Does anyone else unironically enjoy Vaporwave?
I'm sad that it's a mostly dead genre.
Does anyone else unironically enjoy Vaporwave?
Jordan Lee
Alexander Martin
I'M glad it's dead. shit genre
David Anderson
Yes, and I share your sympathy.
Don't listen to this guy
Carter Brown
vaporwave is one of the best things to have happened to music in the 21 century so far
Jose Jackson
fpbp
Nathan Mitchell
I'm not even sure it's dead. seems to be the kind of thing i go back to every now and then. It isn't really progressing I guess, but It isn't like no ones still listening.
Grayson Campbell
it smells dead
Logan Roberts
it died because there was never a clear definition on the genre's sound so it just kept expanding, i see new "sub-genres" invented every month. Now its so broad that it isnt even a genre anymore, you can show someone two "vaporwave" albums and they will sound completely different. I guarantee you just in this thread alone, these replys are referring to completely different sounds. it seems that imagery is what makes something vaporwave these days rather than a distinct sound
Samuel Richardson
That's what happens when you base an entire genre around something as boring and barely legal as sloppy, repetitive sampling. Everyone tried his own way to "legitimize" the genre leading to it diluting. To stay strong and compact vaporwave needed less mass shitposting and more capable artists who could have expanded the idea while keeping the original core of unsettling music based on pop culture samples.
Lincoln Reyes
It was becoming really formulaic tbhonest. Last thing related to vaporwave i enjoyed was the 'hardvapour' stuff like this:
youtube.com
Robert Baker
Vaporwave isn’t even a genre. The whole “genre” is just that one album with the statue and the pink background
Hunter Williams
>One album can't start a genre
Jackson Perry
It's kinda (in my view) what happened to rock but on a much more extreme level. Rock music started as a specific sound, but now basically anything played on guitars can be declared rock as long as it's not classical or jazz guitar. The idea that punk rock, prog rock, folk rock, noise rock, hard rock, and math rock are all variants/spin-offs of the same genre has turned the "rock" label nearly meaningless.
That being said, the reason rock didn't totally die with the labeling is because rock has existed in the public sphere for around five-six decades which gave us enough rock fans to understand and enjoy the differences, and keep rock alive by performing new stuff and cataloging the old stuff so it isn't forgotten. Vaporwave never got big enough to survive splintering into a million different genres. If vaporwave had stayed consistent for at least a decade before the advent of the millions of subgenres to be created, it would have probably gotten bigger and stayed longer
David Carter
I agree, Vaporwave could have been a generation defining music Titan but it evolved too quickly. It evolved as much as rock did, if not more, but instead of the subgenres evolving throughout multiple decades, it evolved quickly in less than 9 years. It was too malleable for its own good. EDM would be in the same boat if it didn't pace itself
Charles Allen
This desu
Might be cool if it gets a revival in a decade or two as a new wave of vaporwave heh
Wonder if it'll be
Blake Butler
Blank Banshee shows that vapour wave is a genre with massive potential. 99% of vapour wave is slowed down garbage of better 80's songs but the gems are amazing
Jaxon Russell
yup. just like "rock", theres no distinct sound and were just left with subgenres
Jeremiah Cruz
music for this feel: dreamcatalogue.bandcamp.com
Parker Morales
can you guys link some top-tier vaporwave?
Christopher Wood
dds.wmv, Channel 505, Skeleton
Andrew Martin
新しい日の誕生 had a nice aesthetic but it wasn't really vaporwave, was it?
Landon Hall
Vaporwave was my shit back in the days. I think it died because it was all about the vibe and the aesthetic, couldn't innovate and became the repetitions of the same shit over and over.
Levi White
At this point I firmly believe we should replace "Vaporwave" and it's sub genres with the umbrella term "Aesthetic"
Most "vaporware" is Japanese city pop with a modern beat anyway
Dylan Wilson
Alternative to that, call the original content aesthetic stuff vaporwave and call the spliced up sample shit shit.
Nicholas Nguyen
Michael Murphy
Mason Gutierrez
well then make your own vaporwave. download audacity, some good 80s pop, load up that 80s pop, slow it down, throw some reverb on it, done.
Adrian Parker
thank you
Brandon Reyes
It was born dead. That was the whole point of it.
Daniel Wood
Yes OP, I am sad and tired so I won't write much now but I have loved Vaporwave since it grew out of Seapunk etc and even though it is not as big as it once was I am happy to see so many micro-genres having been inspired by it. While I will never get as many Boards of Canada albums as I want it definitely helps to have artists like Bibio, Amulets, and Hainbach fill in the gaps. OPN will never release as ground-breaking a follow-up to Eccojams but people have been inspired to diversify the textural palette and that warms my heart.
Jason Watson
unironic suggestion: get a budget tape recorder from like goodwill with two speeds, record samples to tape on the higher speed, and record it back to digital on the slower speed. Changing the gain and messing with tone / bias settings can get you that Eccojams A1 sound. Digital time-stretching is okay these days but nothing sounds smoother than analog (magnetic) time distortions