I think describing older Vaporwave as slowed down 80's music is just half
of it. The style of future funk which tends to use 80's RnB or Italo Disco
samples does indeed conjure a up feeling of being on drugs or nostalgia
when listening to it, but for me it introduces to idea of hearing sustained
instruments and modulated tones in what would otherwise go unnoticed in a
recording because of the requirements of fulfilling a genre at the
time. Vaporwave made what sounded familiar seem distant again and in the
process broke down the boundaries that limited the sampled source material,
at least for me. Granted if you don't like much 80's popular music you
probably would not like what some Vaporwave has to offer. A lot of it
sounds like shit. At first though, the genre reminded me of some Baldelli
cosmic disco mixes tapes I downloaded from Gomma a few years back. Lately,
this stuff has taken kind of a cyberpunk ambient turn to it, but its is all
over the place. The Taspo album I referred to in my above post has a
electro pop trap vibe to it.
On Tue, Jan 5, 2016 at 4:50 PM, Ben Diamondstein <ben@diamondste.in> wrote:
quoted 25 lines In respect to the "Best of 2015" thread, I figured it may be worth
> In respect to the "Best of 2015" thread, I figured it may be worth
> bringing the Vaporwave topic to another email.
>
> I'm fairly new to this list, so I've been hesitant to ask about Vaporwave,
> but it seems like something people have thoughts on.
>
> Here's a video I found in my own research that seems to do a pretty good
> job describing the history of (which is actually very interesting).
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdpP0mXOlWM
>
> But again, it's kind of academic. Anyone here into Vaporwave and can
> explain a bit of why/what? It seems that people are generally very
> opinionated on it in the more well-respected music circles. Plus, it seems
> to have a very devout following, considering the obscurity of it. Seemingly
> like IDM in its infancy.
>
> This is the song that people often reference most closely with the genre.
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU8HrO7XuiE
>
> Thoughts? Opinions? Bueller?
>
>
>