The Controversial Music Genre of Barber Beats

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Check out today's topic in written form here!
vapor95.com/blogs/darknet/bar...
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Barber Beats: The Future of Vaporwave
vanpaugam.com/blog/what-are-b...
SLOWERPACE 音楽 - AN INTERVIEW
kjhk.org/web/2023/11/06/slowe...
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Much luv, ur boi,
Pad Chennington
#BarberBeats #PadChennington

[@PadChennington]

*NEW VIDEO!* My Top 10 Barber Beats Albums: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jZOplJKYf9Fsndk

[@blameitonyaboi]

wow the graphic design for these covers are so good. i feel like maybe 50% of the reason for its popularity

[@aceambling7685]

It is. The music itself is pretty mid, the covers get you to click.

[@Paul.......]

​@@aceambling7685not mid

[@braedonsdayoff9409]

It’s ok. Doesn’t say anything about the music it’s just Behance core

[@Paul.......]

@@aceambling7685 not mid

[@Paul.......]

Im literally being censored for the simplest reply f this platform

[@latrace1986]

Barber beats aka the music they play during evening dinners at Dorsia

[@Solodolo84]

Now let's listen to Paul Allen's barber beats

[@claymccoy]

Nobody goes there anymore.

[@Solodolo84]

@@claymccoy 😂😂😂😂🍻

[@dabidosan]

Too Black Sounding For Me

[@claymccoy]

@@dabidosan To each his own...

[@TunaSam2314]

I think of the people who compile these mixtapes as curators rather than full blown musicians. But I think their work is another form of art that lives side by side with music artistry.

[@Hozokauh]

undersaken phrased is at such: curation as an art form

[@suop1234]

agreed, i just wish more barber beats mixes contained a tracklist of original names somewhere... at least most people don't actively delete comments of the original tracks (cough, macroblank, cough)

[@Esirre]

i think the process of curating/separating the wheat from the chaff is valuable as it takes someone with eclectic taste and a deep love for the genre/subgenres to find the good stuff (and it's very time-consuming to even get say 12 samples together) However; I think original source material should also be listed. So yeah, I agree with @suop1234

[@blackgoat9826]

they might not be full blown musicians but what they do is a really strong form of art and it speaks how good of a visual and musical taste those people have ❤️

[@fernandogesteve1942]

its almost like they jockey disks, dont you think?

[@crossingtheline2189]

Haircuts for men seriously helped me sleep when i only had a few hours at a time. Cant say enough good stuff about those early collections

[@burdensofparasol]

True comment

[@ArbitraryOutcome]

Holy shit same wtf

[@Harshal378]

HFM help me secure good grades

[@Jchot]

most people have fans or white noise generators

[@piehed4]

HFM appreciation thread

[@basketcaseface813]

modest by default is my favorite to be born out of the genre, but HFM, the og, will never be topped.

[@mexicocity3956]

Haircuts for Men is insanely good. Classic sounds.

[@user-qs6np6hh5r]

love me some mbd

[@xilpes6254]

HfM really has his own vibe

[@edenfalling]

modest n gore are prolly my favs

[@danloool74]

Best fucking track by modest would have to be kisses so good man

[@GODSPEEDSOUND]

Yo, thank you for the massive shoutout! HFM and Macroblank are the reason I'm here, so to peg me as someone who helped push the genre to where it is today is wild to me, I appreciate it a ton

[@luddite_music]

Hey I remember one of your tracks opened the Blast Pit mix from Hungry Skull, it's a nice tune! Always fun to see how much artists are out there working on fresh barberbeats everyday. Keep up the good work :)

[@skullington2616]

Your tracks and albums are the titties, stellar work, keep it up!

[@djsugarc1075]

Macroblank is a copycat

[@youtubefriends384]

so to what you ?

[@edenfalling]

love ur music dawg

[@Comrade.Question]

Vaporwave started off criticizing capitalism through the recontextualization of corporate muzak and pop hits and now a decade later people are using the genre to make money by reselling other people's music. What a world.

[@seemysight]

Punk is in fact born dead

[@andrewhooper7603]

The disco elysium arc.

[@YellowJelly13]

That's not how Vaporwave started. Eccojams had nothing to do with that, for example.

[@LockheedMartinEnjoyer]

🌎 👨‍🚀🔫👨‍🚀

[@JJMcCullough]

They never claimed to be criticizing capitalism. The genre was simply about sentimentality, including sentimentality about consumer society.

[@talkingmudcrab718]

Honestly the best part of Barber Beats are the "album covers." I love so many of their art styles. The music is ok. Its relaxing.

[@francofx]

Yes, i love the artstyle, its so good

[@hypersleep9336]

i just hate that they flood the bandcamp vaporwave tag, its hard to find anything actually unique sounding these days

[@Personarose]

That’s the only real complaint I have with barber beats for as much as I enjoy it I wish other sub genres like mallsoft or vapor funk wouldn’t be lost in the shuffle.

