Vaporwave was created then destroyed by the internet (2016) • Hacker News Board

Re: Vaporwave was created then destroyed by the internet (2016)

#41

Post by meowface » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 7:39 AM UTC

JonathanMerklin wrote: post #17

cols wrote: post #5

I’ll start out by saying I’m an avid fan of vapor/synth/whatever wave. I’ve heard this argument before and I can’t be the only one to think it’s silly, right? A cursory search of Spotify, Bandcamp, or YouTube will show that ALL the “wave” genres are alive and well some 5 years after this article was written. Some artists have moved on to other aesthetics, some artists have continued to produce the same sound they alw…

Corporate businesswave is so perfectly my aesthetic, thank you so much for the recommendation.

You might also be interested in PilotRedSun's animations and music. He has a kind of similar sensibility.

Animations: https://www.youtube.com/c/PilotRedSun/videos

(Most famous/viral one, though it's also the only one that isn't with music he made: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGbhJjXl9Rk)

Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1mUiAjHzAI, https://www.youtube.com/c/Pilotredsky/videos

Re: Vaporwave was created then destroyed by the internet (2016)

#42

Post by throw8ways » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 7:41 AM UTC

One thing a lot of vaporwave artists do nowadays is use uncommon characters in the titles of their songs to make them harder to find. That could be part of why it seems to be disappearing.

Re: Vaporwave was created then destroyed by the internet (2016)

#43

Post by fithisux » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 7:45 AM UTC

Dracophoenix wrote: post #23

wraptile wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true at all. There are plenty of cheery vaporwave songs mentioned in the article itself: saint pepsi [1], macross 82-99 [2] etc. all early vaporwave entries based on city-pop which is as cheery as you can get! In fact that's probably the most popular remaining evolutions of the genre, both of the mentioned artists are still huge! (multi-million listens on spotify) 1 - https://saintpepsi.bandcamp.com/album/…

Saint Pepsi and Macross are generally classified as Future Funk artists rather than "pure" vaporwave in the vein of Macintosh Plus. For anyone who is interested in Future Funk (i.e. "cheery" vaporwave) a now-archived and inactive youtube channel by the name of Artzie Music [1] collected classics of the FF genre and is, for now, still available to peruse. The best ones in my opinion were uploaded between 2017 and 2018…

I can suggest this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHY1RpbKDDA

Re: Vaporwave was created then destroyed by the internet (2016)

#44

Post by ionwake » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 7:57 AM UTC

stryan wrote: post #15

chrisco255 wrote: post #2

I've heard this genre called vaporwave, synthwave, and retrowave. Which meme is going to win? Also for anyone interested, a pretty good resource for retrowave related music, art, and games: https://newretrowave.com/

Vaporwave is a different genre from synthwave. Synthwave is based off synth-heavy 80s music, especially action and thriller/noir movie soundtracks. If you watched Stranger Things that has a very synthwave sound track. Vaporwave is more sample based and is traditionally about looping distorted samples of 80s/90s songs, though it branched out a lot. Personally I'm a fan of naturewave, which is looped and edited "nature…

Correction: Vaporwave is more based.

Re: Vaporwave was created then destroyed by the internet (2016)

#45

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 8:01 AM UTC

tallies wrote: post #28

cols wrote: post #5

I’ll start out by saying I’m an avid fan of vapor/synth/whatever wave. I’ve heard this argument before and I can’t be the only one to think it’s silly, right? A cursory search of Spotify, Bandcamp, or YouTube will show that ALL the “wave” genres are alive and well some 5 years after this article was written. Some artists have moved on to other aesthetics, some artists have continued to produce the same sound they alw…

For some data, here's a rough number of Vaporwave albums released per year (source: RYM[1]) 2010: 11 2011: 63 2012: 168 2013: 348 2014: 572 2015: 1193 2016: 1144 2017: 812 2018: 816 2019: 798 2020: 732 2021: 269 [1] https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/vaporwave/

[deleted]

Re: Vaporwave was created then destroyed by the internet (2016)

#46

Post by kunagi7 » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 8:03 AM UTC

You can't kill what already is dead. That's Vaporwave [0]. Maybe I'm a bit biased since I'm an avid fan of Vaporwave. There's subgenres for everything, Mallsoft, Future Funk, Broken Transmission/Signalwave...

