I listen to synthwave and vaporwave way more now than I ever did in the 2010s, and there's lots of new music still being made so it's definitely not a dead genre
It’s still being produced but it isn’t as popular as it was. Many of the artists have transitioned into new forms like Barberbeats & things of that nature. So it’s evolved. But it might come back in the future.
I feel like it all stems from the large initial wave and popularity of vaporwave fizzling out. But like everyone said, it never left, if anything its evolving even further.@@virtuabones
vaporwave is still going strong as a genre, it's just not "trendy" anymore. there are still great releases that are very recent. slowerpace is an excellent example.
The thing about it is that its not dead or anything. Vaporwave is still around but not in the mainstream anymore. Imo it feels fitting for it to be that way
It's better there. Most things in the mainstream become polluted over time because "everyone is doing it", and not everyone has time to understand what it even is that they're doing. It's like semantic satiation but for aesthetics. Additionally, things in the mainstream frequently get combined or associated with other barely similar things, and the substance gets diluted. I don't even mean it as a "I HATE that everyone else likes this thing, it's ALL MINE" argument. I'm fine if other people like vaporwave. But when people who only have a surface level understanding of something start contributing to it, it shows. And if a majority of the people contributing to something don't understand what makes it special, it becomes mush that's just like all the other mush.
@@rizkyadiyanto7922 sometimes people take down the quality of a piece of media. It sucks, and you dont have to associate with these types, but it does make you want to gatekeep these types of people away from something that you enjoy personally. Not saying gatekeeping is good or anything, but I understand why people do it when its something they are passionate about.
There’s definitely vaporwave out there still being made. And subgenera like mallsoft and signalwave are still very prevalent. With that said, underrated video, I hope this creator gets the recognition they deserve.
i still avidly enjoy new Vaporwave releases. for instance, Windows '96 dropped a new album a few days before this video. it really has had a lasting impression on me.
i got into vaporwave in 2017 and it seemed to be making a comeback, more people listened to lofi, and study beats, but now in 2024 it seems like it died back to where it was, only being cool and relevant to people who appreciate it like myself
i personally find frutiger aero more nostalgic because i grew up more around that time, but, the popularity of vaporwave during the earlier 2010s made the genre itself nostalgic. truly a piece of art.
I feel now we have chronic internet inspired Y2K era rave music that is the new "thing". Sampling anime and PS1 / PS2 videgames from the 90's and 00's. Soon that will get old too, and we'll have the next new thing.
I'm trying to figure what folk are into now going into 2025 as vaporwave continues to fade away. I'm not really into the whole break beat drum and bass stuff, its hard to listen to on a daily basis.
Vaporwave is going strong, it's just splintered off into so many subgenres and had its fanbase reduced to only the most dedicated of people. We even got our own vaporwave adjacent in-person event a few years ago through George Clanton's Electronicon
Same thing happened to Drum & Bass years ago with subgenres like Techstep, Neurofunk, Liquid, Classic Jungle. I still like it all. There was a significant scene here in Pittsburgh with a bar that would host D&B nights every Wednesday that I was lucky enough to spin at a few times around '03-'04. Sadly the bar closed a few years back and I don't know where the D&B heads went. Plus I aged out of the scene being I'm in my 50s now as I still play records and don't care to spin on a laptop.
I'm a begginer painter, and I think I have found my inspiration and my style in Vaporwave. I absolutely love liminal spaces, nostalgic aesthethics and also the urban landscape that is present in some visuals, just to name a few. I would love to see it gaining back more popularity, but I'll continue painting with this style nevertheless, because it's something that just hits different to me. Not only the aesthethics, but also the music is absolutely amazing, and it's my favorite style by far. At this point, Vaporwave is a part of my identity, and I love it
For all the talk about Vaporwave being a meme internet trend, I legitimately listened to it whenever I needed to focus. It meshed with my brain, I suppose. To all the creators out there, thank you.
Vaporwave is interesting because it started off as kind of a joke - "what if old song, but slowed down in Audacity and then treated as a new genre?". Its name, a play on the 90's term 'vaporware', further showing that people didn't really take it seriously at first. However, the more people experimented with the idea, the more they discovered there were actually really cool, calming, nostalgic undertones to the whole exercise. It's possible that by slowing down already nostalgic music, we were able to better imitate how the brain "records and stores" music overall, eliciting a genuinely interested reaction ("whoa, this sounds like my memories"). Of course, vaporwave splintered off into countless genres and resurrected several more, but there was an electrifying feeling of discovery in those way early years you just can't find in the genre today.
I still listen to it, in fact my 5-year-old son loves him some Simpsons wave Sunday School, so it's not going anywhere 🎉 as I can tell new generations will find and love it so it will get random highs and lows in popularity...
Nitpick: “Arguably the most iconic artist was Vektroid who made the song Macintosh Plus.” 0:50 That’s not correct. Macintosh Plus is a project by the artist Vektroid. The image that displays (and I agree is the most recognizable) with the bust of David statue is the Macintosh Plus album “Floral Shoppe”.
