Customer Reviews

Exotiquarium: Album Art from the Space Age

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Album Art from the Space Age is the subtitle of this book and it is a flimsy premise to fill 118 pages. The text says nothing that has not been said better before, especially in the definitive book on the subject Joseph Lanza's 'Elevator Music'.

Look at the LP covers in the book and it soon becomes apparent that the quality of photography and design of most of them is just mediocre. Capitol Records was the only company to consistently produce good covers, they even did good typographic liner notes.

The books production does not help either, the covers are uniformly dull in appearance (this was a real turn off for me) with many of them too small even though there is plenty of white space available. Captions repeat the LP title, artist and record company all of which are visible on the covers anyway, the only useful reference is the year they were released. A book of similar LP art is Benjamin Darling's 'Vixens of Vinyl', here the covers are printed on gloss paper and look so much more attractive, also I think Darling's book has a better selection of covers.

Though wider in scope than 'Exotiquarium' I prefer 'In the Groove' by Eric Kohler, this covers LP cover art from the 40s thru the 60s with over 250 covers and is a real treat to look at.

Despite only having 118 pages, being half-an-inch thick and holding its strange 9 X 7 dimensions, "Exotquarium" doubles both as a lovely coffee table and as a light introduction into the era of 1950's Space Age pop. If you consider yourself a knowledgeable fan of Space Age pop, you may have a "Been There, Done That" reaction to the book (as you can tell by other reviews here). If you are new to this exciting, sophisticated - yes, sophisticated! - and quite-forgotten style of music, I recommend this book as a nice introduction into the form. Indeed, the book is short on detailed information, and, considering it contains photos of only 98 album covers, it may seem too trite for obsessive collectors of vintage records. Nonetheless, this is a respectable beginners course.

The book separates the various styles of Space Age pop into 6 categories. The first are the concept albums, which are otherwise known as the "Music To..." and "Music For..." albums recorded by various composers and orchestras ("Music for Happy Occasions", "Music To Help You Quit Smoking", "Music for Daydreaming"). Second is "Exotica", which I can only (poorly) classify as Hawaiian cocktail jazz. Although born out of Hawaii, Exotica ultimately incorporates rhythms & sounds from Latin America and Africa as well. There is the "Space" chapter, which documents the sudden rise of Outer Space sounds that arrived shortly after the ascension of science fiction movies. There are chapters on Latin and Eastern influenced pop records and a chapter on "cocktail" pop, which alternated between bubbly orchestral works and sultry torch songs (many of them supplied by the endlessly suggestive Julie London). The book is pretty on-target in naming all the essential artists who made indispensable contributions to the various sounds of the Space Age scene (Esquivel, Ray Conniff, Yma Sumac, Jackie Gleason, and my favorite - Exotica master Martin Denny), and there are even film suggestions where the settings are very conducive to, and reminiscent of, Space Age pop.

My only criticism - and its an important one - is that the book does not devote a chapter to "crime" jazz. Although many crime and spy jazz records were in circulation in the 1950's, this style of Space Age pop didn't enjoy its apex until the early 1960's, and perhaps the authors did not find it an essential element of the 1950's Space Age scene. Nonetheless, the musical achievements of Henry Mancini ("The Pink Panther", "Peter Gunn") and Nelson Riddle ("The Untouchables"), among others, deserve their recognition too. If you wish to travel further, I suggest dropping down a few dollars on any release from Capitol Records' Ultra-Lounge series. Or, better yet, listen to the "Retro Cocktail Hour", broadcasted from the University of Kansas every Saturday night. Their web site also has two-month backlog of broadcasts you can download via Real Player. Hope that helps all you wishful cool cats & hip chicks. Ring-a-ding-ding!

Virtually all the material in this book, aside from Lennie Dee's introduction, is culled from other sources--at times without proper credit. The title comes from Johan Dada Vis' Exotiquarium site, much of the text is based on information at the Space Age Pop website, and a far better collection of cover art can be found at www.317x.com.

I got this book from the library because I love lp art. Cd covers can't even get close to the album covers of the old day, so creative and huge. In between looking at the colorful cover art, I read a few paragraphs and decided to read the book, which I wasn't expecting on doing.
I can tell Jennifer McKnight actually knows what she's talking about. Like her I go through thrift stores to find records, cover art. The book explained a lot of things to me. I wondered about why there was such a large amount of Ray Conniff, 101 Strings type stuff. I didn't know about the popularity of the easy type listening in the 50's and the development of supermarket music. Development? I thought it was just there.

I purchased this to get mid-century graphic ideas, layouts and lettering and I was pleasantly surprised with the information that came with it. The text and foreward were very entertaining! I particularly enjoyed the "Music for Gracious Living"..ever so posh!

I wish it was a larger book ..so many ideas....so little time.

This is the best book yet about a unique period in American music. With a forward by none other than Mr. Lenny Dee himself, the book gets off to a great start and never lets the reader down. Ms. McKnight-Trontz's book is masterfully laid out for a quick "coffee-table" read or, if one chooses, an in-depth analysis of the music and the period in American culture that produced it. It is the best book I have read on the subject. I couldn't put it down. I bought several for my friends at Christmas. I highly recommend it.