Discussing Vaporwave / Hauntological Movement or Meme?

[@deepcuts]

We'll be doing a listening party on the Deep Cuts Discord for 2814 - Birth of a New Day (some might say a vaporwave 'classic') Tuesday 15th, 22:00BST. Follow this link! discord.gg/UrEPuw9

[@quintinthompson484]

deep cuts This album blew my mind. A stellar ambient record. I hope you and the rest of the listening party enjoy it. Would love to join in but I'll be busy sadly.

[@deepcuts]

shame you can't join!

[@danieldevlin6993]

fantastic album! Perfect for studying

[@BudBonkerson]

Kyashi San It may literally just be because of Floral Shoppe, which is what many people know as “the” vaporwave album, having that Roman bust on its cover

[@paulmcmc4005]

The piano piece from 2184’s mentioned album’s 1st track is identical to Commix’s - Painted Smile (amazing track)

[@chapter_black3234]

RIP Mark Fisher

[@Patricia_Taxxon]

Vaporwave is one of the BEST THINGS to happen to the music industry. It's so completely incompatible with the industry, it's incredible that it got so popular. It shows that the general populous has the capability to look past technical ability and experience music and art for what it is. It shows that people appreciate well executed ideas no matter how the idea came to be. Music listeners are finally catching up with contemporary art enthusiasts. Also, the popularity of Vaporwave is proof that the world is ready to abolish copyright law, or at least heavily reform it. Most Vaporwave is blatantly infringing, but wholly transformative nonetheless. Art movements like this will get people on the side of getting rid of the concept of intellectual property.

[@deepcuts]

Wow we're entering a whole new debate here with regards to intellectual property. If artists aren't able to protect their work in the future, how can they make a living off of it? If everyone is able to take a concept or work, add effects and package it as something new, surely that has more negative implications for the industry than positive ones?

[@Patricia_Taxxon]

There are a lot of different ways to make money besides just putting walls around your music, not just limited to your fans' generosity. I'm writing a video essay about this where I'll go in to more detail, I'll send it to you when I'm done.

[@deepcuts]

Please do mate, interested to watch it!

[@Chichilcitlalli]

"Also, the popularity of Vaporwave is proof that the world is ready to abolish copyright law" This is it. +10

[@Chichilcitlalli]

>>> "Most Vaporwave is blatantly infringing, but wholly transformative nonetheless. " You really know what you are talking about man. Right on the spot.

[@viniciusbenettigennari]

The phrase "We are haunted by a future that never came to pass" reminded me of William Gibson's short story Gernsback Continuum (coincidentally, released in the 80's), where a photographer sees phantasmagoric images of the future as envisioned in the early 20th century (giving origin to the name Raygun Gothic). It's worth checking out.

[@deepcuts]

Ah I love Gibson, some of his concepts definitely fit into these ideas of nostalgia and temporal dislocation. I've never read that short story, thanks for the recc!

[@devildoggo6012]

I feel as if Vaporwave as a "Genre" was necessary for understanding the true power of the internet age. Vaporwaves many influences in 90's culture is mostly down to escapism, living in that age using the samples in music to reflect that to younger, "Born in the wrong generation" listeners. This creates a huge "Meme" community and while some view this with complete distaste and leave it be, I think that peeling away at the surface of vaporwave reveals a truly amazing, wonderful, creative and diverse genre. Being an entirely internet based genre allowed for a level playing field for everyone to express ideas through this strange style. Albums like "猫 シ Corp: News At 11" with haunting jazz music and samples from TV news stations just moments before 9/11 gives us a unique, personal perspective into a time long gone and a time not even remembered by younger listeners (Such as myself) "2814: Birth of a new day" presented an amazing ambient soundtrack to a world far from home, like you're experiencing an entire movie inside your own head (I actually own the CD to this album) Blank Banshees trio album series presented these 90's samples and aesthetics into trap music which strangely works well. Vaporwave is a weapon, used by all to blast out ideas and emotions, completely alien to modern day music conventions. That's why it's amazing.

[@deepcuts]

I love what you wrote about as an internet-based genre it gave everyone a level playing field - this is why are is such a diversity of styles within vaporwave's umbrella term, but also the reason ideas have been spread and repeated by people to the point that the repetition obfuscates the creative stuff. As an aside you should join our listening party on the discord for 2814, sounds like you'd have a lot to talk about :)

[@lzawbrito]

i feel like it's also largely a platform through which to make socio-political commentary as much as it is a genre, so it's also a weapon in that sense

[@CuddleCuttlefish]

100% agree. Thank you for putting it into words so wonderfully. I'm sure you used some time writing that comment that you could have used elsewhere, so thanks for taking the time to write it.

[@belstar1128]

Yes you are right the internet makes things possible that would be unthinkable without.

[@rikardschumacher178]

So vapor wave is Internet chill out mix tape.

[@coolal19]

The future isn't what it used to be.

[@sytran666]

Underrated comment

[@rikardschumacher178]

The Future is a reimagined Present and therefore unknowable. What we don't know can't be cancelled. The future does not exist.

[@SeveringJuan]

I think it has to be addressed that though some vaporwave artist do criticize consumerism, I think overtime it became and earnest longing for a world were there was not war, there was not economic crisis, there was hope. And I think this goes hand on hand with the rise of gen Z, a generation that doesn't know a world without terrorism or the risk of total destruction or information overload thanks to the internet (a big contrast with the milennials that did know a world like that and it was taken from them) I think the album News at 11 captures this (ofter not discussed) side of vaporwave

[@shreddyroosevelt9334]

It's really like graffiti but for the internet. That's at least what I gather. The ease of production and the similar aesthetics of the group are a lot like how stencil graffiti works.