I'm happy with it. It exists within its own continuum, heavily documented and archived. To my knowledge nobody ever came along and tried to "crash" the genre or start drama, which is more than most things on the internet can claim these days. I wonder what future generations will think when they find it. Maybe that fake nostalgia we felt, or maybe cringe. Whatever the case, I'm glad I got to experience it.
Well, Hardvapour is a genre that was made out of spite for Vaporwave. Where if Vaporwave was a warm nostalgic dream; Hardvapour is waking up to chaos. The music is loud, fast, and distorted and the aesthetic is more rough and gritty than Vaporwave's. There are Hardvapour songs made to rip on known Vaporwave artists, songs, the listeners, or Vaporwave as whole. Although I don't agree with the hate, you can't lie that the music slaps. "Hardvapour" by DJ Vlad and "Vaporwave is Dead" by SandTimer are some well known albums/artists to come out of it. (also adding a "u" in vapor is the final nail in the coffin for me) **EDIT:** I forgot to mention that although Dream Catalogue has been known for pushing Vaporwave in the past, they decided to shift focus to Dream Punk, Hardvapour, and other experimental electronic music. Also "Blank Banshee Sucks" by Lucid is the most on the nose Hardvapour song that rips on anyone that has been known for making Vaporwave.
What happened to vaporwave? Not much, it just fell out of the public eye and the mainstream replaced by the newest shiny thing. Many people moved on but there's still new stuff being made often and the sub-genres keep evolving. Barber beats are currently the big thing in the vaporwave sphere.
Yeah I Remember Vaporwave, for some reason i'm no longer nostalgic for it. Except for Home - Resonance, but yeah i used to be addicted to Macintosh 420, Home, Com Truise, Luxury Elite and 18 Carat Affair, but i guess i just grew out of them? Even grew out of being nostalgic for them?
It's one of the last new (and few) genres I listen to on an almost daily basis. It can not die out for me, it relaxes and uplifts me no matter the mood, and of course I love the 70s/80s/90s aesthetics. Another thing; the nostalgia of today is more focused on late 90s - 00s, so it's not quite hitting the same the crowd that once ruled social media.
I think there is something to be said for the fact that Vaporwave during the 2010’s looked back on the positive aspects of the 80’s and 90’s where Luminal Spaces is almost a mirror of the depressed or ambiguous way some in the 2020’s view things.
Windows96 released a new album recently! There's also this new wave of jungle music that uses nostalgic sounds and imagery (see Pizza Hotline as an example), and well I'm sure you've seen those youtube playlists that say "ps1 Jungle" with old game graphics, I basically view all that stuff as a mutation of vaporwave.
I don't think it's fair to call any genre 'dead,' I think it's just not trendy enough anymore for the masses to notice it's still there. New content is still constantly being put out for those who follow it, along with physical releases that continue to sell out from small labels like My Pet Flamingo.
bringing the backrooms and liminality full circle in vaporwave's influence and having stated it so frankly was so dope, thanks OP its nice to know someone else recognized that aspect.
It's still around. Most of what you find in mainstream sites (like UA-cam) are derivative works or worse yet, AI made. There are still some artists doing original content, just have to look for it.
_"A synthwave style background screensaver as lock screen."_ I declare myself guilty. But for me, it was an a e s t h e t i c screensaver in the form of an 80's photo for my Samsung Galaxy S5's flip cover screen.
I think vaporwave has just aged and developed a bit, maybe progressing a little further into the late 80's early 90's and is divided into more subgenres like Japanese city pop. A new Windows96 album just dropped the other day.
vaporwave (which i use as a general term for all the sub genres like synthwave, slushwave, mallsoft, etc), while nowhere near as popular as it once was, is still very much alive. new albums and songs are made all the time. if you want a channel that uploads albums all the time and has a HUGE backlog, check out vapor memory. he uploads new releases from all of the vaporwave subgenres and more
I did a proper personal dive into the music and art style four months ago. Had never gotten the vibe until then and now I'm hooked. I'm also someone who's childhood was during the 80s and 90s so the nostalgia is a big drive to me.
I still add tracks to my vaporwave aesthetic playlist and I still see retro style art being made on some platforms like Newgrounds, it's not popular but it does exist still which is cool!
I just started creating original vaporwave music about 6 months ago or so. I discovered an artist called George Clanton and another one called simple syrup. I was extremely impressed by that type of music and I felt extremely nostalgic and I'm kind of sad that the community does seem to be slowly dwindling or at least compared to what it must have been about 10 years ago or so. I'm kind of incorporating vaporwave with progressive rock / fusion and electronica. Hopefully I can figure out a way to Market this correctly because I do believe and some of the things I've created lately that people would enjoy
Trends come and go. Y2K and Frutiger Aero era nostalgia have taken the place of vaporwave. Personally, I've been into late 80's-early 90's stuff lately. I wouldn't say it has much in common with vaporwave though because I've mostly been listening to new jack swing, R&B, house and pop rock bands like R.E.M., Fine Young Cannibals and the B-52's, whereas the focus of vaporwave was more on synthwave and city pop that was very much early-mid 80's. The late 80's-early 90's had a different vibe. Just listen to Keep on Movin' by Soul II Soul compared to something like Dr. Beat by Gloria Estefan.
