Vaporwave Research Paper

Music as an art form has been around for ages, ranging from the more primitive and ancient tribal folk rhythms to the current widespread pop radio stations. Some genres have deep roots and history that can be traced back for thousands of years while others are still relatively in its infancy. With the advent of the internet and computer technologies, it’s no longer a necessity for musicians to have a studio or record label produce and distribute their sounds, and this is how the music genre of vaporwave was born. Vaporwave emits a sense of indeterminacy through the combination of old-school samples with polished modern beats. This embrace of nostalgia embodies a rejection of the soulless shell of prevalent hyper-capitalism today.

Although no one can pinpoint exactly when the genre of vaporwave was created, most would agree it came from the internet in the early 2010s. It originated on websites such as Bandcamp, Tumblr, and 4chan as a somewhat

The name vaporwave is sometimes interpreted as a play on word from the tech industry’s “vaporware”, a term for products that are announced to the public yet never come to fruition, and a musical wave (such as New wave). The term vaporware can also be seen as the intentional fabrication of products that were never planned to be released in order to capture the consumers’ attention. These empty promises of advertising then become tactical lies sustained by the inclination of the capitalistic marketplace. This is an appropriate view of the genre considering its dystopian undertone which one writer calls the “soundtrack to austerity” (Ward). The barren austerity comes from the aforementioned flawed system; it’s the promise that one can achieve anything if they try, yet in reality, it inherently favors only a select few while leaving others in the