[@hypersleep9336]

@@Personarose EXACTLY its so hard to find good mallsoft man, its annoying

[@josephs.3372]

Oh great, good to know it's lazy thievery that also makes finding actual musicians even harder... it's like AI slop clogging up your feed.

[@ionescuflorin7307]

@@Personarose Or you could just use RYM to find recent mallsoft or future funk

[@jaimebondoza3710]

@@hypersleep9336what is good mallsoft

[@fawkesmccloud8059]

A fun trivia piece is that HFM's bio used to just say "i take no credit. everything is plundered." , but he changed it to take some credit after he uploaded his original gabber work, northern labour camps. You can check it on the wayback machine.

[@the_trash_mane5875]

HFM did gabber? Am I reading this right? That's insane

[@fawkesmccloud8059]

@@the_trash_mane5875He actually has a whole second alias called "forbidden creme" that he uses to publish electronic works, but yeah, he has dabbled in gabber under the hfm name as well. I highly recommend northern labour camps, it's the thing that got me into gabber.

[@darman2429]

must've been recent since i still thought it was the "everything is plundered" line

[@fawkesmccloud8059]

@@darman2429May of 2021. Like I said, you can verify this on the wayback machine.

[@IcarusBPM]

I rember

[@naokocoed]

everyone gangsta until pad weighs in on barber beats

[@PadChennington]

thats right

[@itsenzo3000]

Eyyyy Naoko in the building

[@Dubwolfer]

i don't think anybody should beat their barber

[@jooojas]

but what if my barber beats me?

[@itsenzo3000]

İ usually barber my beats

[@JoeEmb776]

As a barber beats enjoyer, I tend to see them as just chill mixtapes and the makers to be an indie dj of sorts, and because of how small scale and indie it is it's mostly harmless. (Though I myself am quite the pirate with artistic media even though I'm an artist myself so I can relate to this kinda paradoxical passion for a medium as well)

[@2thiccOG]

the only problem is it’s not as small scale as it once was

[@dandrechesterfield5411]

It's not small scale if they're making thousands from bandcamp

[@2thiccOG]

@@dandrechesterfield5411 i’m saying

[@JoeEmb776]

@@dandrechesterfield5411 so they get a month's rent from making a mixtape. Big fuckin' deal.

[@Ocarina654]

@@JoeEmb776Yeeeeeah. I've made original music and gotten nothing for it, lol. Maybe I should have made some mixtapes of chillout music and actually made money.

[@Red4mber]

I kinda treat barber beats like mixes more than albums Nobody would get angry at a dj set because it's just plundered songs, it's here to set up a mood, it's the same for barber beats and they absolutely deliver As per selling records, i don't really know what to think about that, because to be fair, if my favorite mixes started selling on records, i'd probably buy a few of them, but i would expect them to be honest about it I mean not just telling that they plundered everything, but putting the actual songs in the tracklist

[@TheMrShnickers]

My same thoughts, it's pretty hypocritical for people to dissapprove of Barber beats mixers and not DJs who always play around with the music

[@GuerillaManifesto]

You quite literally just read the entire vapor95 website as the “content” for this video. Not a single original thought crossed your mind

[@ColdFuse96]

I just found your channel, and wow. I love it!!! These things like psychedelic or existential musical genres really interest me, but I thought everything was just an offspring of Vaporwave, but you made me realize there's way, way more to it than that. It's a whole world of music, and you do such an excellent job documenting and explaining it all. Godspeed on your future uploads!!!!

[@E3T7]

Fantastic channel, been here a few years and hope you’ll stay with me a few more :)

[@orlandosantosjunior7720]

I didn't even know Slowerpace was Brazilian! I'm so proud!

[@JukeboxHistory]

Oh man this is awesome. I’ve seen these in my feed on KZbin for years and had no idea what it was so I’m happy you uploaded this. Also love to see you doing a topic that is very clearly up your alley. Huge fan of all your videos but this topic screams “Pad Chennington”. Killer stuff

[@PadChennington]

thank you dude!!!

[@Solip_System]

This is the classic Pad content I stay around for! Lol Love barber beats, I’ve been listening to soooo much slowerpace lately

[@snoopypoopie849]

One of the reasons I love vaporwave is because once u hear a mix that u definitely love and cannot get enough of u look for the sample and by listening to the sample it’s as if u are rediscovering the song again and you get excited waiting for that samples part to come up,, I love how vaporwave lets you discover artists with amazing tracks that u might’ve not even be able to have a chance to come across

[@cloudbloom]

Around 5 years ago I got really into barber beats, however as with many genres like chillwave it started to come with lots of imitators who barely put effort into making the music unique. Basically it got oversaturated quickly and it's harder to find the true gems in the genre

[@faloel]

omg its mr. cloudbloom

[@cloudbloom]

@@faloel which running gag on a youtube channel comment section do you know me from?

[@faloel]

@@cloudbloom not youtube but this one berserk group somewhere else 🤫

[@cloudbloom]

@@faloel ah nice, probably the group berserk shitposting arc on facebook. I actually stopped using all social media (besides youtube) the day I found out Miura died so I haven't been on there since

[@Paul.......]

