V A P O R W A V E

Vaporwave is a micro-genre of electronic music, slowing nostalgic music such as smooth jazz or muzak which were common in hotel lobbies or elevators, where both genres are very calming. This microgenre appeared in the early 2010s, with Ramona Andra Xavier or Vektroid pioneering this genre when she slowed down It’s Your Move by Diana Ross on her album Floral Shoppe. This song is titled リサフランク420 / 現代のコンピュー (Lisa Frank 420 / Modern Computing) and is now synonymous with the vaporwave genre. 

Vaporwave’s aesthetics are about the exotic and old software, with Greek statues, palm trees in a windows 98 MSPaint program. This aesthetic style spread fast online and instead turned into satire, quickly turning into short-lived internet culture, sprouting new sub-genres such as Mallsoft, Future funk and Deathdream. 

When these aesthetics grow and become mainstream these micro-genres fade away. Once they are dissected, placed in new contexts and torn apart, they become simplified, lack substance and lose their magic. In YouTube video tutorials you learn that to create vaporwave music is very simple: all you have to do is slow down a 1990s R&B track by half then press play.

Artists such as Blank Banshee combine the nostalgic sounds of vaporwave with trap beats, creating the genre Vaportrap, but unlike other artists in this genre, is still producing music.

But once this genre became mainstream, the original concepts dissipated and the original music was replaced with satire versions of 1990s R&B slowed down with a high pass filter and light reverb/chorus. Nowadays, this microgenre is fading away and becoming a memory, just like the nostalgia they were attempting to recreate.