I remember first stumbling on the genre in 2017 with Soul Search & Destroy's upload Voyage that was later taken down for copyright until they worked out the issue with the creator of one of the songs since it was flagged automatically. I would say it's the genre that best defines this current technology filled generation. New bangers are still dropping.
Doing decent views! And engagement is pretty good Though a good tip, is that the youtube algorithm favours videos that are 8 minutes and above (I think technically it's 8 minutes and 10 seconds) they get to place a midroll ad on it so they make it easier to discover.
@@ExtraMintyy no problem, there are a lot of cheats you can use to boost engagement, I use them a lot on my main channel and it's gotten me pretty far.
Vaporwave synthwave ambient music in general is a huge favourite/source of inspiration plus it’s forever a source of relaxation even now and it’ll be forever
I think I've seen more variety with vaporwave artists as of recent. I was one of many who listened to them throughout highschool and knew artists for how well they sampled (Blank Banshee, Macross, Saint Pepsi). Nowadays I listen to artists who go back to the source of nostalgia and create songs with less sampling. Macroblank and Windows 96 are by far the most consistent uploaders of new albums, but I also love Haircuts for Men! They each do new things in every album and have a huge body of work overall!
So trippy having listened to the floral shoppe one for so long, then discovering that was not the original song with one that was less slow, and then finding the actual song that sounded so fast compared to to the other versions but was in fact the original one by Diana Ross, which is relatively not well known about. Just such a weird experience.
I still regularly listen to Vaporwave and Future Funk. Artists are still releasing music. It didn't go anywhere, it just inevitably fell out of the mainstream. But I'd say the rise of City Pop is pretty closely linked. I first heard a lot of popular City Pop songs in Vaporwave releases. I'd also say that a lot of Vaporwave elements made their way into the mainstream in one way or another. They're clearly present in Blinding Lights and a lot of other songs on After Hours, along with Dawn FM- co-produced by OneOhTrix Point Never, one of the founders of Vaporwave.
I like vaporwave, it looks cool! I didn’t live in the 80s, I was born in the 2000s. But i like the vibes of Vaperwave, along with other aesthetics like Y2K and fruitiger Aro. Man these aesthetics are so cool! I wish these became mainstream again instead of the boring flat minimalistic styles of today. Make things look cool dang it!
Something like this was always destined to be transient, much like the era that inspired it. As others have said, its still being made in various corners of the 'net. Just gotta go looking for it.
It went underground. I'm in a few of the hidden vaporwave spaces online and it's great. They went underground to get away from people who were starting to make it mainstream and also Gen Z who started to mock vaporwave but then also lowkey copying it into Y3k (which is pathetic behavior). That said, vaporwave is doing great away from prying eyes. If you think "it's gone" just because it's not as prominent on youtube anymore, you're the exact reason we went underground.
There are many great vaporwave bands releasing frequently, but some of the most prolific also do similar genres like Witchhouse, Deathdream or Barber Beats, that doesn't mean Vaporwave is dead. Mabisyo, Darkness, Macroblank, Haircuts for Men and t e l e p a t h are the immediate names that come to mind.
we need to keep it alive vapour wave and synthwave is the best music made in the 21st century so far i think music started going down hill around the time i was born and became unbearable by the year 2000. when i went to high school i didn't listen to any music at all i didn't get why people got so hyped up over music sometimes i would hear old music and i enjoyed .it or maybe video game soundtracks. but when i discovered vapor wave at age 20 i finally found new but good music. and i was feeling hype for new music from my favourite artists for the first time in my life. so i hope it stays popular forever and maybe it will inspire newer styles that try to be different from the 80s but have the qualities of 80s or pre 80s music. i think most music before the 90s was good even classical music and medieval music. anything but the auto tuned high pitched stuff that has been dominating mainstream music for about 25 years now .
Barbershop beats www.youtube.com/@rabbitholeclub and dreampunk m.ua-cam.com/users/VILL4IN are still decently popular right now, both decendents of vaporwave
As an Englisher, does this type of content feel "foreign" to you? It seems very specifically American to me, so it's always interesting to me how popular it is with non-Americans.
It definitely feels foreign to a degree. Being from Australia, a lot of the iconography was only exposed to us through television. I think the reason it still is impactful is similar to the backrooms and liminal spaces. When paired with the right music, and comment sections of people reflecting on it, you begin to feel a shared sense of nostalgia even if it’s only based on fragments you didn’t directly experience. Definitely an interesting perspective to dig into.
@@ExtraMintyy oh you’re from Australia! Solar sands did a video where he talked about how Russians have their own version of nostalgic imagery, I wonder if Australians do too!
@@JJMcCullough Oh, we do for sure. It's all over our TikTok pages (especially the old TV shows). You know what? Could make an interesting video..... ;)
@@ExtraMintyy you should! In my experience Americans love seeing videos about weird stuff from other countries. It’s been key to my channel’s success and could help yours grow.