​@cloudbloom why did a manga artist's death cause you to quit social media?

[@contextiseverythingmediane2816]

The Patreon email of a NEW Pad video is always a good vibe 😌

[@mauhu]

it's crazy how macroblank can slow down hundreds of tracks, and release them under different names. It would be 1000% better if they just release it as mixes.

[@thecrapehanger24]

Better for who?

[@ArcticaQuantum]

yeah i don't think taking one of the most unique aspects of macroblanks work away would make "it" ""better""

[@mauhu]

@@ArcticaQuantum they can still make his edits to it, but I think they shouldn’t release them under a different name. KZbin usually recognises most of the songs used but about 30% of all songs go uncredited. That’s assuming that everyone scrolls down the description.

[@ArcticaQuantum]

@@mauhu a good portion of the artists sampled are completely defunct and if his track were released as a remix it would never be found or played. i agree there should be room for crediting the original artists and more edits, but doing away with the artist name / the album format decontextualizes the tracks so they don't blend as a cohesive piece.

[@ArcticaQuantum]

give the original artists a cut of the revenue (if any. most of the bb artists make next to nothing) in the same manner hiphop artists do

[@valentines9999]

holy shit, haven't seen you pop up on my feed for years. glad to see you're still around man. time to catch up on what i've missed.

[@MediaBoy13]

Always love seeing a new video from you, especially on genres I haven't heard of before. I also find your videos on these genres inspiring to create my own music and art

[@sweetwheatsy]

Dude. As an avid Haircuts for Men-listener for many years by now, this was really fascinating. At first I had no idea what to make of it and just bought it at face-value as someone who actually constructed these chill beats - or perhaps added a saxophone on it, since so many of the tracks had a sax. But then I heard the one mixtape where they use Windowlicker by Aphex Twin and I knew something was up. I think the Coronamix they made is my favorite, because it's straight up a sort of DJ-set where they make all the tracks flow well into each other, so it's both more of a original product and also really good at the same time. Fascinating nonetheless. Can't resist the chill vibes at times though.

[@dynamicdingus7003]

I have been listening to slowerpace and macroblank a bit. I also like a Chilean guy called Mabisyo. However, I listen to his jazzy atmospheric stuff more. It's so good. "Sun colored eyes" and "In the dreams of a dragon" are amazing

[@Vampyroteuthis]

Pad youre videos scratch such a niche itch for me and i love you for it!!!

[@Xz_Detrix707_zX]

I am freaking out! I am not the only one in the world that knows about this stuff omg. I really, really like their music and didn’t realised the “history” around them. - Even though they can be still considered “lazy” i still really like them and i feel like i would’ve never even thought of hearing the originals without it. - the reason i feel like it can make productive is because of the whole nature of it, the music make you feel like your getting ready to work at your “million dollar company” or “getting dressed/groomed for a action movie.” Makes you in a very productive type of mood where you are ready to get things done. One of my favorites is haircut’s for mens : Nothing special, nothing wonderful (especially the track “sweatpants”) is one of my favourite songs or things ever. This video was really good and i really like it a lot ! I really like this type of content and i hope you continue it! Also hi from Brazil

[@rooxg]

I get the aesthetic appeal of the genre, and i do dig the sound, but as someone who writes music themselves , i can't help but get riled up when i see a single guy dropping a 15 track album every week just by slowing down 8bars from an old takanaka tune and adding some fx to it, while other talented producers and musicians spend tens of hours into a single tune and get basically no attention for their original piece of music. Now i'm far from being against sampling and sample editing of any sort, but i think this whole genre just takes it a bit too far. What i'd like to see though is actual musicians creating this type of music from scratch. Writing an 8/16 bars loop/chord progression really isn't that hard and with that little bit of effort i think it could push the genre in a really great direction.

[@ionescuflorin7307]

Now there are also sample-free barber beats producers like ROMBREAKER, Message Me Later, Telenights, Mabisyo, DEvSEb, Machina Pensant, etc.

[@rooxg]

@@ionescuflorin7307 can't say I know much of these , but I stumbled onto mabisyo's yt Channel a while ago in which the description mentions it's music mostly made of samples ?

[@lenathemaid]

As someone who also writes music Stealing is good and ur a prude

[@howlinnadeaux766]

your music is great @rooxg subbed!

[@rooxg]

@@howlinnadeaux766 hey thank you so much for checking me out ! 🤟👽

[@suss2484]

There are so many on the rise barber beat artists, it's crazy. Slowerpace, Dirty River, Oblique Occasions, there's so many great artists with huge discographies 🦑💜

[@trueno8743]

absolutely loved punishment, can't wait to see what OO does next 🎉

[@user-qs6np6hh5r]

OO isn't on the rise, he's one of the OGs lol

[@trueno8743]

@@user-qs6np6hh5r im aware, i just like their most recent project lol

[@trillconfirmed]

Easy to have a huge discography when you're just sampling without any edits lol

[@idaten-dragonsoul]

OO’s semi recent Ketamine series really impressed me, I had fun listening to almost all of them (Ket 5 was just okay) absolutely love the guy

[@Intrepid_Wolf]

I was waiting for you to cover Barber Beats. I absolutely love the genre and the creators that are apart of it. The community is really great and I certainly enjoy hearing what each creator mixes up next!

