Space Age Pop In August of last year, a mixtape group I belong to had a new 'topic': history of a genre. The idea was we would each put together tapes that represented a survey of a musical genre of our choosing. 6 months have passed and I finally finished mine (in fact, I'm the only one to finish so far — it turned out to be way more ambitious than any of us expected).

I chose Space Age Pop, which is actually not really so much a genre as much as a collection of trends. I turn to the Space Age Pop Page for the best definition I've read:

This music might be characterized most easily by what it isn't. It's rarely simple enough in structure and instrumentation to be called rock (and certainly retains enough of a sense of humor to be disqualified as art rock). It's not serious or straightforward enough to be called jazz. It's often too esoteric or extreme to be called pop. It's in some middle ground between all of these, which means it's populated with the outcasts from other well-established genres. As a result, Space Age Pop is full of brilliant, bizarre, and exciting sounds, which are particularly striking to ears accustomed to the stereotypes that populate the more familiar genres.

In fact, I'm not even gonna bother trying to write about the genre, because that site is incredibly thorough and filled with tons of great recommendations and information about everything and everyone on the tape.

I will say, however, I decided on space age pop because I absolutely adore Esquivel and wanted to explore his contemporaries, roots, successors, etc. While he's still the god damned King of All Music, the best discoveries I made are Enoch Light, Buddy Morrow and Kai Winding.

Without further ado, here's the tracklist:

# Title Artist Original Album Year Sub-genres
1 Introduction Bruce Haack Electronic Record for Children 1969 Electronic / Experimental
2 Men Into Space Theme Buddy Morrow Double Impact 1960 Space
3 Watchamacallit Esquivel Exploring New Sounds in Stereo 1959 Bachelor Pad
4 Moon Gas Dick Hyman & Mary Mayo Moon Gas 1963 Space / Electronic
5 Computer in Love Perrey & Kingsley The In Sound from the Way Out 1966 Electronic
6 Lunar Rhapsody Les Baxter & Samuel J. Hoffman Music Out of the Moon 1948 Space
7 Mara's Moon Bruce Haack The Way Out Record for Children 1968 Space / Experimental / Spoken
8 Love Ferrante & Teicher Blast Off! 1958 Easy Listening / Space
9 Piano Concerto (Grieg) Les Baxter Moog Rock 1968 Electronic / Classical
10 My Number One Love Esquivel Exploring New Sounds in Stereo 1959 Bachelor Pad / Brill Building
11 Peanut Vendor Perez Prado Havana, 3am 1956 Latin
12 Mucha Muchacha Esquivel Latin-esque! 1962 Bachelor Pad / Latin
13 Soul Sauce Cal Tjader Soul Sauce 1964 New Sound
14 Brazil Enoch Light Persuasive Percussion 1959 Lounge
15 Mondo Cane #2 Kai Winding Mondo Cane #2 1963 New Sound
16 Martinique Martin Denny Quiet Village 1959 Exotica / Tiki / Jungle
17 Sophisticated Savage Les Baxter Ritual of the Savage 1952 Exotica / Jungle
18 Aloha Oe Enoch Light Persuasive Percussion 1959 Exotica / Tiki
19 Deep In the Heart of Texas Tak Shindo Far East meets Western 1968 Oriental / Western
20 Experiment in Terror Henry Mancini Experiment in Terror 1962 Crime / Experimental
21 Perry Mason Theme Leith Stevens Jazz Themes for Cops & Robbers 1958 Crime
22 The Teaser Pete Rugulo Music from "Richard Diamond" 1959 Crime
23 Richard Diamond Buddy Morrow Impact 1959 Crime
24 Bye, Bye Henry Mancini Music from "Peter Gunn" 1958 Crime

And you can grab it here! Feedback appreciated!