About
Vaporwave is a satirical musical genre inspired by electronic dance music, New Age music and the indie dance genres chillwave and seapunk.
History
According to an article in the Chicago Reader,[1] the Vaporwave genre emerged on July 1st, 2011 with the release of the album New Dreams LTD. by Laserdisc Visions, which was later dubbed “vaporwave” by Texas producer Will Burnett.
Reception
In December 2012, the music blog /mu/essentials[3] posted a graphic for “Essential Vaporwave” (shown below).
On March 19th, 2013, the music blog Another County Heard[4] published an article titled “The Verdict on Vaporwave,” which noted how many Internet commenters had declared vaporwave to be “over.” On December 27th, Vice[2] published an article comparing vaporwave to seapunk, which quoted forum commenter descriptions of the genre as “chillwave for Marxists,” “post-elevator music” and “corporate smooth jazz Windows 95 pop.”
On Tumblr
On January 24th, 2013, the Tumblr[5] blog “Vaporwave Album Covers” was launched, highlighted album art from notable vaporwave artists (shown below).
On June 18th, 2014, YouTuber dingin dongin uploaded a Hitler reacts video in which he discusses vaporwave’s popularity on Tumblr (shown below).
Impact
Notable Videos
Search Interest
External References
[1]Chicago Reader – Vaporwave and the observer effect
[2]Vice – Is Vaporwave the New Seapunk
[3]Muessentials – Essential vaporwave
[4]Another County Heard – The Verdict on Vaporwave
[5]Tumblr – Vaporwave Album Covers