[@Yhvhfollower]

This popped in my recommended today, haven't seen your vids in a while and you've really improved your writing over the years, good job man

[@BarbWaltersMusic]

Rory Macdonald on a cover hits different

[@dreamshore_music]

Hell yea

[@VGEmblem]

When

[@4some2joe0]

Was that HFM or Monodrone

[@remembernavarro5344]

I had listened to a bunch of Haircuts for Men and Macroblank and thought there was some sampling involved and that was it... had no idea a lot of the songs are literally lifted from other artists, barely edited. I see in the comments that some people try to take the high road and call them/themselves "curators" but if that was the case then they would credit the original artists appropriately instead of being cheeky and translating everything to japanese to make it harder to find the original songs, selling their albums and even selling merch! Kinda like the NFT/AI bros of the music world...

[@ohwell2088]

Pad you partially got me thorugh the pandemic and your content is strangely nostalgic to me now, I was in your streams 3 to 4 years ago. Thanks for puttingo out such in depth and interesting videos.

[@eyjeymusic]

Superb content quality, please keep up the incredible work!! 👏🏼

[@PadChennington]

Thank you homie! Got a lot more videos planned for 2024, stay tuned!

[@xXBocephusXx]

I absolutely love barber beats! The remember a year or two ago seeing Macroblanks mix with the Nazgûl on the front and thinking I had to see what it was. I’ve been hooked ever since then.

[@lpharmer3496]

It's desert sand feels warm at night is a interesting artist since he makes entirely original music but then slows it down to a snail's pace plus reverb

[@hydrophobia936]

Love their stuff. I use desert sand's music for sleep aid.

[@truestory2990]

His most played and well known track is literally just a Taiwanese pop song slowed down and stretched to 20 minutes

[@theDurman]

The artwork is awesome too. Such a good style, across so many albums and artists. Been enjoying haircuts for years

[@GriefBurrito]

Great video, it's a genre we all stumbled on and I'm so grateful for the breakdown of where it's come from

[@PadChennington]

What are your thoughts on Barber Beats? Do you dig em or nah?

[@harmonyinultraviolet]

A bit of a confessional moment. I don't want to be the guy who shouts "these people steals other people's work into their own stuff" or whatever, because realistically I also use samples in my music. Barber beats legit made me jealous as an artist because the amount of work they put in is way little than other producers - I would say even compared with vaporware artists who do intricate micro-sampling arrangements. Yet they gained lots of popularity in the scene. I'd say that - but I can't really control the factor of popularity in general. Understandably barber beats was made in favor of making a playlist of already-existent songs but with different vibe and feel, and producing a whole new music is whole another thing. But at the end of the day, the existence of barber beats taught me to actually be a better producer who can actually compose music, who can actually flip samples creatively, because when people recognize my work, I know deep in my heart that I actually constructed those music piece by piece, and not just stretching and reverbing music.

[@polygonplus9999]

barber beats producer (savant shadow) here: recently i've changed my opinions on albums in the genre. while i think they're cool as music despite their "lazy" nature, i don't consider them albums so much as mixes. as such i've switched my position as an "artist" to "mixer" or even an "mp3 jockey." morally is a different story. i've recently tried to credit those who i "sample", as i've tried to switch to a more mix-oriented style. while it's undoubtedly questionable in terms of morality, one can argue that any morph in a song can classify it as "original." at the end of the day, i'd say crediting samples in vaporwave in general is better, i want people to not only see our side but the original side of things.

[@scaacacsc]

Barber beats is the music graphic designers make when they make a sick album cover but they suck at actually producing.

[@lava-yq7tf]

I personally don't mind them but I kinda laugh to myself when people get sad that their favorite barber beats albums get taken down but the album is just unknown jazz songs that are slowed down.

[@Gloin1994]

There is nothing better for me to listen at work. Calm and relaxing.

[@johnasimakis7970]

Why not just give credit to the original artist? For example, have the cover art state the name of the original or something.

[@puzzlepuddles6712]

how do you always seem to make videos on the obscure genres of music i like?? amazing!

[@MR.FREEDMAN]

I've been waiting for someone to cover this.

[@Estmaraver]

Been seeing you on the Slowerpace comment sections. You've been consuming this like Skittles.

[@PadChennington]

seriously can't get enough of slowerpace, every release is such a banger. loved the latest one pyromaniac

[@Estmaraver]

@@PadChennington The music is so good for BGM. I loved Pyromaniac, especially due to the Shadowrun cover art, but my personal favorites are Bellum Divinum and Barbershop Simulator. The first track of Bellum Divinum, Duellum Gigantum, has an intensity quite uncommon in the genre.

