Vaporwave

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Vaporwave

Development phase: around 2010
Stylistic precursors
Synth Pop • Lo-Fi • Plunderphonics • City Pop • Smooth Jazz • New Age • Ambient • Muzak • Video Game Music • Outsider Music
Pioneers
Macintosh Plus • Blank Banshee • Hong Kong Express • telepath テ レ パ シ ー 能力 者
Instruments typical of the genre
Synthesizer • Samples
Stylistic successor
Future Funk • Hard Vapor • Meme Music
Subgenres
Mallsoft • Eccojams • Pipe Dreams • Computer Dreams • Vaportrap • Vapor Dub • Seapunk • Vapordelic • Laborwave • Fashwave
Related genres
Chillwave • Seapunk • Hypnagogic Pop • Bedroom Pop • AESTHETIC edits • Witch House

Vaporwave is a music and art movement that originated in the early 2010s as an internet phenomenon of network culture and is still in parts close to the local meme culture .

In terms of music aesthetics, the genre can be traced back in its origins to a retro culture and fascination from the 1970s to 1990s, especially the 1980s, and partly also the early 2000s. Particularly at the beginning, the style was shaped by technology, video games, postmodernism , consumer culture and the design, advertising and music aesthetics of this period. The most important musical influences include the plunder phonics genre, but also smooth jazz , new age , ambient , muzak and video game music . Many musicians and critics saw the genre as a satire, especially when it was created before 2013. Later, Vaporwave was increasingly viewed as a separate (satirical) form of criticism of consumption, capitalism or the state or development of society in general. Still others see the production of Vaporwave simply as an attempt to create a certain mood in the listener; this special “vaporwave feeling” can spread in people, for example, as a result of indulging in the memory of a past that never existed in the light-heartedness shown or was never experienced. This is particularly evident in the newer releases, which are less and less based on samples of pop songs from the 80s compared to those from the early days of Vaporwave, for example.

Since its inception, the genre has become one of the main sources of income for the online record store Bandcamp . Since the genre is largely played on internet music platforms such as Bandcamp, Soundcloud , Reddit , 4chan or Mixcloud and internet video platforms such as YouTube and only a few "real" events take place, Vaporwave is a spatially decentralized music genre for which there is no clear one Country of origin or similar can be seen.

etymology

The term vaporwave is a combination of the words vaporware - software or hardware that was announced to the public and was delayed or never came onto the market - and -wave , a common word ending in the names of music genres.

history

The Far Side Virtual by James Ferraro and Daniel Lopatins , published in 2010 under his pseudonym Chuck Person, Chuck Person's Eccojams Vol. 1 are mostly mentioned as the first releases of the music genre . It was not until the end of 2011, however, when Ramona Andra Xavier released her album Floral Shoppe under her alias Macintosh Plus, that the music genre gained popularity among the broader population and also laid the foundation for the aesthetic development of the visual arts within the vaporwave genre . The album is still considered to be one of the most important and style-defining releases of the genre. Gradually, a larger community of listeners and producers developed on various online platforms. The music critic Adam Harper wrote in his article in Dummy Mag that Vaporwave could be described as a post-lo-fi and often even post-retro genre. The article goes on to say that the genre reflects the fact that today's sophisticated technology may be out of date tomorrow and be mere lo-fi . Other critics dismissed the genre as a mere marginal phenomenon and, like Michelle Lhooq from VICE or Leon Gilal from Chicago Readers , put Vaporwave on a level with the music genre Seapunk , which was already dead at the time .

In 2013 a new upheaval began within the music genre. Several sub-genres that differ not only thematically, but now also really stylistically from the classic vaporwave sound, began to crystallize. These include the most important representatives of Blank Banshee established subgenre of Vaportrap , as well as, mainly Muzak based genre Mallsoft , whose most important representatives Disconscious counts.

Another stylistic change within the genre took place in 2015. Once again, various musicians pushed the boundaries of the vaporwave genre. This time, however, it happened more radically than ever before; the duo 2 8 1 4 , consisting of the two musicians T elepath テ レ パ シ ー 能力 者 and Hong Kong Express , released their album 新 し い 日 の 誕生 (Birth of a New Day), which put the music genre under strong influences from the ambient genre. Many of the following releases show a change or development towards a more atmospheric style. Another influential release from 2015 is I'll Try Living Like This from Death's Dynamic Shroud.wmv , which uses very modern samples as opposed to the samples from many other releases, mostly from the 1970s to early 2000s. The album received good critical reviews and was placed in the top 50 of the FACT magazine's annual album charts. There was a great discussion in the community about the affiliation of the publications to the vaporwave genre. In November of that year Wolfenstein OS X released his album End of the World Rave , which is counted as the first release of the hard-vapor sub-genre. The sub-genre, which stylistically has little to do with Vaporwave, emerged from a movement to emancipate samples , which was led by some musicians from the Dream Catalog label .

In 2015 and 2016 in particular, a more analytical approach to the production of music emerged, as many of the musicians, and thus also the critics, were confronted with the question of what constitutes Vaporwave itself, or what distinguishes it from other musical genres. Grafton Tanner described in his book Babbling Corpse: Vaporwave and the Commodification of Ghosts that Vaporwave explores the relationship between humans and ubiquitous technology, and continues to be the music of non-places and non-times as it is skeptical of the How people deal with the places and times influenced by consumer culture. In his theory of Vaporwave, the genre is an exploration of the relationship between humans and the world they create. Sunbleach Media's music critic Dylan Kilby also takes a position similar to Grafton Tanner's on the genre. In his article on Disconscious Album Hologram Plaza , he writes that the early vaporwave, and especially the sub-genre Mallsoft, are a musical exploration of soulless shopping malls, while the current development of the genre is more towards exploring pure sound. Hong Kong Express stated in its interview with Red Bull Music Academy that Vaporwave has such great appeal because the genre is so open to sonic and conceptual exploration. He further explains that the utopian and consumer-critical elements in Vaporwave only make up a small part of the possibilities of the genre. With this statement, the musician is still in clear contrast to the majority of music critics, who see the anti-capitalist element of the genre as an essential part of Vaporwave.

