Exotica

Exotica is a musical genre that was popular during the 1950s to mid-1960s with Americans who came of age during World War II. The term was coined by Simon "Si" Waronker of Liberty Records in reference to Martin Denny's 1957 album Exotica.

Exotica's sound is characterized as being evocative of a time and a place that is geographically far removed from the listener, largely instrumental and combining American jazz and pop music with influences from the Indigenous musics of Oceania, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Africa, and frequently containing jungle-like sound effects such as bird calls. However, exotica was not intended as faithful renditions of international music traditions: 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."