[@4some2joe0]

Perhaps Godspeed should take a Slowepace.. Or Slowerpace increase to Godspeed 😁

[@TUPPERWAVE]

Pad “MF” Chennington - the realest

[@contextiseverythingmediane2816]

TUPPERWAVE!! Beast 👌

[@Solodolo84]

What up fam 💯🫡

[@TUPPERWAVE]

@@Solodolo84 my good chum!

[@codybassett112]

thank you for introducing me to a new genre. looking into this and boombap now.

[@whokillediggy]

Feels like a holiday every time Pad drops a vid 💚

[@knownartiste]

hey there, i saw some of my thumbnails! nice video. barber beats to me is like dadaism; it sort of spits in the face of decorum but allows artists to express and recontextualize as they see fit. it's sharing, it can be poetic, it is not held up by a central theme or hierarchy. there are ways to elevate and inject more 'artistic integrity' back into a project too. that's up to the artist.

[@Hozokauh]

𝐺𝑂𝑅𝐸 said it best: all art is recycled

[@OutHere1]

⁠@@Hozokauh said it best: all art is recycled

[@algernonsblackwoods5859]

I found Macroblank and a dude called Middle MGMT last year and they hooked me. Driving barber beats, jogging barber beats, chilling out barber beats yeah i think you get the point.

[@seitokimbo8900]

That's breathing my friend.

[@PortervilleMusicSociety]

SUCH an honor to see this genre getting some attention!!! I am such a big fan of this genre and I totally love Pad so BIG WIN! And for my birthday today too!!! yesssss

[@clementcouvreur3091]

Amazing video, really interesting, thanks a lot! We want mooore 😊

[@autotunedog]

Lets go! I was waiting for this one :)

[@TheDarkYoshi64]

“It’s time for the moment you’ve been waiting fooooor!”

[@onnaquest]

Thanks for this. I haven't personally unpacked what the genre is exactly - although I think I already get it. We used to joke with our house DJ friends about "pants" house - sounding like what you'd hear shopping for pants lol. I've been stuck on Opal Vessel's KZbin for a minute now! Great stuff!! Looking forward to discovering more. ✌️

[@just.cody.]

Ayyy, good to see another Pad upload today!

[@drewbullinger5825]

Love the Snowpoint Lounge shoutout

[@JHanrahan]

I don’t think it’s even remotely up for debate that posting someone else’s work as your own is just theft if you don’t even change it.

[@julesmoizan8893]

Amazing video, I had no idea that there were more albums like eternity of pain from macroblank.

[@MisterW00D]

Yo, thank you for the massive shoutout! HFM and Macroblank are the reason I'm here, so to peg me as someone who helped push the genre to where it is today is wild to me, I appreciate it a ton (0.75x)

[@tHatGuYdubs]

Seeing it discussed like this makes me think of barber beats as more of a subgenre of plunderphonics that evolved its aesthetics heavily from vaporwave. Considering a lot of plunderphonics artists also don't know whether to call themselves DJ's/Producers/ or simply music curators the connection there is strong. Not to mention the headache that is sample clearing a heavily sampled release, a lot of the plunderphonics crew don't monetize their stuff at all, except for maybe the bigger names like The Avalanches who spent years trying to get projects released.

[@DJPastaYaY]

I've always seen this genre on surface level and never really bothered to learn more about it. After watching this video I am for sure inspired to learn more. Thank you!

[@hungryyelly]

Fantastic video! I got recommended macroblank about 2-3 years ago and have been down the rabbit hole ever since. I only recently discovered modest by default like 3 weeks ago and permaculture is a real treat. I love barber beats because they let me keep my focus clear and concise especially when I'm doing certain monotonous things at work. Barber beats are absolute motivation starters for me and I try and click any new ones the youtube algorithim recommends me. Another artist that I've been enjoying thats a bit closer to nujabes as opposed to barber beats is Vanilla. Summer is my absolute favourite track they've made. The soundscapes get even deeper when you get a newer piece of audio equipment. I remember I got my first pair of IEMs and relistened to some vanilla and macroblank and it just made my jaw drop. Fantastic video mate 👍

[@JasonKim1]

Once again, love your music writing

[@danielfishburn7042]

Vaporwave: a genre literally based on slowing down music and selling it on a cassette. R/vaporwave: this is wrong :((((

[@l1ghtning334]

Slowing down your own created music.Look, I'm not someone to complain about sampling in music and vaporwave is far from being the only genre that uses samples extensivly and i do believe that people can impove the work of others but there has to at least be some acknowledgement of the original

[@josephs.3372]

Vaporwave: shoving FX up the ass to make a song sound different from the original Barberbeats: reuploading the song, or detuning it a half-step are you 16 years old? do you have kid-brain still?

[@jacobjb]

I think this is an oversimplification, yes vaporwave at it's core is based on slowing down music but there is a lot more done to it with effects, production and chopping. Artists like Macroblank and Haircuts for Men do not get a pass because they do the bare minimum of slow it down and that's literally all they do. The cuts are simple to nonexistent and add nothing, the effects are not there or barely add anything. The samples are a crutch not a tool with a lot of these barber beats artists. I will not say it is all of them but with a lot of them it is.

