The earliest type of lounge music appeared during the 1920s and 1930s, and was known as light music.

Exotica, space age pop, and some forms of easy listening music popular during the 1950s and 1960s are now broadly termed "lounge".

Lounge emerged in the late 1980s as a label of endearment by younger fans whose parents had listened to such music in the 1960s. It has enjoyed resurgences in popularity in the 1980s and 1990s, led initially by figures such as Buster Poindexter and Jaymz Bee.

In the early 1990s the lounge revival was in full swing and included such groups as Combustible Edison, Love Jones, The Coctails, Pink Martini, the High Llamas, Don Tiki, and Nightcaps.

Alternative band Stereolab demonstrated the influence of lounge with releases like their 1993 EP Space Age Bachelor Pad Music.

Capitol Records began issuing the Ultra-Lounge series of lounge music albums.

The movie The Rise and Fall of Black Velvet Flag (2003) is a documentary about three older punk rockers who created a lounge-punk band.

British rock band Arctic Monkeys released their sixth studio album, Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino. The album, which was a shift in style for the band after 2013's AM, the album has a more lounge pop sound rather than their previous, alternative rock sound. The album is a concept album about a hotel on the Moon (Tranquility Base is the site of the 1969 Apollo 11 Moon landing) and also reflects on modern society and technology, and it's effect on the human mind, with frontman Alex Turner taking inspiration from both old school Science Fiction films, and Neil Postman's 1985 book, Amusing Ourselves To Death. Their seventh studio album, The Car also has a laid-back lounge pop sound, continuing their shift in sound to a lounge pop, and baroque pop style.