[@mp3neptune]

I started making vaporwave as a form of mental escapism. My vaporwave albums were some of the first releases I'd ever put out that I feel like people really resonated with. Back in 2014-15 i was really into the vibe the genre gave me, and i really got "lost in the sauce" for a while there haha. I'd listen to Computer Death/Decay/Afterlife by Infinity Frequencies almost every night as i was falling asleep and i loved how it reminded me of vague, ephemeral portions of my childhood, like half-memories of things that may or may not have actually happened. The online community back then was awesome too! Luxury Elite would host vaporwave livestreams, VW twitter was off the hook, and everyone generally just really loved the music and community. Unfortunately, drama and burned bridges kind of ruined the magic of the social experience in the genre, and the magic of the music itself has somewhat burned out for me as well. I still absolutely still love this genre to death though and i'm really glad i got to experience it while it was still somewhat in it's prime.

[@marcelvinolo3473]

Hey man, I know I'm 2 years late, but I just checked out your channel and music. Really liked the first one, loved how you completely captured the essence of vaporwave while, at the same time, adding your personal touch (I personally felt it on the beat you made). Just wanted to say that you earned yourself a subscriber. I really love people adding more content to this almost dead (not really) community. Keep doing what you do, and in case you don't enjoy doing it anymore, that's okay too. The pieces you already created are awesome (specially the videos for your songs, they're fantastic). Sorry for the long text. Good luck and carry on!

[@traz2860]

glad to see mp3neptune in this comment section! Love your music, found some strong hauntological vibes in it especially in empty faces in digital faces, keep it up!

[@marc9283]

Vaporwave is not a meme, it's fuckin awesome music!

[@emilydawe402]

Ahhhhh!!! This channel needs so much more recognition!! Definitely sharing with my friends :)

[@deepcuts]

YES Emily, share it with everyone!!

[@PhilippeLandryPhilippeALandry]

I also think that hauntological listening breaches the gap between morphology, how a thing is structured, and interface, how we internalize a thing. It's not how genres are taxonomically different, it's how we internalize things like trap music and shoegaze. They are both haunting.

[@alexdelgado4662]

As a person who's 36, you young cats have no idea how amazing vaporware actually is. You may know 20 years from now when somebody turns the music you like into something else.

[@JoliMort]

I am 36too! and you're comment is odd have you not heard a mash up or experienced hiphop's deep love of sampling? but, vaporwave essentially culturejams on a future we were P R O M I S E D malls that never closed and smooth jazz bringing near bliss.

[@Chichilcitlalli]

And the political, sociological and economic implications of ignoring copyright.

[@FlyCasual1]

I've got another 10 years on you brother and I've become completely hypnotised by it

[@HunterGreenMusic]

Vaporwave is incredible. It's evolved into something so much more.

[@Teadon86]

I'm 34, and for me vaporwave is that sun creeping at the corners of my eyes as am I enjoying a soft drink outside the local mall. Listening to the wind, the indistinct sounds of shoppers, and commercial jingles played in the mall mixing together to create a moment seemingly disconnected from time. A short exhale before life must continue.

[@dylanmcmahon4902]

I find the commentary Vaporwave brings interesting, even if the music isn't really enjoyable IMO. It reminds me a lot of what Warhol did with his commodified and kitschy style, wherein he bridged gaps between lowbrow and highbrow art along with blurring art with pop culture and materialism. The homogenous and vapid focuses on "A E S T H E T I C" when creating it remind me as well of Warhol's own methods of creating, using cheap printing and an almost assembly-line approach to commodify art. IDK, I might be pretentious though

[@dive_in_me226]

I think that's become the philosophy, kinda just to meme on consumerism by using the same tactics.

[@rikardschumacher178]

Warhol and Lichtenstein were the originators of Pop eating itself. You are BANG! ON!

[@gusty7153]

@@dive_in_me226 and the philosophy of it in of itself is inescapable, even if one were to just appreciate the vaporwave aesthetic for just the sake of aesthetic, you're essentially perusing and indulging in a dream of something better

[@mookie714]

Vaporwave is building new things out of the detritus of the past. it's sort of like pop art in that regard. personally, I love it. but I also grew up in the 80s and 90s so perhaps my love for the genre has more to do with nostalgia.

[@rikardschumacher178]

It's like Dua Lipa - Future Nostalgia. LOL.

[@vertyisprobablydead]

Yeah I'm 42 and I love this stuff.

[@loutubesing3213]

I like vaporwave and all of it's sister genres because it represents a style that no other music really does. It embraces imperfections in recordings and conventionally unattractive visuals (that I've learned to adore) and sounds that just aren't found elsewhere.

[@konstantinospappis5913]

Loved this video! And I do agree with your view of what vaporwave is. I just wanted to say that I like these kinds of videos, how you place ideas about music into a wider cultural discussion/ theory and in this case how you introduced the concept of hauntology. I know it takes a lot of effort and research, so wanted to let you know that it does come off as thoughtful and informed and it is much appreciated!

[@deepcuts]

I appreciate the kind words mate, I'll definitely think about doing more of these videos in the future!

[@kimeiga]

Your patience and depth of research with this genre is pretty admirable. i generally dismiss it as a meme, although I can't say I haven't enjoyed a few tracked that labels themselves vaporwave.

[@gregkarris6869]

Great discussion. I recently found out about Vaporwave late last year, and being a child of the 80's, I'm freaked out (I constantly heard this type of stuff at the mall and offices and on elevators). I may have come across it earlier but thought someone just uploaded an old 1989 Musak Tape. Interesting how people are making "New 80's/90's Musak". Well, I guess Records and the Atari VCS are back also... ;)

[@AckzaTV]

Thank God you actually broke this all down for people. It's all happening so fast, things get meta so fast, layers of meaning start gettings tacked up so quickly that we can't even keep up with all the inside jokes and self referential meanings...It's also very mesmerizing because the nostalgia just opens up a whole world of lost cultural artifacts that are now coming back because someone finds an old 80s VHS tape , uploads it and then BOOM we have a hot youtiube video al of the sudden!

[@ValorousFogey]

Awesome video once again! P.S. I love it when I hear BOC and Burial in the same sentence.

[@deepcuts]

thanks a lot!

[@Chichilcitlalli]

BOC, Burial and VW in the same video? Even better.