[@lemonheins2720]

@@l1ghtning334 This. jesus christ.

[@grimmerjxcts2206]

Reddit 💩

[@CoolCalmMaurice]

Never heard of this genre. Appreciate this vid, glad I stumbled on this. Definitely gonna explore more.

[@ThePortjumper]

Aye, always love to see the Pad uploads.

[@T_D_B_]

This isn't really sampling. More like entire tracks slowed and maybe filtered, and EQed... I'm not against it, but let's be clear. Terms like sampling have meanings.

[@spacecatet1754]

I have enjoyed many Barber Beats albums throughout the years that it's existed. For the most part, I wish Barber Beats "producers" were more up front about their source material. I always find myself wanting to find the original tracks and artists who made the songs in the first place. Sure, youtube does pretty well with copyright detection of these tracks (as stated in the video). But there are always certain tracks in these albums that I am unable to identify and I feel like it is a disservice to the original creators.

[@scarecrovv]

Lfg. Been waiting for you to do barber beats

[@kristophergarcia199]

Wow, I had no idea this genre was called Barber Beats, but it makes sense, and it's a great name. I remember listening to HFM back in the day and showing my friends and just telling them its really good slowed down jams you can chill too. After that, my neighbor would invite me for coffee and he'd always have HFM on. Great video Pad and I got some good recommendations. Thank you!

[@ShinjiGetsGrounded]

elevator music for zoomers

[@Noizzed]

It's definitely more somber than you average elevator music lol

[@rhoansuede7938]

I just had a SHORT listen on some of them, basically it's just Nu Jazz/Trip Hop named differently (Correct me if I'm wrong)? You got Thievery Corporation, Tosca, Kruder and Dorfmeister, Fila Brazilia, Kid Loco, early Bonobo, Air etc.

[@omarnsimpson908]

Yeah, there are some Barber Beats projects that truly are doing something new or innovative but so much of it just sounds like Gen Z kids who found somebody’s old collection of late 90s and early 2000s Cafe Del Mar and Trip-Hop compilations and pulled a Steamed Hams with it.

[@conkyjoe8932]

Yea I definitely agree haha. With a lot of the more uhhh...I guess "chill-ish" sounding electronic genres, there is a ton of cross-over territory. I honestly find it sorta laughable at times, bc it's like okay who honestly finds the sounds to be SO different that we literally have to use new GENRE TERMS to differenciate them? If *Song A* and *Song B* both feature heavy drums, pronounced bass, ethereal soundscapes/horror vibes, and are in the key of G Minor...what makes Song A witchhouse and Song B darkwave? Lol just an example. Also, HUGE Tosca fan herre myself. I've honestly never come across anyone mention them before, so shout outs to you!!!

[@omarnsimpson908]

@@conkyjoe8932 Tosca is criminally slept on for sure. “Put It On” absolutely slaps.

[@timbull194]

The fact every cover has so much style is probably the main reason I like it. It's just so vibes

[@snowpointlounge7074]

Thank you for the mention of my project. I'm grateful that you enjoy my audio journeys ❄

[@PadChennington]

my pleasure! Also loving FRONTIER ワ​ン​ダ​ー​ラ​ン​ド !!

[@EeveeEuphoria]

i'm an artist myself, not a musical artist, but my take is that it's pretty cool. the only thing i wish for was more attribution to the original artists, but it's otherwise a fascinating genre. i have many of macroblank's albums that i downloaded before bandcamp shut them down, and i continue to listen to them pretty regularly. and hey, it's nice to see people start to do sample-free takes on the genre, the one album you showed briefly is one that i'll definitely buy soon.

[@rdzu834]

I appreciate the Trip Hop revival the sound has, but it would be better if there were new artists who could recreate the “barber beats” sound with a clean slate instead of sampling other artists and slapping their own name on it. The vibe and aesthetic is nice. The potential is promising. But the plagiarism aspect needs to go in order for it to be the next incarnation of Trip Hop. When it comes to VapourWave bringing back Trip Hop, George Clanton gets it right.

[@lolhuman25]

Dude, I got so many of these albums recommended to me and the album covers looked metal af. So I gave one or two of them a listen at them expecting some sort of heavy music and what I find are mild beats to relax/study to, I got tonal whiplash.

[@vaporscaperecords]

Always glad to see Pad shining some light on another amazing genre !

[@miguelpatino3856]

It's like vaporwave... but now 70% lazier! (no hate, I say this as a vaporwave fan)

[@Lose-Yourself-To-Dance]

I think we can call them "musical curators" and if they edit samples - "producers" as well. With how much music there is, spotlighting good music becomes an important task. And that is what they do.

[@Hozokauh]

we are, at best, humble curators. at worst, petty pilferers. undersaken has called barber beats curation as an art form

[@MALICEM12]

It's really no different from hip hop remixes from the 80s

[@BloodoftheLotus13]

A lot of them DON'T spotlight the music they're stealing though. They change the name of a track and slow it down and pretend they made it.