Dawn FM by the Weeknd - one of the most famous current musicians, was released not even two years ago. The production was done by the guy who arguably started vaporwave - he did the nobody here video and the echo the dolphin album from 2010. Vaporwave isn't dead at all. It's mainstream. There are so many subgenres that are still kicking. Future Funk and Mallsoft being the main two spinoffs. I've felt recently like everything new I've listened is drowning in vaporwave influence. Dua Lipa and Harry Styles have had a bunch of songs that are just Future Funk songs. Many many artists appear to be incorporating the danceable beats, the slowed distortion, the nostalgia, and the goofy aesthetic into their music. It's literally everywhere.
Well it got so overdone with all the super specific "micro-subgenres", the bandwagon-y/fad-y side of it. And in general the 80's nostalgia, whether the mainstream type or not, has gotten stale imo. It's so obvious when big corporations and artists go for the "kidz love the faux 80's blue and purple combination these days" stuff all over the place.
havent watched the video but the reason why vaporwave died is very simple >listen to vaporwave >Find sample song from the vaporwave song >its almost entirely unchanged apart from being slowed doing and cut in a few places >listen to the original song >stopped listening to vaporwave its exactly the same reason why futurefunk died the moment city pop experienced its big revival
The problem with any kind of vaporwave now is that nostalgia itself is considered politically incorrect. There is also the moving on of time, Vaporwave only elicits the right feelings in Gen X and millennials. Gen Z and Alpha will not have the same reaction.
The real answer is that the music its based off or inspired by is often better. Gran Turismo for example already had vaporwave music. Cheezy jazz that's laid back. Not only does it sound like vaporwave it also has a certain quality and understanding of composition that's often not a thing from more internet/computer vaporwave artists. In every genre you always have outliers. If we talk about Macintosh Plus and Laserdisc Vision ltd, I think that kind of Vaporwave you dont hear often anymore. Vaporwave being trending is just to open up the ears for the general audience as you can see during the Yung lean and vaporwave boom back, music did change a lot.
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Yo
I listen to synthwave and vaporwave way more now than I ever did in the 2010s, and there's lots of new music still being made so it's definitely not a dead genre
Yeah I just chalk it up to zoomers that don't know how to use Bandcamp and/or Spotify. theres new vaporwave everywhere.
It’s still being produced but it isn’t as popular as it was. Many of the artists have transitioned into new forms like Barberbeats & things of that nature. So it’s evolved. But it might come back in the future.
@@sirmount2636it's evolving since the start imo. It's not a meme anymore
People be like "I miss vaporwave" it is literally nostalgia music, just keep listening to it, it doesn't age out
It's not even gone to begin with. lmfao what is everyone smoking and can I have some?
Unfortunately a lot of vaporwave songs/albums have already disappeared from internet...
Weird that everyone is acting like we aren't still out here making stuff..
I feel like it all stems from the large initial wave and popularity of vaporwave fizzling out. But like everyone said, it never left, if anything its evolving even further.@@virtuabones
it's just clickbait
vaporwave is still going strong as a genre, it's just not "trendy" anymore. there are still great releases that are very recent. slowerpace is an excellent example.
Corrupt Save is a new a fav of mine
Real
It never actually got trendy just on the verge , but backroom stuff becoming mainstream is still vaporware
trevor something
Macro blank
The thing about it is that its not dead or anything. Vaporwave is still around but not in the mainstream anymore. Imo it feels fitting for it to be that way
It's better there. Most things in the mainstream become polluted over time because "everyone is doing it", and not everyone has time to understand what it even is that they're doing. It's like semantic satiation but for aesthetics. Additionally, things in the mainstream frequently get combined or associated with other barely similar things, and the substance gets diluted.
I don't even mean it as a "I HATE that everyone else likes this thing, it's ALL MINE" argument. I'm fine if other people like vaporwave. But when people who only have a surface level understanding of something start contributing to it, it shows. And if a majority of the people contributing to something don't understand what makes it special, it becomes mush that's just like all the other mush.
@@DmitriDmitribasicaly gatekeeping.
@@rizkyadiyanto7922gatekeeping is good because people ruin everything and slopify it for the masses
@@rizkyadiyanto7922 sometimes people take down the quality of a piece of media. It sucks, and you dont have to associate with these types, but it does make you want to gatekeep these types of people away from something that you enjoy personally. Not saying gatekeeping is good or anything, but I understand why people do it when its something they are passionate about.
Vaporwave is still very much alive and well. Just gotta look for it.
yeah nowadays it feels a lot more futuristic then nostalgic. But now i realise that it was always ahead of its time
I never forgot vaporwave
can't forget what isn't gone.
You Can't Forget The Future
There’s definitely vaporwave out there still being made. And subgenera like mallsoft and signalwave are still very prevalent. With that said, underrated video, I hope this creator gets the recognition they deserve.
Most of the old vaporwave artists went to 100% Electronica. check them out.
