Vaporwave

Not to be confused with Vaporware.

Vaporwave (also vapourwave)[3] 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.[2][4] Central to the style is often a critical or satirical preoccupation with consumer capitalism, popular culture, and new-age tropes.[2]

History

Daniel Lopatin's 2010 release, Chuck Person's Eccojams Vol. 1 and James Ferraro's Far Side Virtual are often credited for sparking Vaporwave's development.[5][6][7] Lopatin sampled songs from the 1980s and 1990s and "[slowed] them down narcotically", in a manner reminiscent of chopped and screwed styles.[8] In 2011 various online music communities such as Turntable.fm, provided a platform for Vektroid's Floral Shoppe to become the first Vaporwave album to gain popular recognition. In subsequent years, the genre has found wider appeal through websites such as Bandcamp, Soundcloud, Last.fm and 4chan. It continued to evolve in 2013 with acts like Skylar Spence and Blank Banshee adopting sounds that "have a hint of virtual plaza but significantly transcend it". Other subgenres include Mallsoft, which "conjures the muzak played in shopping malls".[1]

In 2015, MTV revealed a rebrand heavily inspired by vaporwave and seapunk.[9] Inversely, Tumblr launched Tumblr TV, with an explicitly 1990s MTV-style visual spin.[10] According to Jordan Pearson of Motherboard, Vice's technology website, this change would mean the death of the genre, as the "cynical impulse that animated vaporwave and its associated Tumblr-based aesthetics is co-opted and erased on both sides—where its source material originates, and where it lives."[10]

In November 2015, according to a Rolling Stone "10 artists you need to know" list, 2814's album, 新しい日の誕生 (Birth of a New Day) found success within a "small but passionate pocket of the internet."[11] 2814 cited Boards of Canada, Steve Roach, Vangelis, Burial and Sigur Rós as influences.[12] In the same year the album I'll Try Living Like This, by Death's Dynamic Shroud, was featured at number fifteen on the Fact list of "The 50 Best Albums of 2015".[13]

Interpretations

Artists often embrace Classical sculpture, 1990s web design, computer renderings, glitch art, VHS, Cassette Tape, East Asian Artwork, and cyberpunk.[14]

It has been described as "a degrading of commercial music" in an attempt to reveal the "false promises" of capitalism.[15] Music writer Adam Harper of Dummy Mag describes Vaporwave as "ironic and satirical or truly accelerationist"; noting that the name "Vaporwave" itself is both a nod to vaporware, and the idea of libidinal energy being subjected to relentless sublimation under capitalism.[15]

情報デスクVIRTUAL, alias of Vektroid, describes her album 札幌コンテンポラリー as "a brief glimpse into the new possibilities of international communication" and "a parody of American hypercontextualization of e-Asia circa 1995."[16]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Harper, Adam (December 5, 2013). "Pattern Recognition Vol. 8.5: The Year in Vaporwave". Electronic Beats. Retrieved February 8, 2014.
  2. 1 2 3 Lhooq, Michelle (December 27, 2013). "Is Vaporwave The Next Seapunk?". Vice (magazine). Retrieved April 10, 2014.
  3. ↑ "Near-death experiences and vapourwave - The Wireless". The Wireless NZ. January 14, 2016.
  4. ↑ Aux, Staff. "AUX". Aux. Aux Music Network. Retrieved 2 January 2016.
  5. ↑ Blanning, Lisa (April 5, 2013). "James Ferraro - Cold". Pitchfork. Retrieved February 8, 2014.
  6. ↑ Bowe, Miles (October 13, 2013). "Q&A: James Ferraro On NYC’s Hidden Darkness, Musical Sincerity, And Being Called "The God Of Vaporwave"". Stereogum. Retrieved 8 February 2014.
  7. ↑ Beks, Ash. "Vaporwave is not dead". The Essential. The Essential. Retrieved December 8, 2015.
  8. ↑ Reynolds, Simon (July 6, 2010). "Brooklyn's Noise Scene Catches Up to Oneohtrix Point Never". The Village Voice. Village Voice, LLC. Retrieved December 8, 2015.
  9. ↑ Lange, Maggie (August 29, 2015). "The Crowd-Sourced Chaos of MTV's Vaporwave VMAs". GQ. Condé Nast. Retrieved December 8, 2015.
  10. 1 2 Pearson, Jordan (June 26, 2015). "How Tumblr and MTV Killed the Neon Anti-Corporate Aesthetic of Vaporwave". Motherboard (Vice). Vice Media, Inc. Retrieved December 8, 2015.
  11. ↑ "2814 - 10 New Artists You Need to Know: November 2015". Rolling Stone. Wenner Media LLC. November 25, 2015. Retrieved December 8, 2015.
  12. ↑ C Monster (October 15, 2015). "Dream Catalogue (HKE, ２８１４)". Tiny Mix Tapes. Retrieved December 8, 2015.
  13. ↑ "The 50 Best Albums of 2015". Fact. The Vinyl Factory. December 9, 2015. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
  14. ↑ Ward, Christian (January 29, 2014). "Vaporwave: Soundtrack to Austerity". Stylus.com. Retrieved February 8, 2014. External link in |publisher= (help)
  15. 1 2 Harper, Adam (December 7, 2012). "Comment: Vaporwave and the pop-art of the virtual plaza". Dummy. Retrieved February 8, 2014.
  16. ↑ 情報デスクVIRTUAL - 幌コンテンポラリー. Tiny Mix Tapes. Retrieved February 8, 2014.
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