A b o u t
Vaporwave is a microgenre of electronic music and an Internet artform that emerged in the early 2010s. The style is defined by its appropriation of 1980s and 1990s mood music styles such as smooth jazz, elevator music, R&B, and lounge music, typically sampling or manipulating tracks via chopped and screwed techniques and other effects. Its surrounding subculture is sometimes associated with an ambiguous or satirical take on consumer capitalism and pop culture, and tends to be characterized by a nostalgic or surrealist engagement with the popular entertainment, technology and advertising of previous decades. It also incorporates early Internet imagery, late 1990s web design, glitch art, anime, 3D-rendered objects, and cyberpunk tropes in its cover artwork and music videos.
Originating as an ironic variant of chillwave, vaporwave was loosely derived from the experimental tendencies of the mid-2000s hypnagogic pop scene. The style was pioneered by producers such as James Ferraro, Daniel Lopatin, and Ramona Xavier, who each used various pseudonyms. A circle of online producers were particularly inspired by Xavier’s Floral Shoppe (2011), which established a blueprint for the genre. The movement subsequently built an audience on sites Last.fm, Reddit and 4chan while a flood of new acts, also operating under online pseudonyms, turned to Bandcamp for distribution. Following the wider exposure of vaporwave in 2012, a wealth of subgenres and offshoots emerged, such as future funk, mallsoft, and hardvapour.
A b o u t
Aesthetic, often stylized as a e s t h e t i c or Ａ Ｅ Ｓ Ｔ Ｈ Ｅ Ｔ Ｉ Ｃ in either uppercase or lowercase fullwidth characters, is a term that refers to retro-inspired visual art and music associated with the vapourwave subculture, which typically include Japanese lettering and nostalgic themes from the 1980’s and 1990’s computer operating systems and video game consoles. Additionally, the term is widely associated with the 2012 vaporwave song “リサフランク420 / 現代のコンピュー” by Macintosh Plus.
O r i g i n
The term has its origins in the philosophy of art, in which “aesthetics” is considered the study of beauty and taste. In the early 2010s, the term was adopted by vaporwave enthusiasts with the rise of the genre on the site Tumblr, often accompanied by art styles from the 1980s and 1990s. On February 14th, 2012, the Vaporwave artist Macintosh Plus released the album Floral Shoppe which included the song “リサフランク420 / 現代のコンピュー” that many began associating with the term “aesthetic”.
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