past year and a half or so due to the success of the
original series, but I haven't heard any of them, so I can't really comment.
Anyway, Capitol records has a web site dedicated to this lounge series,
where u can hear samples of some of the tunes on every volume in the
collection. the URL is http://hollywoodandvine.com
Anyway, it's probably more info than u were looking 4, so I'm sure that
it's enough 2 get u started at least.
Keep Bumpin,
Stimpson
-----Original Message-----
From: DEREK.M.BOONE@sprint.sprint.com <DEREK.M.BOONE@sprint.sprint.com>
To: Non Receipt Notification Requested <acid-jazz@UCSD.Edu>
Date: Friday, March 13, 1998 3:40 PM
Subject: Lounge, Cocktail
>
>Hey List,
>
>I was in New York a few weeks ago and went to the "Windows to the World"
atop
>the World Trade Center. It was on a Wednesday night. The crowd were
mostly
>European. There was a DJ spinning lounge or cocktail. I don't know the
>proper term for it. Anyways, most of the music sounded like something from
>the 60s television era. Don't get me wrong, I'm not dissing lounge. I
wanted
>to know where this style originated. Also I wanted to know if this is
popular
>in Europe. A few years back I heared a group called Pizzacato Five
(Japanese
>I think). I kind of liked them. I heared they have some new stuff coming
out
>in April. If anyone know of any lounge artists or compilations please pass
>this on to me.
>
>Derek
>