Vaporwave
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Vaporwave is an internet-born electronic genre and visual culture built from slowed, looped, chopped, or reframed fragments of muzak, smooth jazz, R&B, city pop, commercials, soft rock, corporate video, and early digital culture. It often sounds lush and cheap at the same time, wrapping consumer nostalgia in reverb, pitch-shift, repetition, and glitch. The genre can be satirical, melancholy, psychedelic, funny, political, or simply beautiful.
History
Vaporwave grew from hypnagogic pop, chillwave, plunderphonics, chopped-and-screwed techniques, post-noise, and early-2010s internet communities. Daniel Lopatin's Chuck Person's Eccojams Vol. 1, James Ferraro's Far Side Virtual, and Macintosh Plus's Floral Shoppe became foundational records, while Vektroid aliases, Saint Pepsi, Blank Banshee, 18 Carat Affair, Internet Club, Luxury Elite, 猫 シ Corp., Infinity Frequencies, and t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者 expanded the language. Bandcamp, Tumblr, Reddit, 4chan, YouTube, cassette labels, and visual memes turned vaporwave into both a music genre and a cultural shorthand for haunted consumer nostalgia.
Defining artists
Essential listening
- Nobody Here(2010) — Chuck PersonSpotifyYouTube
- Global Lunch(2011) — James FerraroSpotifyYouTube
- Lisa Frank 420 / Modern Computing(2011) — Macintosh PlusSpotifyYouTube
- Neo Cali(2011) — VektroidSpotifyYouTube
- Private Caller(2013) — Saint PepsiSpotifyYouTube
- Teen Pregnancy(2012) — Blank BansheeSpotifyYouTube
Sources
- Bandcamp Daily vaporwave family tree
- Pitchfork Floral Shoppe review
- vaporwave histories around Eccojams/Far Side Virtual/Floral Shoppe
- Bandcamp release pages