[@Divine_Dreamer_vaporwave]

Individual vaporwave albums can be either pro capitalism or anti capitalist. However, the way I see it, is that vaporwave is a reflection of late stage capitalism. The reason so much of the aesthetic of vaporwave revolves around consumerist aesthetics of the past is an extension of capitalism. It recalls a time when the system actually appeared to be working for most people, namely the 80s and 90s US and Japan. Both countries were experiencing economic booms at the time. Those days have long since passed, and so many of us feel nostalgia for a time when the system was still believed to be working. Consumerism really became a big aspect of the human experience during those decades, and so now it's only inevitable that a lot of nostalgia for those times will be linked to the media and pop culture of that time. So with that in mind, vaporwave can only exist as it does because of the social conditions that were prominent when it became a movement. And the current social conditions are late stage capitalism. Had vaporwave been made in a different context, it might have adopted different aesthetics. The aesthetics it employs are the result of the current cultural context. This ultimately means that how one views vaporwave as a whole is ultimately dependent on their relationship to capitalism. Someone that has a mostly positive experience with capitalism might see most vaporwave as a way to relive certain memories, and think it's just chill music, while someone who is anti capitalist will view it more as a commentary on capitalist alienation and a critique of consumerist culture. But of course, there is some overlap. I'm anti capitalist, but the vaporwave I make is mostly about making sensual or relaxing atmospheres. It's impossible to label the whole genre as one or the other, because an individual artists intent in making vaporwave can still be important.

[@RoadRunnerMD]

Discovering Vaporwave was one of the best things to happen in my life. I'm in my own world when listening to it. Not many people are able to understand this.

[@SebiSthlm]

Love the video. Completely aboard especially the hauntology. One thing that you didn't explicitely covered is vaoprwave and its a e s t h e t i c s' relation to irony. It is "bad", almost objectively bad, but at the same time good for some sort of ironic reasons. Just like some retro fashion is ugly, almost universally agreed that it's ugly. So you like it "ironically", but then start to actually like it unironically. People (who don't understand it) have asked me if vaporwave is ironic and I have to answer that it's both ironic and unironic, or neither. It sort of transcends irony and good taste in a way that post modernist pop/trash art never was able to do. And if you look like vaporwave's obvious influences on other genres, like for example house music in lo-fi house, you see in that genre how the same ideas about some sort of irony and play with what in a pretty stuck up genre is, or was, considered too cheesy or uncool samples or references in a way is a resistance to the older "good taste" house music where everything used to be so SERIOUS. Just look at the ironic DJ/producer names like DJ Seinfeld, DJ Playstation or DJ Windows XP, the choice of samples of emotional 80s power balads or interviews with people like 90s movie star Winona Ryder, or the way the music used to be distributed as limited edition cassettes (instead of the serious vinyl), releasing on DIY bandcamp labels instead of the big serious online DJ stores etc etc. Sorry for the long and rambling sentences, but I hope you get my point.

[@sigurdskovlund2819]

Your point is on point. The influence of vaporwave and its aesthetics is immense and underrated.

[@bulliemthembu5846]

Awesome video as always man :) I liked the idea of hauntology, it seems to sum up what I've been thinking about in terms of the way nostalgia has been marketed and sold to people who weren't around to experience the thing they're nostalgic for, and the idea of vaporwave as existing in an atemporal space almost rejecting that marketing by perverting it. I also think in addition to this hauntological viewpoint, vaporware might be thriving as a cultural critique because the internet has allowed for a sort of simultaneous nostalgia; there's easy access to past media and cultural capital to be gained from having experienced and being well-versed in it (i.e. the entire point of Ready Player One). The critique might come from the fact that a lot of people are claiming past culture as authentically theirs, even though they are divorced from that culture by time, and vaporwave is sending up this idea of internet nostalgia as authentic nostalgia by removing it from a sense of time and perverting the 'warm fuzzies' by way of lamentation and disposability. That is to say it reveals this simultaneous internet nostalgia as disposable and its existence as lamentable because it isn't authentic and deigning it as so is a sad joke. At least that's what I see maybe feeding into some of the comical juxtapositions within the vaporwave aesthetic. Maybe vaporwave's sadness is in that the past itself is a meme?

[@deepcuts]

I like this a lot - of course vaporwave and this idea of hauntology has to be considered alongside the channel which birthed it: the internet. This is what I love so much about the concept of hauntology, the fact that an entire generation of people can find nostalgia and melancholia by fetishising a period the majority of them will have had no experience of. It makes you wonder what else the internet and easy access to information might give us in the future in terms of art/music movements.

[@bulliemthembu5846]

Thanks for the reply man! I'll need to read that book you mentioned for sure to get more of an understanding of this concept, appreciate what you do:)

[@HEARTMACHINEPLUSULTRA]

Great video! The interesting thing about vaporwave is how many people how vast and expansive the genre is. There are so many different sub-genres of vaporwave to where you can lost in the world or narrative that the album creates. Take fuji grid tv,which is one of many pseudonyms for Vektroid. THat album is literally just old japanese commercials looped for about 20 minutes. It seems silly, but whenever I listen to it, I feel like I'm experiencing the life of a japanese businessman who is just coming from work and just fell asleep with the TV on. Another one is WosX Brazil World Cup 2034 and its narrative of a post apocalyptic World Games. It's great and I don't any other genre could convey such feelings. There are definitely meme-y parts of it, but I think the genre as a whole has way more to offer than just being a meme.

[@chrissie9865]

I really like the fact that it's very varied in what you want to do with it, you can just load tons of samples onto eachother like Saint Pepsi or make something with almost no samples and very trap influenced like Blank Banshee

[@deepcuts]

Great point, there are a lot of facets to vaporwave that don't perhaps get as much attention as the more obvious choices, perhaps because they don't use those obvious vaporwave visuals/aesthetics as much as others do.

[@walnot]

Would love more vids like this, you're very good at explaining the theoretical ideas you laid out. Maybe a series? Kinda like a music-specific version of what idea channel does

[@deepcuts]

I'll do more philosophy/music videos within the discussion series Nick!

