A Brief History of Vaporwave

I was sitting on my computer around 3 am when I saw a video titled “A brief history of vaporwave” . I was intrigued so I clicked on it. The video featured information about Vaporwave’s beginnings in the depths of the internet. It showed how Vaporwave is very unique with its varying subgenres and how it was completely born and raised on the internet. 

Vaporwave originally hit the mainstream in 2010 with albums like Macintosh Plus’ Floral Shoppe. Like previously stated Vaporwave is completely based on the internet with no real outside influence. If you have heard Vaporwave before you probably remember the wavy ambient sound to it but “Vaporwave” really has no sound as it is considered an idea and each sub genre focuses on one specific part of that genre so usually when most people talk about Vaporwave they are talking about Faux-Utopian the genre in which Macintosh Plus’ Floral Shoppe fits into. This is the genre with the ambient slow sound most people attribute with Vaporwave. After its interaction with the mainstream in 2010 with Floral Shoppe, Vaporwave has died down back into the recesses of the internet.

As I mentioned there are many subgenres of Vaporwave like Future Funk which focuses mostly on the brighter futuristic cyberpunk part of Vaporwave. The music is usually less ambient than other forms of Vaporwave with fewer loops and more rhythmic sounds like songs from anime soundtracks and different tracks from city pop. Overall being more full of energy and bright looks on the albums Future Funk is usually mistaken for a completely different genre away from Vaporwave like Lofi-Hip Hop but it still is considered to be part of it.

On the other side, there is the more ambient Mallsoft which focuses on the consumerism side of Vaporwave focusing on dying malls and it does sound very much like it was recorded in a mall. Most of the sounds loop very easily and have no real rhythm to them, unlike Future Funk. Most of the music is meant to be there but not really be listened to just meant to be a tune that ends up in the back of your head one day sort of like when you have a song stuck in your head but just can’t figure out what it is. This consumerism based ambient part of vaporwave is one of the more interesting genres in the family tree of Vaporwave due to its heavy focus on sounding like it has been recorded in a mall and being ambient.

	
After watching that video I dived deeper into Vaporwave and fell in love. This is the exact reason I wanted to write about it today. I  hope to get a few more people to look more into Vaporwave and start listening.  Even if you don't think you would enjoy this music, dig deeper because the web-based world of Vaporwave is still very interesting, goodbye.