From sunsetcorp's "angel" [1] to 猫シ Corp.'s "Palm Mall Mars" [2] there's a decade of really high quality releases.

Also, Bandcamp and YouTube provide endless days worth of Vaporwave. Thanks to them I discovered obscure artists like Kanal Vier (German), Canal+ (French) [3] or Jesse Cassettes.

References:

[0] Phoenix #2772 - You Are Already Dead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AO6CaqAH_K4

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN0czUMRMU8

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cc5Yz1TnOVY

[3] https://canalplus.bandcamp.com/track/doute

Re: Vaporwave was created then destroyed by the internet (2016)

#47

Post by moth-fuzz » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 8:14 AM UTC

I feel like vaporwave was dead as soon as people started taking it seriously. Seeing the genre at its inception - a critique on how corporations will use substanceless nostalgia to bolster sales - turned into that very thing with this faux-80s-revival music, that for one reason or another sounds nothing like what was actually popular in the 80s, has left quite the sour taste in my mouth.

Like, the very idea was to take old “nostalgic” stuff and mangle and distort into something only vaguely resembling that. The idea was to provoke those feelings in you while also detaching from what might actually make one nostalgic. After all, most of the audience can’t remember the 80s or 90s having been a child or not born yet. The idea is to poke fun at how corporations manufacture nostalgia by doing exactly that, except in a ridiculous and obvious way so that people would be in on the joke and so that it would be a transformative work of sorts. But people fell for the trick anyway and now we have kids who weren’t alive in the 80s yearning for the 80s listening to music that doesn’t resemble 80s music. It’s weird.

In short: I agree with the author. There are burgeoning genres and music cultures that may resemble vaporwave if you don’t know what it’s origin and intentions were, but the actual message behind vaporwave is lost to history in lieu of its aesthetic. The irony was, in fact, lost.

Re: Vaporwave was created then destroyed by the internet (2016)

#48

Post by thinkingemote » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 8:20 AM UTC

Vaporwave is dead. It's integral to the genre. They were saying at the beginning and five years ago also. Vaporwave cannot exist alive.

The thing to understand is that to exist or live in the music industry is incompatible with vapowave, mostly.

It's actually genius. To stay alive underground you have to kill it off before it can be adopted by the mainstream.

A software analogy could be a license which prohibits use in any professional serious setting. Or maybe the WTF license which many corps hate. Or maybe code which is itself mainly a copy of others. Stuff that can be enjoyed at home but would never be hosted by Microsoft and never be found in a company.

The other death metaphor is that it's about what has gone before, the music is about what is dead, musically and culturally.

Re: Vaporwave was created then destroyed by the internet (2016)

#49

Post by odiroot » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 8:22 AM UTC

fithisux wrote: post #25

Is it really killed? It is still produced but even more important it has evolved through CityPop to FutureFunk and even has touched a bit other genres. I you haven't yet, give it a try. There are many online radio stations that play both FutureFunk and Vaporwave. As for the SynthWave (2.0 because the original SynthWave happened in very early 80s and I do not know why it is called that way since it is unrelated and I…

> As for the SynthWave (2.0 because the original SynthWave happened in very early 80s and I do not know why it is called that way since it is unrelated and I prfere to call it RetroWave) it is still produced.

The original was just called synth-pop. The name synth-wave is now retroactively applied to some 80's bands.

I myself got into synth-wave only 2-3 years ago and even started making my own songs this year.

Re: Vaporwave was created then destroyed by the internet (2016)

#50

Post by odiroot » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 8:25 AM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #2

I've heard this genre called vaporwave, synthwave, and retrowave. Which meme is going to win? Also for anyone interested, a pretty good resource for retrowave related music, art, and games: https://newretrowave.com/

Vapor-wave is definitely on the meme side. Synth-wave is probably the most "serious" and retro-wave is usually just synonym for the former.