[@aidanyakymyshyn9636]

this is pretty insightful, I think the whole lost future/lost timeline concept is pretty spot on, I also see that kind of attitude a lot in cyberpunk/sci fi movies like ghost in the shell or blade runner

[@CuddleCuttlefish]

I know I just stumbled onto this and you probably won't see this. But I recently stumbled onto Vaporwave for the first time myself, and I fell in love with it. Not for the meme aspects, but for something more that I felt was there. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but this video was very informative and perfectly described what was so fascinating about it to me. Thank you for making this. As a passionate lover of music, I was really interested in a serious musical perspective on it as a genre and a movement, and this was exactly what I was looking for

[@Flugmorph]

𝓪 𝓮 𝓼 𝓽 𝓱 𝓮 𝓽 𝓲 𝓬

[@Tunaboy45]

Flug!! Fancy seeing you here

[@gardensoundrecords3598]

My view is art can't push forward so we take 1 step back and take 2 forward by looking back we've made something new. Plus modern main stream is at the end of its tether

[@belstar1128]

I love vaporwave its like the music i hear in my dreams i have a lot of dreams about my early childhood I grew up during the transtion from the 20th century into the 21th and even as a child i hated the derection music was heading to by the time i was a teenager i did not like music at all listeing to vaporwave is relaxing it makes me feel like im safe at home with unlimited time but then i realise im a adult in the year 2019 and the world is changing for better or worse and nothing will last forever sorry for any grammar mistakes my phone is acting strange.

[@natalia5189]

i needed this video, i'm very pleased.

[@deepcuts]

Glad to be of service!

[@ghoulish6125]

Small movement transformed to large meme

[@alexanderclaylavin]

I was one of the last to the party with Vaporwave, and found musicians like Haircuts for Men and NxxxxxS uncanny and disturbing. It recalls, for me, Matt Dillon's lament in Van Sant's Gen X drug movie Drugstore Cowboy where he sees a reflection of his crew's listless junkie lifestyle in the broad population untethered from reality under the spell of television (the sometimes-congenial, sometimes-murderous "TV Babies"). His character, Bob, bemoans the passing of a way of life even as he gives into an even worse dissolution. Vaporwave expresses a similar anxiety about life in the internet age, where the vaporwave phenomenon wilfully swerves toward the abyss. In a world where music no longer plays its traditional role of providing a context for physical social gathering, it instead now suspends its audience In an atemporal, dislocated haze... left with little to commune around except memes, internet chats, and pseudonymous or anonymous virtual clustering that negates personal identity and regards agency as historical myth.

[@zacharytrosch3406]

I'm with you on vaporwave being "both" a meme and a genre worth intellectualizing. It works on many layers, both ironically and unironically fetishizing the past, and that's kind of the whole point.

[@Petch1]

Nice analysis. Would be good to see one on Retro Wave. been listening and liking some of that recently.

[@wizardaka]

This is really interesting and I think you do a good job of explaining hauntology. Would be interested to see you revisit and expand on this, I thought about doing the video I this myself as it's an important idea but tied up in complicated theory and language too often

[@dushdy7160]

I guess both statements hold some truth, as you suggested. Honestly though it feels hard to oversee in this time, with the rapid frequency of releases on the web and the anonymity involved in the vaporwave scene. I think especially the tendency to anonymity in the "genre" or scene, however people want to call it, can be a very liberating factor in terms of trying out new ideas or seperating different "aesthetics", "atmospheres", .. the image of the music .. into different sideprojects. On the other hand it disguises the artist, his workflow and you never really know who may be behind certain projects, nor how much effort he put into his music. I can imagine some people making quite some profit of this anonymity by selling a lot of easy to make vaporwave under different names, and this is where the anti-capitalism attitude can bite it's own tail. I believe there lies a great joy in just toying around with your favourite songs and/or samples in software like ableton, stretching and warping the last inch of humanity out of it and make it sound like it comes from your personal mind. Your very own favourite nostalgia-drenched sounds reimagined and contextualized for your own joy and sense of experimentation. It's too easy though, to just take an old 80s song slow it down, put a lot of processing on it - just enough it makes the original barely recognizable anymore - and call it a vaporwave song. Anyways, every genre that got hyped inspired a lot of uninspired copycats - Vaporwave is just way easier to create and it hit a tech-savy generation, so the extent of this may be greater than usual. Vaporwave (depending on how deep and experimental you go for..) also breaks a lot with music theory, which is an ongoing trend in every new genre arising, until many successful artist coming from new genres will eventually learn it and/or these new techniques kind of become a theory and get blueprints, like you see it now a days with all the "(Deep) House Chords", "808s" and whatever mainstream music assimilated from the fresh weeds of the 90s and 00s the "underground"/new music.. It's hard to tell exactly what is so mesmerizing about Vaporwave. It may be just because it originated in the Internet, it may be much more. I appreciate that it favours a more adventurous way of working with audio and pre-existing material, experimentation and especially that it favours an electronic sound, which isn't produced for clubs. New seeds of musicians, who break with traditional ideas. Thinking of the very lo-fi aesthetique Vaporwave carries along with it, maybe it can be compared to early 90s Grunge and their build up of antipathy toward big 80s sounds, reverbs, keyboards etc. Vaporwave may not break with the idea of a big arrangement and many tracks, but most of it clearly has a lo-fi sound and a sense of anarchy towards guidelines production and music theory... There were more thoughts I wanted to convey, it's difficult topic to finde the right words for, but I enjoyed you bringing Vaporwave up, even if I haven't heard any the last months. :)

[@c_o_l_m]

(Sees meme in title) *AND SO IT BEGINS*

[@floweringsilverzero]

Great video. This line of thinking is definitely a well-formed way to respond to vaporwave detractors. As far as those who have issues with the musical quality of the genre, including myself, I've come to see the genre in a positive light as a very plausible petri dish for excellent musical styles to come. It's definitely a "culture in flux." I've seen this in hints with recent Oneohtrix Point Never, and other very high quality electronic musicians like Iglooghost having a significant vaporwave influence, but I think it's still too soon to tell. Something parallel from my own musical wheelhouse would be early industrial music. I honestly don't think Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV made objectively good music per se, but it's the concepts (including subject matter, aesthetics, and technology) behind the music that had a huge influence (Genesis P-Orridge even said this in an early Psychic TV interview on the BBC). Perhaps the same could be said of early punk.