[@Lose-Yourself-To-Dance]

@@BloodoftheLotus13 I only listen to Macroblank and never seen him claim that the music was made by him. Below his videos on KZbin you can expand description and see original tracks in order. Sure, he doesn't actively promote them, but nor does he claim ownership.

[@Hozokauh]

@@BloodoftheLotus13 I have never seen a single barber beats artist claim/pretend they originally made a track lol

[@matthew_thefallen]

Some of these project are very esoteric and mystical to me, i love them. It takes me to a place of nostalgia and relax

[@zander3943]

Even if I don't know anything about it, i love hearing you talk about music your passionate about

[@Gabriel_mendes360]

Babe… wake up! He’s back!

[@PadChennington]

HOWDY

[@Armrongeddon]

Elevator music.

[@PadChennington]

Barber shop elevator music*

[@TheMrShnickers]

@@PadChennington But better

[@woodmasta]

Bro all i listen to is underground music. Im happy I found your channel

[@SG-jq5vt]

Worked at a Ramen so for about six years, we listen almost exclusively to Haircuts For Men and Vaporwave/Barber Beats. Twas a time!

[@papacharlie-ee1rh]

❤

[@SkyIsTumbling]

the type of sounds in barber beats is really way more complex than you can make it out to be on surface level, it’s a perfectly balanced mixture of tons of different genres like jazz, world music, jungle, downtempo, shoegaze, trip hop, gnawa, like barber beats to a certain point can have almost every other genre inside of it and it can work. the best albums will organize and blend completely different genres together track to track, to almost weave a narrative out of different genres and samples. haircuts for men’s original vision is really imbedded in this imo, and alot of new artist’s completely disregard a big part of the genre’s identity by just calling it lounge or just sampling the same lounge artists they have been over and over again. you can really sample anything in barber beats, as long as you know the limits of what you can do in the genre. honestly it can be one of the coolest vaporwave genres when you see how it can make hauntology out of any genre, culture, and history. but honestly, there are so many different views and perspectives on this genre that i can see anyones view as valid. i’ve seen the genre rise and grow since it was just haircuts for men, from tokyo to honolulu, & and | nothing | back in 2018-2020. i really love the genre, it’s molded and shaped my whole music tastes as it has led me to discover tons of new genres and artists i love, just from finding samples used in barber beats. it’s the most beautiful form of hauntology and sharing cultural memories and even just best way to find new music for me.

[@dffgffffffdddddddddd]

It's literally looped triphop that's slowed down the songs are literally copyright on all their "albums"

[@SkyIsTumbling]

@@dffgffffffdddddddddd ❤️

[@polygonplus9999]

@@dffgffffffdddddddddd the dude ur replying to creates original barber beats, if anything he'd know more on the genre

[@deathwave8375]

reading your description, gen z literally made "Thievery Corporation: the genre" lmao

[@sergedotcom]

​@@deathwave8375 we need to go back we did these kids wrong

[@VANITAS567]

yo! thanks for showing BARBER BEATER PT 2 シ​ャ​ー​プ​な​カ​ッ​テ​ィ​ン​グ​コ​ー​ム's cover art in the beginning of the video! i wanted to point out that this album, and BARBER BEATER 床屋を打ち負かす音楽, is a reaction to the genre. part 1 reacts in heavily chopping sampled tracks making them non detectable. for part 2 everything is sampleless & slowed as a barberbeats/vaporwave artist in traditional sense would. the Barber beater albums tries not to be lazy. :) i also want to add that these reactions are very inspired by the genre and in no way a form of disrespect. barberbeats has become the new sound and is very catchy. the lazy edits actually inspired me to make these. it's way harder to keep stuff minimal and keep it lazy than you think! curious where it will take vaporwave ❤

[@artophile7777]

You had some unholy amount of subscribers so I fixed it ;)

[@VANITAS567]

@@artophile7777 welcome nr 667! thats luck on top 💕

[@4some2joe0]

There are so many BarberBeats albums out, and I'm happy to say that they keep cranking those out. Here's a quick producer list to explore starting with the one I think is the pioneer; Haircuts For Men Monodrone Gods of Something Macro Blank Male Alchemy Mabisyo / Virtual Vice Modest By Default Gore Oblique Occasions Slowerpace Godspeed Magdalene Oscob Time Fragment Opal Vessel Micro Mecha Darkness Savant Shadow The World We Live In TWWLI Rawcats Faded Dreamer Sacrosanct Undersaken And there's more, please feel free to add :)

[@homtanks5899]

Nice to see the other person having the tapes of skindance, really my fav project out of the scene that should get more recognition. Didn't manage to scan the QR codes yet though.

