Seven Facts About Vaporwave

What is Vaporwave?

“Vaporwave” is a recently created musical genre that relies heavily on sampling other musical compositions (mainly 80’s era adult contemporary, R&B, and easy listening).  

1. Vaporwave is very centered around it’s “aesthetic” which is mostly a random pastiche of 80’s and 90’s contemporary design, opulence, and hedonism.  These include wire-frame landscapes, palm trees, digital backgrounds, MS-dos inspired artwork, classical greek busts, and (oddly) the seminal graphic designs on both solo cups and Arizona Iced-T cans.

2. The “ethos” of vaporwave is centered in consumerism, and is considered by some to be a celebration of it, and by others a statement against it.

3. Because the majority of vaporwave artists are actually just stealing music from existing intellectual property, and because these samples are often unlicensed, vaporwave artists are often not available on streaming services or YouTube.

4. A favored technique in vaporwave production is to slow down the sample’s playback by 50% or more.

5. Often, whole sections are used, and very little (if anything) else is done to alter the original song.

6. The name “vaporwave” comes from the term “vaporware”, which is computer-programmer slang for a piece of software that is scheduled to be released, but never actually comes to fruition.

7. Vaporwave artists include; Blank Banshee, Fuji, Origami Girl, Luxury Elite, Saint Pepsi, and Macintosh Plus