Vaporwave Music

Hello All,

Out there in the vast entity that is the internet, there exists a new genre of music that was created to only exist in a hidden, low-key online only venue and after an explosion of new fans it was labeled a dead genre by its creators. This genre of music is called Vaporwave and its incredibly interesting.

Vaporwave music was created by musician Chuck Person (aka Daniel Lopatin of Oneotrix Point Never) with the release of Eccojams Vol. 1 which was posted into a music forum where it quickly gained fans and sprouted many forum boards dedicated specifically to sharing and creating Vaporwave music. The movement continued to grow from there, quickly developing many contributing artists and manifestos, until finally an online only event was created where lead Vaporwave contributors would invite fans to secret chat rooms where they could watch the artists perform via videochat; this event was called SPF420 and was considered the birth of Vaporwave. The Vaporwave community grew exponentially after the event and the number of contributing artists skyrocketed. Here is an image detailing essential Vaporwave artists that was created and shared to aid listeners in sorting through the masses of Vaporwave artists. Give some of the artists a listen here, here and here.

Vaporwave is characterized by a highly digitally manipulated dreamy sound created from chopped, pitch shifted and effect driven remixes of 90's commercial jingles and pop music meant to convey the feeling of drifting through a digital mall of the future.. Many songs are titled in Japanese or written as computer files and all accompanying visual media is highly rooted within a distorted 90's digital consumerist aesthetic. The Vaporwave community describes this aesthetic through a manifesto of sorts:

"Global capitalism is nearly there. At the end of the world there will only be liquid advertisement and gaseous desire. Sublimated from our bodies, our untethered senses will endlessly ride escalators through pristine artificial environments, more and less than human, drugged-up and drugged down, catalysed, consuming and consumed by a relentlessly rich economy of sensory information, valued by the pixel.

The Virtual Plaza welcomes you, and you will welcome it too."


After the release of this "manifesto" and a related article, the Vaporwave community experienced another population/popularity burst and more artists began contributing and (according to the original contributors) changing the genre from its original stylistics; after this burst the community then began to consider Vaporwave to be a "dead" genre despite the fact that artists were/are still creating and sharing Vaporwave music.


And this all happened within a few months. Online. At no point in the life of Vaporwave was there any physical media.


And it's all free.


Check out some more artists:

Saint Pepsi- Hit Vibes

Disconcious- Hologram Plaza

Unpleasant Nostalgia- 2D Memories




Thanks for reading,

Alex