Don't forget about barbershop beats. That is the main vaporwave subgenre that I listen to
@@alexthibodeau979 hellll yeah! me as well! barber beats just have that magic vibe to em ..... happy listening bro🤘
i still avidly enjoy new Vaporwave releases. for instance, Windows '96 dropped a new album a few days before this video.
it really has had a lasting impression on me.
the way that album has a chokehold on me
Hi, would you happen to know the name of that album? Thanks.
totes, its "Dated New Aesthetic"@@MartyM.
modern listeners may care to look into "Dungeon Synth," a sub genre that has gelled attempting to sound like PS1 era RPG music and the like.
@@DeeBellwether Thank you! :)
i got into vaporwave in 2017 and it seemed to be making a comeback, more people listened to lofi, and study beats, but now in 2024 it seems like it died back to where it was, only being cool and relevant to people who appreciate it like myself
What do you think people are into now in 2024?
i personally find frutiger aero more nostalgic because i grew up more around that time, but, the popularity of vaporwave during the earlier 2010s made the genre itself nostalgic. truly a piece of art.
I feel now we have chronic internet inspired Y2K era rave music that is the new "thing". Sampling anime and PS1 / PS2 videgames from the 90's and 00's. Soon that will get old too, and we'll have the next new thing.
yabujin used to do that before he abandoned it
I'm trying to figure what folk are into now going into 2025 as vaporwave continues to fade away. I'm not really into the whole break beat drum and bass stuff, its hard to listen to on a daily basis.
Vaporwave is going strong, it's just splintered off into so many subgenres and had its fanbase reduced to only the most dedicated of people. We even got our own vaporwave adjacent in-person event a few years ago through George Clanton's Electronicon
Same thing happened to Drum & Bass years ago with subgenres like Techstep, Neurofunk, Liquid, Classic Jungle. I still like it all. There was a significant scene here in Pittsburgh with a bar that would host D&B nights every Wednesday that I was lucky enough to spin at a few times around '03-'04. Sadly the bar closed a few years back and I don't know where the D&B heads went. Plus I aged out of the scene being I'm in my 50s now as I still play records and don't care to spin on a laptop.
nothing happened. it just got old, as we all.
I'm a begginer painter, and I think I have found my inspiration and my style in Vaporwave. I absolutely love liminal spaces, nostalgic aesthethics and also the urban landscape that is present in some visuals, just to name a few. I would love to see it gaining back more popularity, but I'll continue painting with this style nevertheless, because it's something that just hits different to me. Not only the aesthethics, but also the music is absolutely amazing, and it's my favorite style by far. At this point, Vaporwave is a part of my identity, and I love it
For all the talk about Vaporwave being a meme internet trend, I legitimately listened to it whenever I needed to focus. It meshed with my brain, I suppose.
To all the creators out there, thank you.
Vaporwave is interesting because it started off as kind of a joke - "what if old song, but slowed down in Audacity and then treated as a new genre?". Its name, a play on the 90's term 'vaporware', further showing that people didn't really take it seriously at first. However, the more people experimented with the idea, the more they discovered there were actually really cool, calming, nostalgic undertones to the whole exercise. It's possible that by slowing down already nostalgic music, we were able to better imitate how the brain "records and stores" music overall, eliciting a genuinely interested reaction ("whoa, this sounds like my memories"). Of course, vaporwave splintered off into countless genres and resurrected several more, but there was an electrifying feeling of discovery in those way early years you just can't find in the genre today.
Agreed- thanks for this comment, very informative!
I still listen to it, in fact my 5-year-old son loves him some Simpsons wave Sunday School, so it's not going anywhere 🎉 as I can tell new generations will find and love it so it will get random highs and lows in popularity...
Nitpick: “Arguably the most iconic artist was Vektroid who made the song Macintosh Plus.” 0:50
That’s not correct. Macintosh Plus is a project by the artist Vektroid. The image that displays (and I agree is the most recognizable) with the bust of David statue is the Macintosh Plus album “Floral Shoppe”.
I'm happy with it. It exists within its own continuum, heavily documented and archived. To my knowledge nobody ever came along and tried to "crash" the genre or start drama, which is more than most things on the internet can claim these days.
I wonder what future generations will think when they find it. Maybe that fake nostalgia we felt, or maybe cringe. Whatever the case, I'm glad I got to experience it.
Well, Hardvapour is a genre that was made out of spite for Vaporwave. Where if Vaporwave was a warm nostalgic dream; Hardvapour is waking up to chaos. The music is loud, fast, and distorted and the aesthetic is more rough and gritty than Vaporwave's. There are Hardvapour songs made to rip on known Vaporwave artists, songs, the listeners, or Vaporwave as whole. Although I don't agree with the hate, you can't lie that the music slaps. "Hardvapour" by DJ Vlad and "Vaporwave is Dead" by SandTimer are some well known albums/artists to come out of it. (also adding a "u" in vapor is the final nail in the coffin for me)
**EDIT:** I forgot to mention that although Dream Catalogue has been known for pushing Vaporwave in the past, they decided to shift focus to Dream Punk, Hardvapour, and other experimental electronic music. Also "Blank Banshee Sucks" by Lucid is the most on the nose Hardvapour song that rips on anyone that has been known for making Vaporwave.
What happened to vaporwave? Not much, it just fell out of the public eye and the mainstream replaced by the newest shiny thing.