[@fabriciomendes4320]

I believe that the Vaporwave movement is against the Capitalist society of consumerism, not about post-modernism or Late Stage of Capitalism (what I don't think that's really correct and what created the conception of Vaporwave as a meme). But I consider that have a misunderstanding between the Vaporwave musicians that have make these two conceptions inside the movement possible to exist, considering the first one right and realistic and the second wrong and idealistic, also memetic (in the greek sense of the term). The core process of Vaporwave movement is the fight against copyrights using pop culture songs from middle 1970's, 80's and 90's and the demonstration that the development of capitalist societies and the ideology of consumerism have failed in a lot of aspects. The conclusion is that we have to do something about this. Something that needs to be superior to the capitalist society of consumerism and a development of a new kind of music with the instruments that what we have nowdays to do this. In other terms, the Vaporwave movement is about forming a new kind of society and the best genres of music that we can do after the Vaporwave.

[@deepcuts]

so you see Vaporwave as a call for a kind of utopia Fabricio? I find the idea interesting, I would say though with regard to vaporwave not being about post-modernism I would agree, and writers like Fisher aren't really saying that. What they're saying is that the parameters that allowed the kind of movement like Vaporwave to be born is because we've existed in a post-modern age of art and culture

[@fabriciomendes4320]

Interesting Oliver, in #serious-music-discussion at Discord the community had a big chat about this. Yes, I actually thinks that the Vaporwave movement started with Vektroid's Floral Shoppe not only as an "aesthetic-meme" movement of nostalgia and so on, but it also came with a political proposal against copyrights, consumerism, pop music... A form to evidence the capitalist system itself. Since that we have piracy, downloads and other ways to cheat the copyrights laws, now, with Vaporwave, we have a new way to cheat the capitalist consumerism system slowing down nostalgic pop music and this makes more deeps exposure of the fails of our system. Have some discussions about this at Reddit, articles and other sites that discusses precisely these questions.

[@Error1322.]

I like that copyright political proposal idea. It could also mean that the fact that music had copyright and ownership for so long (during the 80`s) and it's presence is growing day to day, vaporwave Is a statement about the impossibility to own the past, as if the past has already been claimed by record companies and held its meaning. So now its up to repurposing to rebuild new identity out of one that's been held by the cultural market.

[@Chichilcitlalli]

>>> "The core process of Vaporwave movement is the fight against copyrights using pop culture songs from middle 1970's, 80's and 90's and the demonstration that the development of capitalist societies and the ideology of consumerism have failed in a lot of aspects." Wow! Yes. You got it man.

[@Chichilcitlalli]

>>> vaporwave Is a statement about the impossibility to own the past Yes, in fact, if we analyze, almost anything has entered the Public Domain for a looooong time. Yes the past has already been claimed by corporate interest and vw is repurposing all that. The VHS effect works great to defeat KZbin's Content ID system (imposed to YT by the copyright industry).

[@Novalarke]

Smart video. Subscribed. I expect/hope for more like this.

[@zoidsfan12]

For me getting into vaporwave got me into vinyls, which got me into analog formats, which got me into reel to reel. For vaporwave started out as great sesh music, but over time shifted to a straight up love. Futurefunk is actually what first got me into it, futurefunk is like a 80's disco that never happened plus it features city pop, a genre I already adore. From there I got into the vapor essentials and quickly become obsessed with breaking my wallet on vapor vinyls.

[@duncandonahue8355]

Hey I loved this video and think you should definitely do more videos about music and critical theory and philosophy! I find this stuff fascinating!

[@deepcuts]

Thanks Duncan! Well I have the discussions as a series but I'll definitely do more philosophy/music videos in the future if people want to see them :)

[@duncandonahue8355]

deep cuts Thanks for replying!

[@rosskinnon4095]

Great video. I think you well articulated how just cause something's a meme that doesn't mean it should be dismissed. If anything, doesn't the fact that vaporwave has gained traction and followers prove that there's something more to it than just a meme? I guess the video left me asking where can vaporwave go? What charecteristics about a new vaporwave release would make it stand out from the pack, or even break the cycle and go in a new direction? Or is the genre, like you say, doomed to an endless feedback cycle until literally every album ever released has been slowed down with a beat thrown under it. Joking aside, since I first heard it I loved the genre and art form, future funk to classic style and vaportrap. It sucks but I think there won't be a release that redefines the genre cause what could top the feeling of when you first heard vaporwave. The pitched down vocals and choppy edits are familiar now. Anyways, terrific video, keep it up ;)

[@deepcuts]

Ross, with regards to where vaporwave goes from here, I do think it's doomed in its cycle - it'll eventually disappear and some new form may take its place. that isn't a bad thing in any way though, there are many movements defined by a set of ideas or time period that sort of diminish and never return, but that just makes the movements all the more fascinating to explore

[@lizucavictoria]

The existence of vaporwave makes me curious to what kind of genres will the internet give birth to. To me, vaporwave communicates our relationship with music and how we consume it, given its atmospheric nature and the fact that most people these days listen to music while doing something else.

[@deepcuts]

I like that as a way of thinking about the movement, and it would be crazy to not take the internet into mind when discussing vaporwave for sure.

[@Chichilcitlalli]

I think one branch can be younger and younger people making great & unique stuff. I mean, check out all those type beats, vapors and youtubepoops made by really young people, sometimes 16 or even 15 and more. With technology and movements like vw making it easier and easier for more people to partake in, I think it will just be a matter of time before young kids 12, 11 and more will be doing crazy stuff that many will appreciate.

