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A Vaporwave Starter Pack to Underscore Your Dystopian Fantasies
Vaporwave is a musical genre who’s origins have no geographic location. It is a movement born out of the internet, first appearing on internet forums in the early 2010’s. It began as an aesthetic that was popularized by an obsession with 80s and 90s subculture, using glitch art, early graphic design, roman busts, Japanese culture, and 80’s elevator music. What began as a remix and regurgitation of outdated pop culture has quickly developed into a radical movement. Vaporwave is anti-capitalist, heavily conceptual, and anonymous. With a handful of labels and hundreds of releases, jumping in can be a bit overwhelming. We’ve picked out a few albums to get you acquainted with your new post-music, virtual, lifestyle.
by Macintosh Plus
Released in 2011, Floral Shoppe is considered to be the defining album of Vaporwave.
by Blank Banshee
By adding trap influences, Blank Banshee redefined the genre. It was no longer cheap releases of rough mixes. It was a serious musical genre with a distinct style and original content.
by Yoshimi
Despite being completely globalized, the aesthetic of Vaporwave tends to appropriate Japanese culture. 1980’s Japan was in an economic boom. After the post WW2 American occupation, there was a wave of cultural westernization in Japan. By the 1980’s the mix of Japanese and western culture had created an all new Japanese aesthetic. While Vaporwave appropriates a culture that was influenced by western culture (as many Vaporwave artists are from North America) the fetishization of Aisian cultures is still questionable. Many artists use Japanese and Chinese characters in their album art and track lists, despite not being from these countries or knowing these languages. Vaporwave is all about sampling and recontextualizing, so perhaps mixing languages and cultures is all a part of the movement. It’s important to note that there are many Japanese Vaporwave artists, like Yoshimi who use a mixture of English and Japanese not because it’s trendy, but because these are the languages they use IRL and online.
by telepath
Telepath is one of the most prolific Vaporwave artists. They are also 1/2 of the duo 2814. (The other half is HKE) This release has an album music video which you can watch here.
by wosX
WosX is another of the big players in Vaporwave. They have a number of releases under their belt and have produced a few documentaries analyzing the history and cultural impact of the Vaporwave genre. Check out his first doc here.
by HKE
Hong Kong Express focuses on etherial, ambient textures, reminiscent of a Blade Runner-esque dystopia. The album description says it all:
“The sea of neon rippling waves under a heavy rain that batters the window of the dark hotel room in the middle of the city. There is no point to any of this except beauty. A return of dreams, Hong Kong.”
by 2814
The power duo of Vaporwave, HKE and telepath are the masterminds of 2814. They provide rainy, dystopian soundtracks to play out the end of the world.