Many people moved on but there's still new stuff being made often and the sub-genres keep evolving. Barber beats are currently the big thing in the vaporwave sphere.
It’s nice to see someone talking about vaporwave in 2024. vaporwave and breakcore are my two favorite genres
Yeah I Remember Vaporwave, for some reason i'm no longer nostalgic for it. Except for Home - Resonance, but yeah i used to be addicted to Macintosh 420, Home, Com Truise, Luxury Elite and 18 Carat Affair, but i guess i just grew out of them? Even grew out of being nostalgic for them?
when the nostalgia becomes nostalgic (nostalgia squared)
It's one of the last new (and few) genres I listen to on an almost daily basis. It can not die out for me, it relaxes and uplifts me no matter the mood, and of course I love the 70s/80s/90s aesthetics.
Another thing; the nostalgia of today is more focused on late 90s - 00s, so it's not quite hitting the same the crowd that once ruled social media.
there are vaporwave tours now, and im going to a vaporwave concert this month, its not dead
I think there is something to be said for the fact that Vaporwave during the 2010’s looked back on the positive aspects of the 80’s and 90’s where Luminal Spaces is almost a mirror of the depressed or ambiguous way some in the 2020’s view things.
im a late 2000s teen and im kinda sad i missed out a bit on vaporwave till like 2017-18
i love how youtube algorithm gives exposure to small channels once in a while with quality videos like this one, keep up the good work
I cant describe how much i fell in love with vaporwave, synthwave and chillwave when my good old friend was into it.
Good records my dude, thank you for a chunk of internet history.
i was honestly shocked learning vaporwave is considered a dead genre! i have listened to it every day since 2015 and the vibes are still good
What a wonderful genre
I miss vaporwave, I want some modern music like it because it gave me nice feelings
Same, always had good vibes
Not gone. go check 100% Electronica and George Clanton. he literally put out a new album in the last 6 months.
The stuff that Eyeliner, FM Skyline, and My Pet Flamingo have been dropping still slaps. Long live vaporwave.
@@ExtraMintyy Vaporwaves were heavily used alt-right losers like Memology 101 and Mental-Mantis-whatever-that-sht-is.
Windows96 released a new album recently! There's also this new wave of jungle music that uses nostalgic sounds and imagery (see Pizza Hotline as an example), and well I'm sure you've seen those youtube playlists that say "ps1 Jungle" with old game graphics, I basically view all that stuff as a mutation of vaporwave.
I don't think it's fair to call any genre 'dead,' I think it's just not trendy enough anymore for the masses to notice it's still there. New content is still constantly being put out for those who follow it, along with physical releases that continue to sell out from small labels like My Pet Flamingo.
Great video dude, real blast from the past! Also gotta say that thumbnail is incredible!
Thanks a ton!
bringing the backrooms and liminality
full circle in vaporwave's influence and
having stated it so frankly was
so dope, thanks OP its nice to know
someone else recognized that aspect.
I appreciate it! Thought it was definitely an interesting point to make
It's still around. Most of what you find in mainstream sites (like UA-cam) are derivative works or worse yet, AI made. There are still some artists doing original content, just have to look for it.
I mean vaporwave in the classic style is almost always derivative since it’s sample based.
_"A synthwave style background screensaver as lock screen."_
I declare myself guilty.
But for me, it was an
a e s t h e t i c
screensaver in the form of an 80's photo for my Samsung Galaxy S5's flip cover screen.
I was the same, they used to go so hard. Still do!
I still make vaporwave in 2024 🥴
It never went away for us hardcore fans.
Exactly. Tons of videos on my channel. Im always looking for songs to put visuals to, old or new 🌊🌊🌊🌊
@@Solodolo84 🫡
I think vaporwave has just aged and developed a bit, maybe progressing a little further into the late 80's early 90's and is divided into more subgenres like Japanese city pop. A new Windows96 album just dropped the other day.
vaporwave (which i use as a general term for all the sub genres like synthwave, slushwave, mallsoft, etc), while nowhere near as popular as it once was, is still very much alive. new albums and songs are made all the time.
if you want a channel that uploads albums all the time and has a HUGE backlog, check out vapor memory. he uploads new releases from all of the vaporwave subgenres and more
oh forgot to add in my last comment, only gripe with the video is that it was a bit too short, i'd love to see some longer form content!
Longer form content on the way! Got a couple topics to cover :)
I think it's nice and concise 👍🏻
Been listening to Dreamcore/weirdcore and Phonk music lately. Vaporwave will always have a special place in my heart.
Vaporwave will never be lost
I did a proper personal dive into the music and art style four months ago. Had never gotten the vibe until then and now I'm hooked. I'm also someone who's childhood was during the 80s and 90s so the nostalgia is a big drive to me.
I still add tracks to my vaporwave aesthetic playlist and I still see retro style art being made on some platforms like Newgrounds, it's not popular but it does exist still which is cool!