Vaporwave as an art form

Design example for Vaporwave
Another example

The aesthetics (aesthetics) called art form and design of the music genre is characterized primarily by Greek busts (or statues), various elements from the 1980s and early 1990s (among other (parts of) computer interfaces and US or Japan typical consumer goods and advertising ) and "vacation motifs" like palm trees, beaches and sunsets. In terms of color, the pictures are often kept in neon or pastel colors. Artist and song names consist largely of Japanese characters or monospace script .

Some design elements, such as antique busts, grid textures or perfect glass bodies, can be traced back to accompanying graphics from early research work in the field of 3D computer graphics. The three-dimensional scenes were primarily designed by researchers such as John Turner Whitted to demonstrate the properties of the technologies examined. In addition to the bizarre aesthetics, it is also the content-related proximity to the motifs of the Vaporwave (for example real-time graphics in video games), which is why representatives of the genre use this visual language.

Vaporwave aesthetics in the mass media

In 2015, the international television network MTV replaced its old design with a new design inspired by the two music and art trends Vaporwave and Seapunk , which was largely promoted by the MTV Video Music Awards 2015 .

The blogging platform Tumblr also underwent a rebranding in 2015, in which the site was renewed with a design that was clearly based on Vaporwave and other music and art styles inspired by the 1990s.

Well-known musicians

From the early days of the genre

General

Future funk

Music labels

  • Fortune 500 (closed)
  • DMT [REC] (closed)
  • Bedlam Tapes and Bedlam Digital
  • Business casual
  • 首都 TAPES INC.
  • Cyber ​​Dream Records
  • Beer Wizard
  • Ailanthus Recordings
  • Adhesive sound
  • フ ュ ー チ ャ ゴ ス 「FUTUREGHOST」
  • The Vapor Library
  • Beer on the rug (not exclusively vaporwave)
  • Dream Catalog (today after a reorganization mainly hard vapor and related genres, many former albums can be found on the Dream Graveyard label)

Web links

Commons : Vaporwave  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Britton, Luke Morgan: MUSIC GENRES ARE A JOKE THAT YOU'RE NOT IN ON. Noisey, August 26, 2014, accessed August 30, 2016 .
  2. ^ Ward, Christian: Vaporwave: Soundtrack to Austerity. Stylus, January 29, 2014, accessed August 30, 2016 .
  3. ↑ Wohlmacher, John: What actually is vaporwave? PULS, April 16, 2016, accessed August 30, 2016 .
  4. ↑ Reynolds, Simon: Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction to Its Own Past . Faber and Faber Ltd., London 2011, ISBN 978-0-571-23208-6 .
  5. ^ Ratliff, Ben: Is Bandcamp the Holy Grail of Online Record Stores? New York Times, August 19, 2016, accessed August 30, 2016 .
  6. ↑ Hong Kong Express: Dream Catalog live at the Future Everything Festival in Manchester. (No longer available online.) January 25, 2015, archived from the original on May 8, 2016 ; accessed on July 22, 2016 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / dreamcatalogue.net
  7. ↑ Blanning, Lisa: "James Ferraro - Cold". Pitchfork, May 5, 2013, accessed July 22, 2016 .
  8. ^ Bowe, Miles: "Band To Watch: Saint Pepsi". Stereogum, July 26, 2013, accessed July 22, 2016 .
  9. ↑ Harper, Adam: Comment: Vaporwave and the pop-art of the virtual plaza. Dummy Mag, July 12, 2012, accessed August 30, 2016 .
  10. ↑ Lhooq, Michelle: Is Vaporwave The Next Seapunk? VICE , December 28, 2013, accessed August 30, 2016 .
  11. ↑ bilious, Leon: Vapor Wave and the observer effect. Chicago Reader, February 19, 2013, accessed August 30, 2016 .
  12. ↑ Harper, Adam: "Pattern Recognition Vol. 8.5: The Year in Vaporwave". Electronic Beats, December 5, 2013, accessed July 22, 2016 .
  13. ^ "10 New Artists You Need to Know: November 2015". Rolling Stone, November 25, 2015, accessed July 22, 2016 .
  14. ^ "The 50 Best Albums of 2015". FACT Magazine, December 9, 2015, accessed July 22, 2016 .
  15. ^ Tanner, Grafton: Babbling Corpse: Vaporwave and the Commodification of Ghosts . zero books, Alresford 2016, ISBN 978-1-78279-759-3 .
  16. ↑ Kilby, Dylan: Disconscious - Hologram Plaza. Sunbleach Media, August 7, 2016, accessed August 30, 2016 .
  17. ↑ Thomas, Russell: Interview: Dream Catalog's Hong Kong Express on Vaporwave's Past, Present, and Future. Red Bull Music Academy, September 8, 2014, accessed August 30, 2016 .
  18. ↑ Lange, Maggie: The Crowd-Sourced Chaos of MTV's Vaporwave VMAs. GQ. Condé Nast, August 29, 2015, accessed August 30, 2016 .
  19. ^ A b Pearson, Jordan: How Tumblr and MTV Killed the Neon Anti-Corporate Aesthetic of Vaporwave. Motherboard, June 26, 2015, accessed August 30, 2016 .