[@mrfrosty3]

Melancholia is there but I feel it is more about a whimsical nostalgia.

[@SquishypuffDave]

If you wanted to go a bit broader, 5 Albums To Get You Into Hauntology could be pretty damn great. My list would be something like: 1. Broadcast And The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults Of The Radio Age 2. Demdike Stare - Liberation Through Hearing 3. VHS Head - Persistence Of Vision 4. Boards of Canada - Geogaddi 5. The Advisory Circle - Other Channels (Or just basically anything on the Ghost Box label.)

[@chanticlere]

I listen to dark ambient music. One of my favorite artists is Peter Anderson out of Sweden. The project is Raison de etre'. I can't listen to vapor wave though. Although allot of ambient is morphed field recordings, I don't enjoy vaporwave. I like the concept, I like the old tech or nostalgia. Maybe I didn't hear cool vaporwave.

[@SEGAClownboss]

I always hear descriptions to Vaporwave as to being a "nostalgic" genre, which I've never really felt(as someone born in 1992), but to hear your explenation that the genre is really a lament for an idealised future that just can never be real makes much more sense to me. Oooh, you're doing IDM? I greatly suck when it comes to recounting electronic genres and I was mostly raised on the history of rock. I would however, love to hear the roots and history of what makes today's EDM, and the roots it had in disco, techno, and house, and all those things I don't really know anything about or who the pioneers were. What makes trance different from jungle? Could you think of doing a crash course history of electronic music at some point? IDM would need the other side of the coin, after all.

[@gusty7153]

i think it's the fact that it's caught on as a meme that made it more successful than it's predecessors. cause i never even heard of the other micro genres until after vaporwave started being a thing

[@anapereira5240]

I imagine you already have plenty of "Guides To" planned out, but I'm just going to put this out there: Ulver

[@DerekPower]

Brace yourself ... this may be a long one ... I came into the vaporwave (or just vapour as Wolf suggested should be used as it is more encompassing) relatively late consciously speaking. I was aware of things like Saint Pepsi's "Enjoy Yourself" and the use of Roman busts and the like. But it wasn't until late 2017 when I did a somewhat crash course (and still unearthing things here and there) including the classic Macintosh Plus's _Floral Shoppe_ and newer classics from 2814. My Bandcamp collection has grown quite a bit because of this. And yet, it was something that was not completely unfamiliar. For starters, I was born in the early 1980s and had a certain familiarity with that "80s/90s world": the colour schemes, the artificial sounds, technology as the future, etc. I am also intrigued by experimental music in general (I'm one of the few people who can say my favourite Beatles track is "Revolution 9") as well as electronic music at large (The Darkest Future's _Untitled_ [originally _Floral Shoppe 2_] is not out of line with Autechre). While I haven't yet heard _EccoJams Vol. 1_, one of my favourite 2013 music encounters was Oneohtrix Point Never's _R Plus Seven_. And finally, I know melancholia and temporal disassociation in music too well. One of my favourite recent artists is Leyland Kirby (and by extension, The Caretaker, The Stranger, V/Vm), who also is strongly associated with "hauntological music" (hell, Mark Fisher praised him in his writings and, at the end of last year, Kirby paid musical tribute to him whilst in Barcelona). On this last one, I think the appeal is that the music does often paint a world that seems very familiar, comforting and, perhaps, still promising. It is basically world building through music. While I will give credit where credit is due and say that vapour does help to propagate more widely these notions, there is really nothing new under the sun and vapour is not the first (nor will it be the last) to explore these ideas. For instance, even those who love vapour can acknowledge _Blade Runner_ as a primary influence and that film came out in 1982 (it was released less than three months before my entry on earth). Temporal disassociation did not need a post-modern philosopher to talk about "spectre hauntings" ... look at T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets. Hell, you can even make a case that we are still continuing the a e s t h e t i c s of late 17th/early 18th-century rococco, where it was about indulging in fantasy and pleasure ... to the point where it is hard for individuals to distinguish between the two. So basically, I hear this as no different than any other music I have heard that generates these effects or conveys these ideas. But all the same, good music is still good music, no matter what label you choose to apply to it.

[@DerekPower]

P.S. I absolutely love 2814's Rain Temple. While I really enjoyed what Zimmer and Wallfisch did, 2814 could have provided a powerful score to Blade Runner 2049. It also reminded me a lot of Future Sound of London and _Dead Cities_ in particular (and that was twenty years before this album).

[@DerekPower]

P.P.S. I am making music under the name キラキラ with the intention of being part of the vapour scene.

[@megachair2]

I think the argument of vaporwave being a meme depends on who's making the music, a lot of people are just doing it because its "cool" and some of them don't really know how to actually have their own ideas, they're just copying others. despite the copying tho i feel that looking back at it ten years from now the sheer amount of content and the sameness of it all will gel well with some of the themes of the genre.

[@lukegregg5944]

We need another Deep Cuts essential!

[@roygbiv176]

Its all in your head

[@slothstradamus89]

Jonathan Fay *hands

[@Chichilcitlalli]

Especially the profit claims made by the copyright industry.

[@McKampfschnitzel97]

Zero Books published a book called Babbling Corpse: Vaporwave and the Commodification of Ghosts by Grafton Tanner. I haven't been able to pick it up jet, but I thought it would be worth mentioning, since Oliver mentioned Mark Fisher, whose works were also published by Zero Books.

[@deepcuts]

Yeah I think Tanner actually bases a lot of his writing there on Fisher's orginial ideas. I haven't read it but it looks like something worth checking out! Zero Books put out some great stuff

[@jordibardaji1742]

“Babbling Corpse” is one of my favorite books. It is very enlightening on the concept of ”vaporwave” and also extremely fascinating to read. I definitely recommend it.

[@Chichilcitlalli]

Yes, that one and the book Infinite Music by Adam Harper. Harper has also some great discussions about vw here in yt.