We moved onto Jungle now
I just started creating original vaporwave music about 6 months ago or so. I discovered an artist called George Clanton and another one called simple syrup. I was extremely impressed by that type of music and I felt extremely nostalgic and I'm kind of sad that the community does seem to be slowly dwindling or at least compared to what it must have been about 10 years ago or so. I'm kind of incorporating vaporwave with progressive rock / fusion and electronica. Hopefully I can figure out a way to Market this correctly because I do believe and some of the things I've created lately that people would enjoy
This is an awesomely made video, but I haven’t thought about Vaporwave since i was 16. I think that’s the majority of why it’s gone
Trends come and go. Y2K and Frutiger Aero era nostalgia have taken the place of vaporwave. Personally, I've been into late 80's-early 90's stuff lately. I wouldn't say it has much in common with vaporwave though because I've mostly been listening to new jack swing, R&B, house and pop rock bands like R.E.M., Fine Young Cannibals and the B-52's, whereas the focus of vaporwave was more on synthwave and city pop that was very much early-mid 80's. The late 80's-early 90's had a different vibe. Just listen to Keep on Movin' by Soul II Soul compared to something like Dr. Beat by Gloria Estefan.
I am a huge fan of 80s rock music, especially shred guitar.
I remember first stumbling on the genre in 2017 with Soul Search & Destroy's upload Voyage that was later taken down for copyright until they worked out the issue with the creator of one of the songs since it was flagged automatically. I would say it's the genre that best defines this current technology filled generation. New bangers are still dropping.
Doing decent views!
And engagement is pretty good
Though a good tip, is that the youtube algorithm favours videos that are 8 minutes and above (I think technically it's 8 minutes and 10 seconds)
they get to place a midroll ad on it so they make it easier to discover.
Thanks for the advice, definitely looking at making 8-minute plus vids in the near future.
@@ExtraMintyy no problem, there are a lot of cheats you can use to boost engagement, I use them a lot on my main channel and it's gotten me pretty far.
Vaporwave synthwave ambient music in general is a huge favourite/source of inspiration plus it’s forever a source of relaxation even now and it’ll be forever
I think I've seen more variety with vaporwave artists as of recent. I was one of many who listened to them throughout highschool and knew artists for how well they sampled (Blank Banshee, Macross, Saint Pepsi). Nowadays I listen to artists who go back to the source of nostalgia and create songs with less sampling. Macroblank and Windows 96 are by far the most consistent uploaders of new albums, but I also love Haircuts for Men! They each do new things in every album and have a huge body of work overall!
It's still around. Albums are still being published on bandcamp. Death's Dynamic Shroud is also still making absolute bangers
I got into vaporwave because I started playing Hotline Miami and I fell in love with the aesthetic
So trippy having listened to the floral shoppe one for so long, then discovering that was not the original song with one that was less slow, and then finding the actual song that sounded so fast compared to to the other versions but was in fact the original one by Diana Ross, which is relatively not well known about. Just such a weird experience.
I still regularly listen to Vaporwave and Future Funk. Artists are still releasing music. It didn't go anywhere, it just inevitably fell out of the mainstream. But I'd say the rise of City Pop is pretty closely linked. I first heard a lot of popular City Pop songs in Vaporwave releases. I'd also say that a lot of Vaporwave elements made their way into the mainstream in one way or another. They're clearly present in Blinding Lights and a lot of other songs on After Hours, along with Dawn FM- co-produced by OneOhTrix Point Never, one of the founders of Vaporwave.
I like vaporwave, it looks cool! I didn’t live in the 80s, I was born in the 2000s. But i like the vibes of Vaperwave, along with other aesthetics like Y2K and fruitiger Aro. Man these aesthetics are so cool! I wish these became mainstream again instead of the boring flat minimalistic styles of today. Make things look cool dang it!
synthwave enjoyiers chilling:
*Charpenter Brut*
Vaporwave was my gateway to all the core/aesthetics and music
Something like this was always destined to be transient, much like the era that inspired it. As others have said, its still being made in various corners of the 'net. Just gotta go looking for it.
It went underground. I'm in a few of the hidden vaporwave spaces online and it's great. They went underground to get away from people who were starting to make it mainstream and also Gen Z who started to mock vaporwave but then also lowkey copying it into Y3k (which is pathetic behavior). That said, vaporwave is doing great away from prying eyes. If you think "it's gone" just because it's not as prominent on youtube anymore, you're the exact reason we went underground.
Artists kept using the same samples over and over that killed it for me, how many different times can you make plastic love vaporwave cover?
There are many great vaporwave bands releasing frequently, but some of the most prolific also do similar genres like Witchhouse, Deathdream or Barber Beats, that doesn't mean Vaporwave is dead. Mabisyo, Darkness, Macroblank, Haircuts for Men and t e l e p a t h are the immediate names that come to mind.
Amazing content! just subbed.
we need to keep it alive vapour wave and synthwave is the best music made in the 21st century so far i think music started going down hill around the time i was born and became unbearable by the year 2000. when i went to high school i didn't listen to any music at all i didn't get why people got so hyped up over music sometimes i would hear old music and i enjoyed .it or maybe video game soundtracks. but when i discovered vapor wave at age 20 i finally found new but good music. and i was feeling hype for new music from my favourite artists for the first time in my life. so i hope it stays popular forever and maybe it will inspire newer styles that try to be different from the 80s but have the qualities of 80s or pre 80s music. i think most music before the 90s was good even classical music and medieval music. anything but the auto tuned high pitched stuff that has been dominating mainstream music for about 25 years now .
