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POPCORNER RAI RADIO2 LUNEDÌ-VENERDÌ 20.30-21. INFO: [email protected]
YOU HAVE NEVER READ ANYTHING LIKE IT BEFORE!
PUBLISHED NOW IN THE USA AND IN THE UK
«MONDO EXOTICA» (ENGLISH EDITION OF THE HIGHLY APPRAISED ITALIAN BOOK OF THE SAME TITLE) IS PUBLISHED IN THE USA AND IN THE UK! PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD AND CHECK OUT THE PUBLISHER’S SITE DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS, AMAZON AND OTHER SIMILAR SITES
(SYNOPSIS) Tiki torches, cocktails, la dolce vita, and the music that popularized them, Mondo Exotica offers a behind-the-scenes look at the sounds and obsessions
of the Space Age/Cold War period and the renewed interest in them evident
in contemporary music and design. The music journalist and radio host
Francesco Adinolfi provides extraordinary detail about artists, songs, albums,
and soundtracks, while also presenting an incisive analysis of the ethnic and
cultural stereotypes embodied in exotica and related genres. In this encyclopedic
account of films, books, TV programs, mixed drinks, and, above all, music, he
balances a respect for exotica’s artistic innovations with a critical assessment
of what its popularity says about postwar society in the United States and
Europe, and what its revival implies today. Adinolfi interviewed a number of exotica greats, and Mondo Exotica incorporates material from his interviews with Martin Denny, Esquivel, the Italian film composers Piero Piccioni and Piero Umiliani, and others. It begins with an extended
look at the postwar popularity of exotica in the United States. Adinolfi describes
how American bachelors and suburbanites embraced the Polynesian god Tiki as
a symbol of escape and sexual liberation; how Les Baxter’s 1951 album Ritual of
the Savage ushered in the exotica music craze; and how Martin Denny’s Exotica
built on that craze, hitting number one in 1957. Adinolfi chronicles the popularity
of performers from Yma Sumac, “the Peruvian Nightingale,†to Esquivel,
who was described by Variety as “the Mexican Duke Ellington,†to the chanteuses
Eartha Kitt, Julie London, and Ann-Margret. He explores exotica’s many
sub-genres, including mood music, crime jazz, and spy music. Turning to Italy,
he reconstructs the postwar years of la dolce vita, explaining how budget spy
films, spaghetti westerns, soft-core porn movies, and other genres demonstrated
an attraction to the foreign. Mondo Exotica includes a discography of albums,
compilations, and remixes.
YMA SUMAC, AUTOGRAPH WITH DEDICATION
(LOS ANGELES, 2005)
Record Label: unsigned
Type of Label: None