[@IladRodavlas]

as a vaporwave artist, I don't really see vaporwave as a repetitive piece of art. I try to include different (obscure) genres into my music that aren't usually used in vaporwave. I see it more as a spectral and expressive form of plunderphonics.

[@rikardschumacher178]

Internet age muzak.

[@BeansBeansBeans]

This is an amazing video mate, absolutely loved it. Definitely going to check out Fisher's stuff! Never considered Vaporwave in the way you discussed it here

[@deepcuts]

MrCraze45 Fisher was a genius, you won't regret it. Thanks for the kind words!

[@HunterGreenMusic]

Long live vaporwave. The most beautiful mood music in the Galaxy

[@HunterGreenMusic]

I recommend Deaths Dynamic Shroud. So next level and emotional

[@Luipaard005]

finally an analysis that isn’t up its own ass, thank you

[@gustavhegandersen5720]

Vaporwave became a meme when people started making fun of it, as a music genre it never was. I think you were on point about the hauntology of the phenomena, but if I may add something it would be that these aesthetics of the 80's were also an imagination about the future. This is just a r e f l e c t i o n. ;)

[@araknair9605]

I feel like its a meme in both definitions. I started as the second definition because of internet culture, but is reinforced as the first definition by the way the internet as "optimized" every other aspect of culture as a whole. A study in theoretical psychology within an infinite space...

[@xilophompilo]

I think an element that shoud be taken in consideration is that maybe some of those artists don't know how to make money out of it and then comes the feeling of depression and nostalgy from childhood when all the things were great and easy

[@Rednospunk]

Thank you for this vid!

[@TyphoidBryan]

Macintosh PLUS! Com Truise! Two of my favorites.

[@AB-ze7pb]

I think that it's hard to distinguish between the side of vaporwave associated with memes and the side that could be viewed as just musical genre/subgenre/etc. I think that the main reason for this is that vaporwave seemed to develop (or at least get some real traction in terms of popularity): 1. mostly online and 2. in a time where memes are really prevalent in online communities. A contrast to this might be Radiohead. There are plenty of memes about Radiohead and Thom Yorke floating around, but Radiohead was around before memes (in the online community sense), yet has a fan base outside of online communities. So although there are memes about Radiohead, it doesn't have this intrinsic association with memes like vaporwave does. I haven't really put a lot of thought into this outside of what I've written here, and I certainly wouldn't call myself an expert on either vaporwave or Radiohead. Let me know what you think.

[@joemarsh4252]

Is it fair to compare the current Lo-Fi Hip-Hop movement to vapourware considering its considerable rise in popularity over the last few years and that for some people its again a movement reflecting on the past with its movie references but also again with its "aesthetic"? But then in a similar way its also seen as a meme because of its internet status? Just want to hear opinions on this because I'm personally curious to see where this scene will go in the future and if it will branch off into more scenes or something else?

[@TheCarrots101]

vaporwave is the best/most important thing to happen to music in this decade, if you know where to look

[@Chichilcitlalli]

Agree. Not just because of the great music but also because of the political, sociological and economic implications of ignoring copyright.

[@cheayunju]

Best thoughts on Vaporwave I've heard so far. I also think of it terms of re-appropriation and annihilation to create something new. All music and styles of a time period have a derivative element as world changes shift one trend or worldview into the next, sometimes changing dramatically but also having to build upon the settled concrete of the past. I've no real evidence for this, but nostalgia waves seem to run on about 30 year cycles. The late 70s early 80s saw a brief wave of nostalgia for the 50s, for example. It seems vaporwave and its various shifting genres can do this at a much faster rate Anyway, I like this movie review that discusses how reprocessing our reality using the past is destructive, creative, and quite natural. wearethemutants.com/2018/04/17/reflection-refraction-mutation-alex-garlands-annihilation/

[@cheayunju]

Oh, I also forgot that I think I responded well to vaporwave because of my late 90s history of listening to a lot of DJ Screw and buying these weekly made mixes at local record shops in Texas. It was all Texas and Memphis trill stuff just completely destroyed to get a weirder listening experience. It was not nostalgic. It was like on-site mutation just to make competitive car stereo systems sound completely unique.

[@hldr4345]

Vaporwave is a mimetic form of art, but not as in a sound is being mimed, but a feeling: the longing for nothing. I'll explain myself: In an age where information (let's remember that information != knowledge, it'll be important later) is rapidly changing places and it's difficult to process due to the sheer amount of it, making it basically white noise, and most information in media outlets being either extremely superficial and substance-less (I.e. vapid) or just traumatic and mind-numbing, vaporwave just asks and craves for nothing. No war, no mind, no drama, no hate, no love, no NOW. It is definitely along Lo-Fi Hip Hop in that.

[@waterguyroks]

Zero Books... great publisher, I've seen a lot of interesting works that blur non-fiction and fiction on there. Some other theorists that might be useful when looking at vaporwave: Fredric Jameson (His book on postmodernism and late capitalism in particular) and Jean Francois Lyotard.

[@deepcuts]

Definitely - Lyotard and Jameson would be great theorists to look at if anyone wants to delve further into these ideas. Also Michel Foucault's Technologies of the Self would be good too!

[@loborodc1]

I've noticed how vapourwave is similar to the 2010s dubstep movement. Obviously they don't sound alike but both genres have repetitions in the songs (dubstep having bass drops and vapourwave having the slowed down 70s music) and both ending up being memes instead of actual genres.

[@deepcuts]

Yeah dubstep is similar in that the same sonic tropes (heavy bass, build ups to big 'drops') just get endlessly repeated ad nauseam , to the point where it's difficult to find merit in any of it

[@micahyoung3585]

Deep cuts check out Laurel Halo, Space Afrika, and mono e aware PAN compilation

[@pauldavis7318]

farside virtual and chuck person started vaporwave, not macintosh plus. early ghost box is great hauntogology, especially focus group stuff

[@BrianSmith-vl7xu]

It looks a lot like Seapunk. You might also want to refer to the channel NewRetroWave.

[@Nikkychistov]

Liking the video before watching it

[@deepcuts]

what if you don't like the content?

