Introduction
If you have been digging / living in the internet for a long time, you may have encountered this phenomenon / movement in-passing. Usually accompanied by images appropriated with early 80’s – 90’s pop culture, Japanese ideographs, and glitch art, Vaporwave has been lurking in various webpages, forums, file-sharing websites, music-sharing platforms, and social networking websites from its introduction in the late 2010’s up to the present.
Vaporwave is a subgenre of electronic music that utilizes sampling. Sampling is a piece of music usually taken from other songs from various genres that is digitally manipulated and appropriated to become a part of a particular musical composition dominantly used in more popular forms of electronic music like EDM, and Dubstep. Most of the samples used in Vaporwave are incidental music such as those from TV commercials, startup noise from electronic gadgets and gaming consoles, smooth jazz, elevator music, pop music during the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s or even “alert music” from early versions of Microsoft’s Windows OS.
But Vaporwave is more than just the sampling of the aforementioned types of music. Its most defining characteristic is on “chopping and screwing” the said samples, putting them in illogical orders, slowing their tempo drastically until what remained are mere drones, layered with glitch effects, skipping, and drum beats, sometimes in varying time signatures. A disruption of the material occurs, and with it, the creation of something new (Oswald, 1985).
This “disruption of the material” served as the motivation for the author to try and poke at this cultural phenomenon and try to contextualize it to our contemporary cultural clime.
Brief History of Vaporwave
Early digital footprints of the genre could be found in internet forums like tumblr and reddit, and there is stark difficulty in trying to narrow its geographic origin because it was purely conceived on the internet (wosx-, 2015). What began as a seeming “…obsession to 80’s and 90’s subculture using glitch art, early digital graphic design… Japanese culture [and] the redistribution of old 80’s elevator music…” (wosx-, 2015) developed into an instant internet sensation especially upon the 2010 release of two musical works described as the catalysts for what is known today as Vaporwave.
Nostalgia-induced sampling married with the musical advancements made available by technology at the time is the prime inspiration for creating the genre. The first of these was Chuck Person’s (alter ego of experimental electronic artist Daniel Lopatin) Eccojams Vol. 1, a mixtape consisting of samples taken from pop songs (as well as incidental music) of the 80’s, looped, spliced apart, slowed-down to a numbing crawl laced with echoes and shifting pitches, rendering its original material almost alien to its current form. This was the first of the “chopping and screwing” characteristic that would become a staple of future Vaporwave compositions. The second, and one that probably put more of a cultural (if not political) statement on its aesthetic was James Ferraro’s Far Side Virtual, intended as a collection of ringtones but developed into “…a digitalized ode to a rapidly changing world” centered on themes of internet culture, globalization, and consumerism (wosx-, 2015). Together, the two works laid the foundations for the musical aesthetic grounded on “…a subconscious association… ethereal and ghostly sounds with a world of dystopia and decay” (misteramazing, 2016) that is Vaporwave.
Vaporwave would find an increase in popularity with the release of Macintosh Plus’s (moniker of experimental electronic musician Ramona Xavier—who is also more popular by her primary alias Vektroid) Floral Shoppe in 2011. This is where Vaporwave found its definite association, and if one asks anyone listening to Vaporwave about how they learned of the genre, they’d immediately point to Floral Shoppe, in particular to the album’s most famous track: リサフランク420 / 現代のコンピュー (translated as “Lisa Frank 420 / Modern Computing) which sampled the song “It’s Your Move” by Diana Ross. This opened the genre to a wider audience to the point that bloggers and YouTubers began discussing about it on their pages and channels. They talked of its possibilities, and provided launch pads for discourse especially with regards to the genre’s theme. Experimental electronic artists emulated and developed the sound and improved the overall aesthetic of the genre, made studio albums of their own, and paved the way for more innovations, as well as the introduction of subgenres. It gathered a huge following that lasts to this day.
Vaporwave and Plunderphonics
Since music made under the vaporwave genre uses the music of other artists, issues regarding intellectual property and copyright law bombarded its rise to fame. In a 1985 essay, John Oswald argued that a “sampler”, a micro-excerpt of a particular musical piece, is “…simultaneously a documenting device…”, a material thing made by a person, with traces of that person’s creative mind and hand, a mark of talent, a stroke of genius, distributed as a commodity, a good that is produced to meet a demand before being bought by someone, to eventually fulfill its essence, “...and a creative one…” meaning, as with all material things, such sampler, no matter how creatively produced or executed, a work of art, can become a means to the formulation of a new musical material, further adding that by doing so “distinctions manifested by copyright” diminishes to the point that the new material is highly different from the original. To describe such a compositional pursuit, Oswald coined the term “Plunderphonics”, a rather catchy terminology that Vaporwave falls under, albeit the digital manipulations are placed drastically in the samples.
This is the reason why if one would make a quick Google search for tracks under the genre, one will be surprised to find dozens if not hundreds of artists and tracks. Its tendency to “plunder” any music across genres and even time periods (with the aid of the Internet and a digital audio workstation) enabled literally ANYONE to make their own music. They are able to take samples, turn them on their heads, inverting their auditory finesse and transform it into something new (misteramazing, 2016) from the confines of their basement or bedrooms, thus establishing a do-it-yourself tendency in its production, something that angered major-label gatekeepers who capitalizes on expensive equipment and their roster of marketed musicians. Such a mode of creation challenged the musical paradigms of originality, individuality, and copyright. Put this way, Vaporwave becomes merely a zombified musical arrangement with pieces assembled from stolen “musical quotations” or samples from decades ago, whose intended meanings has been warped and eroded by the manipulations done to it (misteramazing, 2016). However, the act of sampling or gathering of “musical quotations” has always been a valid creative method since the original meaning of the quoted material has been changed, decontextualized, and has/will be fulfilling a new intended meaning—that may subvert, affirm, or refute, the meanings of the original, or a new meaning whatsoever (Gunal, 2010).
