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Vaporwave


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From Wikipedia:

Vaporwave is a musical micro-genre that emerged in the early 2010s among Internet communities. It is characterized by a nostalgic fascination with retro cultural aesthetics (typically of the 1980s, 1990s, and early-mid 2000s), video games, technology, post-modern Japanese culture and advertising, and styles of commercial and popular music such as lounge, smooth jazz and elevator music. Musical sampling is prevalent within the genre, with samples often pitched, layered or altered in classic chopped and screwed style. Central to the style is often a critical or satirical preoccupation with consumer capitalism, popular culture, and new-age tropes.

A new genre of music I've been listening to lately. Common artists are Vektroid (and her aliases such as Macintosh Plus) as well as Blank Banshee.

Some of my favorites:

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Lisa Frank 420 is undeniably the masterpiece of the genre. That being said...

 

I see vaporwave as a subversive movement of sorts, not unlike punk in the 70s. It's taking something completely tame and friendly (80s and 90s R&B/pop) and warping it DJ Screw style to the point of resembling the soundtrack to a nightmarish dissociative dystopia. Post-modernism taken to a ridiculous level. I went from thinking "haha silly fad with goofy aesthetics" to "holy fuck this is actually incredible, the internet has created a scene it can call it's own!" That doesn't happen often, music-wise anyway (unless you count 90s MIDI file renditions of metal songs I guess). Some releases I recommend:

Macintosh Plus - Floral Shoppe (duh!)

Chuck Person - Eccojams Vol. 1 (I love all the Oneohtrix stuff too, but that's not really vaporwave)

James Ferraro - Global Lunch

Holograms - S/T

Macross 82-99 - Sailorwave

Wolfenstein OS X - Deep Web Rising

PS. Yall should sub to Artzie Music on Youtube, they post all kinds of this shit (and future funk) with accompanying aesthetic visuals.

PSS. Here's some proto-vaporwave goodness from Japan, 1987:

 

 

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