Barbershop beats www.youtube.com/@rabbitholeclub and dreampunk
m.ua-cam.com/users/VILL4IN are still decently popular right now, both decendents of vaporwave
As an Englisher, does this type of content feel "foreign" to you? It seems very specifically American to me, so it's always interesting to me how popular it is with non-Americans.
It definitely feels foreign to a degree. Being from Australia, a lot of the iconography was only exposed to us through television. I think the reason it still is impactful is similar to the backrooms and liminal spaces. When paired with the right music, and comment sections of people reflecting on it, you begin to feel a shared sense of nostalgia even if it’s only based on fragments you didn’t directly experience. Definitely an interesting perspective to dig into.
@@ExtraMintyy oh you’re from Australia! Solar sands did a video where he talked about how Russians have their own version of nostalgic imagery, I wonder if Australians do too!
@@JJMcCullough Oh, we do for sure. It's all over our TikTok pages (especially the old TV shows). You know what? Could make an interesting video..... ;)
@@ExtraMintyy you should! In my experience Americans love seeing videos about weird stuff from other countries. It’s been key to my channel’s success and could help yours grow.
Thanks, appreciate the advice!
WTF? This is among my top three favorite genres. xD
Nothing "happened" to Vaporwave. Vaporwave just IS.
Dawn FM by the Weeknd - one of the most famous current musicians, was released not even two years ago. The production was done by the guy who arguably started vaporwave - he did the nobody here video and the echo the dolphin album from 2010. Vaporwave isn't dead at all. It's mainstream. There are so many subgenres that are still kicking. Future Funk and Mallsoft being the main two spinoffs. I've felt recently like everything new I've listened is drowning in vaporwave influence. Dua Lipa and Harry Styles have had a bunch of songs that are just Future Funk songs. Many many artists appear to be incorporating the danceable beats, the slowed distortion, the nostalgia, and the goofy aesthetic into their music. It's literally everywhere.
hey this is a well made video. glad it got recommended!
Well it got so overdone with all the super specific "micro-subgenres", the bandwagon-y/fad-y side of it. And in general the 80's nostalgia, whether the mainstream type or not, has gotten stale imo. It's so obvious when big corporations and artists go for the "kidz love the faux 80's blue and purple combination these days" stuff all over the place.
havent watched the video but the reason why vaporwave died is very simple
>listen to vaporwave
>Find sample song from the vaporwave song
>its almost entirely unchanged apart from being slowed doing and cut in a few places
>listen to the original song
>stopped listening to vaporwave
its exactly the same reason why futurefunk died the moment city pop experienced its big revival
Vaporwave was always underground but still has dedicated fans keeping it alive :)
IDK why people keep saying its dead but I see new releases every day and am going to a vaporwave party this weekend
vaporwave is on the comeback i be making hellllaaa on this channel
nothing happened to it... it's still here, lurking in the underworld as it always has
its true I had vaporwave as my background in HS! you totally get me (or maybe I was in my early 30s already, but w/e)
The problem with any kind of vaporwave now is that nostalgia itself is considered politically incorrect.
There is also the moving on of time, Vaporwave only elicits the right feelings in Gen X and millennials. Gen Z and Alpha will not have the same reaction.
Did you actually use Retro Bird’s outro for the background music?
It still has a❤pulse...🤘🏼💯✔️
No wonder I love mall soft so much!!! It’s vapourwave + liminal spaces, both of which I adore. Of course!!!
It aint went nowhere. Folks is still out here holding it down. Believe me 🌊🌊🌊🌊💯
i miss it so much. the vibes were so perfect
I don't think it really went anywhere it's just faded
i think its better for vaporwave to not be in the mainstream eye
vaporwave is dead, long live vaporwave
how on earth do you only have 43 subscribers, brilliant! My only complaint is that the cadence is a bit fast, the second half is much more reasonable
Thanks for the feedback!
To future generations: never let vaporwave die
the thing I miss abouth Vaporwave its the youtube vidos videos and tumblr blogs that haver be deletee since 2017 🥺🥺🥺🥺
It's still around especially on band camp
The real answer is that the music its based off or inspired by is often better. Gran Turismo for example already had vaporwave music. Cheezy jazz that's laid back. Not only does it sound like vaporwave it also has a certain quality and understanding of composition that's often not a thing from more internet/computer vaporwave artists. In every genre you always have outliers.
If we talk about Macintosh Plus and Laserdisc Vision ltd, I think that kind of Vaporwave you dont hear often anymore. Vaporwave being trending is just to open up the ears for the general audience as you can see during the Yung lean and vaporwave boom back, music did change a lot.
Neckbeards and anime freaks ruined it
No, Fruitiger Was Used by everyone from 2007 to 2015. Vaporwave Has been used since the 70s.
Chillwave? synthwave? they don't exist.
no way this dude only has 90 subs
fire video bro
Long Story Short: It went mainstream.