Vaporwave and Disruption
Vaporwave as a genre related to audio piracy, that of the manipulation of an original material, almost brings back the ideals of various art movements in history. Its audio-visual appeal for the most part stems from the artistic notions of the Cubists and the Dadaists. Subverting intended meanings by warping, eroding, and applying new effects causes an inexplicable discomfort yet a nagging feeling of euphoria to the viewer or listener, playing against a set standard of legal, artistic, and production norms, almost as if these movements or genres exist to upset an established system.
In his video essay “The Musical Theory of V A P O R W A V E”, Adam Neely (2016) defined Vaporwave as “…a countercultural musical and art movement that alternatively critiques and embraces consumer Capitalism.” This makes sense for etymologically speaking, the genre is alluding to the business jargon “vaporware”—products announced but were never released in the market, as well as the Marxist notion of “waves of vapor” (“…all that is solid melts in the air…” a famous passage from The Communist Manifesto), a meaningless repetition of social and economic ideals that society will remain subjected to under a bourgeois capitalist regime (wosx-, 2015). Most, if not all, of the samples utilized by artists in the genre are taken from various TV commercials, pop culture of the past decades, elevator music, and smooth jazz all of which are produced by corporations, industry-plants, and mainstream musicians in the mentioned economic system, thus becoming some sort of “Capitalist corporate music” centered on commodities, or even intentionally commodified goods and services, to be bought and consumed. And by subverting these samples’ intended meanings (through digital manipulation, chopping, and screwing, free digital distribution on the Internet) a new meaning is created whose musical experience juggles from the subversion of the said ideology (through Vaporwave) to affirming its existence, albeit radically.
The material of Vaporwave is anchored on alienating the culture that Capitalist ideology introduced to us—the same culture that alienated us from what is truly essential in our lives. The Marxist notion of alienation because of an ideological regime describes the utter meaninglessness we feel in what we do: whether its work or on things that we think we enjoy. Our motivations for living has been dulled by the constant repetition and false promises of modern Capitalism, deceptively filled-in with stories of inspiration in our noontime shows, bits of wonder and fantasy in talent shows, a sense of pride and belongingness with the things we buy that we learned about from TV or Internet advertisements, distracting us, which in turn gears us to maintain the system thinking that no matter how empty it seemed, through hardwork and dedication to such a work, life would be better in this system. But various art movements like Vaporwave exist to counter this by disrupting an established set of norms, particularly in music and popular culture. By manipulating these easy-listening, mood-setting incidental music from an 80’s commercial of Coca-cola, itself a Capitalist institution, and manipulating it into nasal drones and glitched music, it is transformed into an audio-visual narrative that creates a nostalgic appeal, almost begging to become a commercial in of itself, but filtered with critique: an existing status quo is disturbed for this is not what you previously know, despite the familiarity; it disrupts your ideas of what can be done; the easily nostalgic becomes a springboard to what could possibly be and what could have been; this is not your typical musical production for you don’t buy this from iTunes, or any other mainstream music seller, but rather distributed online, or in case if you have to buy it, the artist takes all of the earnings and not the company nor the label; to gaze at the possibilities, that life is not the simple commercial jingle, but the slow-burning glitchy chorus veiled by the current regime. This is music in its elevated form, free from the clutches of capitalist ideology, and solely rests on the artist and its followers.
Vaporwave attempts to reclaim music from being a commodity or as a means to maintain the status quo, and fulfill any art form’s (and even entertainment, and popular culture for that matter) role to help its viewers / listeners see the world and society for what it truly is. And on-going developments in this genre, musically and aesthetically, with the rise of modern lo-fi and Bedroom Pop, should continue to underscore this purpose. For any form of art or music that is aimed to safeguard a pre-existing status quo is devilish and not for human consumption.
References:
Gunal, Atakun (2010, April 6). The Age of Musical Reproduction and John Oswald’s Plunderphonics. Retrieved from http:/ /atakangunal.com/writing/plunderphonics _gunal.pdf
misteramazing. (2016, December 8). Vaporwave: Genre Redefined [Video File]. Retrieved from
Neely, Adam. (2016, October 24). The music theory of V A P O R W A V E [Video File]. Retrieved from
Oswald, John. (1985). Plunderphonics: Audio Piracy as a Compositional Prerogative. Retrieved from http://www.plunderphonics.com/xhtml/xplunder.html
P, Mr. (2016, November 22). Daniel Lopatin releases remastered version of Chuck Person's Eccojams Vol. 1. Retrieved from https://www.tinymixtapes.com/news/daniel-lopatin-releases-remastered-version-chuck-persons-eccojams-vol-1-0pn
Reynolds, Simon. (2010, July 6). Brooklyn's Noise Scene Catches Up to Oneohtrix Point Never. Retrieved from https://www.villagevoice.com/2010/07/06/brooklyns-noise-scene-catches-up-to-oneohtrix-point-never
STLLR. (2016, May 26). Vaporwave - An Aesthetic Documentary [Video File]. Retrieved from:
wosX-. (2015, June 10). Vaporwave: A Brief History [Video File]. Retrieved from:
*Photo grabbed from Google