[@Nikkychistov]

always do

[@jandejohn5775]

It's both.

[@pumpkinpepsi]

Speaking of hauntology, please check out SOVIETWAVE

[@PoetryJesusY2K]

The aesthetics of vaporwave is both a parody of 90s nostalgia and consumerism, yet it's presented entirely tongue in cheek to the point where it is definitely a meme. So to answer your question, I think it's both valid criticism and a meme. Although I do think the argumentation of the meme vs. criticism is overstated and unfortunately overshadows the music itself, which I think is based more on capturing an atmosphere than it does in creating a discussion on capitalism and consumerism.

[@deepcuts]

what about certain artists in the scene that create 'vaporwave' music that isn't tongue in cheek? Artists like 2814, I don't think they're making music specifically in mind to make an ironic comment, rather they like the aesthetics and sonic styles of the movement

[@PoetryJesusY2K]

deep cuts I was trying to clarify that in the last sentence that the consumerism angle does overshadow artists within the genre that are simply trying to capture an atmosphere, which I think 2814 does very very well.

[@ichtozavuzovsky8370]

Im an Anarcho-hauntologist!

[@MichaelFreckelton]

Can't say that I like vaporwave, but you dissected it pretty well here. In terms of the sound, it is actually just garbage to me. I never liked 80's music to begin with but slowed down it just becomes noise that drives me crazy. However in some way I can also see what you mean when you discuss it seriously, which is something I would never be able to do. Even if I can't stand it, and I have written it off many times over, you're right that there must be something there if it is still a thing. So once again brilliant video, good discussion, and even if I do not agree with your opinions on the genre I find that all your points are valid.

[@Chichilcitlalli]

But not all vw is based on 80s music, some is based on 90s and even 2000s and some is completely original.

[@benjaminenders8762]

I rather feel like, that Vaporwave offers both sides, without fully containing them. On the one hand, its obviously a bit joking around (slowing down Diana Ross) and whoever wants to see it that way, thats ok, but if you want to make deeper cuts :) you can also try to see the self consciousness of the whole thing and capitalism references and so on and so on. I don't think its niether that or that, nor both, i guess it is saying to the audience something like "well you can see me in that way, or in that way, you decision, but i don't know myself what i truly am"

[@deepcuts]

Yep I totally agree, though I tend to be more inclined to view the 'deeper cuts' as you say ;)

[@YuxinZhou13]

I thought I have listened to a large quantity of and a wide variety of music than many people. When I came here I realized, oops, never mind!

[@treybrown1592]

Peter Gabriel/genesis guide.

[@KingOfTheBeez]

do a full on history of shoegaze vid

[@Dr._Geno]

it's kind of both.

[@RasaMilivojevic]

How can Burial be considered as hauntological? I get how BoC would, and Basinski, partially. Not sure about Burial. I'd just like to hear an opinion as I'm a big fan of him. P.S. As always, great video Oliver

[@deepcuts]

here's a direct passage from one of Fisher's articles - *The problem is that the electronic sounds produced between the 1950s and the 1990s remain sonic signifiers of the future-and, as such, they are signs that the anticipated future never actually arrived. The music of Burial and of Ghost Box is haunted by a paradoxical nostalgia: a nostalgia for all the futures that were lost when culture’s modernist impetus succumbed to the terminal temporality of postmodernity.* Fisher suggests that many of the production techniques used by Burial have an appreciation for the physical, yet his whole sound is very contemporary, and melancholic at that. Therefore there's a disconnect between different time periods, musical techniques etc. Plus his music kinda sounds really haunted too!

[@vicaldama9314]

A lil of both

[@sabian8700]

Sythwave/Chillwave next?

[@stabbedwestward725]

Vaporwave is good music though. I found it from line racer (I think that's the name of the game) devoid of any philosophical reason for listening

[@CitizenClon]

Witch House review next?

[@frigidstarslp5679]

holy shit 9:25 - 9:42

[@dopplereffeckt675]

Hmmmm....You could argue that all electronic music is a nostalgia of the future, certainly if you look at a Kraftwerk photo's recall the 30 and 40s, so vapourwave is nothing new. Personally the glitch movement is a far more interesting idelogically, as it originally took those all too human failings, represented by the pops , crackles and the sound og say cd skipping, and creating something engaging. Check out artists like Pole, Oval, Alva Noto or SND for examples of this type of music.

[@Chichilcitlalli]

I don't see where it is stated that the idea of nostalgia and lost futures is new. Hell, BOC was doing that with 70s stuff. But it does not matter if it is new or not. What matters is if it is great! And vw is great.

[@7321janedou]

@@Chichilcitlalli bored children still need to fear the reaper

[@Chichilcitlalli]

@@7321janedou lol true

[@BrrrColdSnow]

" A S S t h e t i c s "

[@matthewconnery2168]

Academic storm in a teacup with carefully situated jargons: discussing humanities like new musicologists once did without proper analysis just to scratch the surface of a musical topic which is based around the social or certain political ('capitalist') aspects of a piece of art -or other sorts of- music by bringing in social and gender studies, racial and historical disciplines in combination with scientific and other, technically absolutely non-relevant knowledge. It surely opens new academic doors to discussions of the semantics and meanings and other pointless aspects of the discussed area by giving music scholars and other wish-to-be-creators endless opportunities to pretentiously write books and dissertations and articles on things which are absolutely pointless even to discuss just to be able to talk about something -by referring to and quoting other people doing exactly the same- whose discussion will not even be influential or useful in any way other than it being "interesting".

[@jjuvior]

What do you think they should be discussing about instead?

[@Malady]

These videos would be better if you incorporated sample audio clips under fair use copyright law.

[@Chichilcitlalli]

Better yet if it did not respect cr law, as vw does.

[@PhilippeLandryPhilippeALandry]

I made a hauntological mix on Soundcloud soundcloud.com/pppal/port-street-mix

[@sergeantspence3771]

I had hoped you'd do this video in an aesthetic filter. Damn thumbnails