[@GO-tq6hs]

for me personally barber beats is about the curation and not creation. i think the original artists should get the majority of the kickback, but at the same time lots of these tracks are things people would never generally hear. I know lots of tracks were coming from like licensed generic dj library albums, basically contract work for the original artists. So the only chance you might have had to hear some of these is if you were at a live event they were played at, or if you are digging for samples on obscure catalogs. I know everyone is different, but personally if i was one of the original artists and my track blew up because it was on a macroblank album I'd be really thankful that people were listening to it and enjoying it. That being said, I'd still want credit. I think most barber beats producers operate on the whole "beg for forgiveness instead of ask for permission" which maybe if that changed the genre wouldn't be so controversial.

[@claymore6170]

To me the people that make barber beats are curators, their work is similar to the one of a dj in the sense that they capture an aesthetic with purposely picked and manipulated tracks or samples. While the music by it self is clearly not original, with the manipulation and in conjuntion with the other tracks or samples a new body of work is created with a ditinct meaning/feeling diferent to the original material, that in my opinion has its own merit. They are the new djs of the digital bootleg era.

[@GunShark0]

Good points and well said.

[@theamazingblazinggamer9916]

Feels so weird being around since BB’s inception like a decade ago and finally seeing its coverage.

[@morkeherrer2024]

I love the fact that I've listened to every album displayed in this video. This can express authentically how I love this music genre.

[@Zaburino]

I discovered this subgenre a couple years ago through Macroblank and loved it, I've been listening to vaporwave since Eccojams Vol.1. But it didn't take long until I saw in the comments people posting names of the barely edited source songs, and alarmingly, other people complaining that their source lists were being deleted. I can get behind these "albums" being more considered as mixtapes and the artists being more like DJs or curators, but actively hiding the names and artists of the songs they use feels more unethical than straight up piracy to me. I'm honestly glad a few Barber Beat "artists" got all their stuff scrubbed from Bandcamp, if only to push the rest of the scene to be a bit more innovative and creative. While I don't think fair use legally applies to any of this, I use the idea of a "transformative work" as a guiding star when evaluating a genre like this. As I listened to Macroblank that first few days, for every beat that I loved grooving to, there was another that sounded like a lazy flip of slowed-down Balearic downtempo or jazz. While with classic vaporwave there were enough elements in a song or edits to a sample that, even though many famous samples are easily recognizable, the end result felt like an actual new song. Very few Barber Beat tracks meet this standard. And then I step back and think about people decrying any sampling being used in the 80s and 90s and how ridiculous I thought they looked, and all the gigabytes of mp3s I pirated before Spotify came to the Western Hemisphere, and several famous examples of theft-as-art in the Visual Arts; even though I find fault with the ethics of these artists, I'm ultimately very excited to follow this new evolution of Vaporwave wherever it leads us. Watching a new genre or subgenre grow and spread in real-time is one of my favorite pastimes as a music nerd, even when it is seemingly growing itself into an ouroboros.

[@radiak55]

I've listened exclusively to HfM since 2018 and didn't know there was more until last year. I think that Vapor wave is the decade defining music of this era. Because one thing is to have these re-revivals of Past decades creeping up like first with the 80s, then the 90s (which was a revival of the 70s) into being a sort of placebo effect of the thing many millenials and Gen Z look fondly on their early years. Now turned into more of commercializing nostalgia. I think that Vaporwave is a true attempt to use all of these ties that we have to the past and make the remix an actual choice. The fact that the barber beat offshoot to me looks like the midpoint of being a creative mixtspe from a fully realised album was a happy coincidence. Maybe too much thinking into this but the same way oeoo younger than 40 can't achieve the apparent hallmarks of adulthood like being a homeowner, stable income etc and then drift their expenses and interests elsewhere (the whole thing of milenials killing X industry is more because their interests are different from past generations)

[@MALICEM12]

I agree, vaporwave is very much a reaction to the the cultural death of the West and gen millennial onward's coping and lamenting of that. All of our faded memories of better times and our desperate attempt to go back to when our societies still seemed to function and produce works worthy of being called art

[@bdinh3130]

I take this new wave of vaporwave that is barber beats as a furtherment of this concept of recontextualization first laid out by plunderphonics. Vaporwave has always been about this but it’s only evolved throughout the years. The album art, the song names in different languages, and the sound all play into this aesthetic of an alternate reality. The music itself being plundered loses meaning as it is given new life in this rediscovery masquerading as a first genuine encounter of a source. Which itself is obscured and given mystique by the aesthetic as a whole and the anonymity of these artists. Making them feel really like they are from some sort of offshoot reality. Macroblank himself outright admits to just “plundering”. But I at least think it takes artistic taste and vision to be able to form a coherent soundscape with this niche of an aesthetic. It also takes being somewhat of an audiophile to have such a wide array of sounds to sample from. If people are angry original artists aren’t being credited I would hope they can at least recognize that is part of the aesthetic of the genre. Why are so many tracks and albums in languages? The obfuscation isn’t supposed to be just taken as such for all the reasons stated. Given the immensity of sounds and music we find ourselves in now, for a majority of people this is the only way they would even encounter these plundered sounds. Given new life. For those curious enough finding the “source” of these samples is not difficult.

[@allurevibe]

This was a great video and informative for those who are entering this genre.