Vaporwave

[joshuatxuk]

Don't forget TMNT, as my brother pointed out, despite the film's use of Domino's as the turtles' choice, the only commercial/trailer on the VHS copy was this pizza hut commercial:

 

(btw - not very vaporwave-y, sounds more like Galaxie 500 song)

 

http://youtu.be/tOE-4C491Vo

 

Pizza is one of biggest bridge between the 80s and 90s, 80s had Showbiz Pizza before evolving into Chuck E. Cheese.

 

 

I remember when I lived in Abilene, TX the meccas of awesomeness being CiCi's pizza and Putt-Putt golf UNTIL Mr. Gatti's opened an ultimate combination of pizza buffett and arcade in 1995 - the whole fucking town wouldn't stop talking about, including the fact that it had "Abilene's biggest indoor roller-coaster" - (if my memory serves me right, it went in a perfect circle, rose about 5 feet off the ground, and fit in a dark 40ft x 40ft room with stobe lights) I remember asking my dad "Isn't this the only indoor roller coaster in Abilene?" [i had been to Six Flags, I knew what real roller coasters looked like] and he just kinda grinned and said "uh huh." Learned a lot about marketing that day.

 

look witch house + vaporwave crossover subgenre was already invented in 1995! (I had this tape btw):

 

http://youtu.be/rtjji8chxeY

Edited January 7, 2013 by joshuatx

[joshuatxuk]

a couple years ago I had a wave of inspiration and wrote a stream of consciousness report on some hazily remembered aesthetics of my 90's childhood, and the questionably mind-numbing uniformity of corporate interior design. ball pits and colorful wall to wall carpeting...paintings of flowers, pastel printed dixie cups...

OCT-O=0.doc

 

Crazy Mazey’s - I must know more.

 

Reminds me of the very sterile, modular chuck e cheese alternative "DZ Discovery Zone" restaurant chain.

 

 

Also reminds me of a place I went to in the Dallas mall in the mid-90s that had features more akin to this maze structure you describe It was a daycare setup too - I swear we dropped off. Maybe not...not even sure how accurate this memory is really. Anyway it had a lot of kid's museum-eqsue stuff too - weird interactive objects and tools and gadgets. I remember interesting looking staff manning it - like dudes in their 40s who belonged in a 70s British sci-fi film laboratory. Also recall seeing a national news story about this place that was a mock underground cave/mine made of foam and plastic for kids to explore - looked fucking awesome.

 

My dad has also mentioned in the late 80s in Sacramento there was a putt-putt/batting range place that had, instead of laser tag or paintball, this setup with mini-tanks that would fire tennis balls from pneumatic barrels. You'd find other tanks, they could fit too adults but were powered by pedals and made of fiberglass. Sensors would tally hits. He's told me about how he's never seen or heard about it again. These are the among a few memories of things past I haven't been able to find remnants of on the internet or elsewhere. It's a strange feeling wondering what all was real to begin with, knowing times you've found something and your false memory is shattered by a sudden recollection of the real one when evidence presents itself to you.

 

Do you think maybe the Olsen Twins Slowed videos are one of the main origins of this aesthetic (..well for Pizzawave joke-genre it obviously is but I mean for slowed Eccojams in general)?

 

 

Fuck! My sister played this movie endlessly for a good week. She said that pizza song constantly (she was one of those kids who couldn't accept silence as a reality and therefore had to talk and/or sing if she was awake). Dude this thread is fucking with me, my brain is accessing shit I forgot long ago.

 

She had this one too:

 

[Nebraska]

midnight television needs to do a soundtrack to this training video

 

 

[Nebraska]

miami vice - culture island

 

 

http://miamivice.bandcamp.com/

[baph]

Man, if pizza hut hadn't rejected ween outright, they'd have had a ten year jump on the pizza wave phenomenon

 

[Nebraska]

here's a pretty interesting article about vaporwave from dummymag titled vaporwave & the popart of the virtual plaza plus a free vapormix

[Guest cult fiction]

here's a pretty interesting article about vaporwave from dummymag titled vaporwave & the popart of the virtual plaza plus a free vapormix

It sucks that the artists in the first half of that article are even mentioned alongside vaporwave. If you listen to the mix associated with the first half versus the vaporwave mix at the bottom, the difference in energy, creativity, and overall freshness is immense.

 

 

 

Official vaporwave american apparel uniform:

 

 

[Nebraska]

part two of the article above here

[gmanyo]

Fatima Al Qadiri is way awesome, and "distroid" (although I don't think anyone but Dummymag calls it that) has a much more constructive overall message than vaporwave in my opinion. Desert Strike EP has one of the coolest themes of any album ever. Like seriously read that blurb about the album.

[joshuatxuk]

Man, if pizza hut hadn't rejected ween outright, they'd have had a ten year jump on the pizza wave phenomenon

 

 

There was a point where I'd hum and/or sing that so often that my wife said "I need you to stop singing that - FOREVER PLZ"

[Nebraska]

Fatima Al Qadiri is way awesome, and "distroid" (although I don't think anyone but Dummymag calls it that) has a much more constructive overall message than vaporwave in my opinion. Desert Strike EP has one of the coolest themes of any album ever. Like seriously read that blurb about the album.

 

this (suspiciously?) sounds like demoscene music, complete with the

visuals. i can see why they're lumping it together with vaporwave, but i do agree it's not the same thing

[Nebraska]

this is a very vaporwave video documentary

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJVtfRTH4mk

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8iXb0g96Sg

[joshuatxuk]

lol, the 1 commentator per channel feature is brilliant, same with the talking quartz rock thingy

 

I saw one of these months ago at GW - should of picked up, it was 7 or 8 bucks

 

[gmanyo]

[Guest jasondonervan]

[Nebraska]

this is a response (of sorts) to that dummymag article about vaporwave i posted earlier

 

http://vimeo.com/54166230

[Salvatorin]

both sides of this make me just want to set my laptop on fire and never ever go on the internet ever again. music journalism: worst thing to happen to music, ever

[Guest murphythecat8]

 

a couple years ago I had a wave of inspiration and wrote a stream of consciousness report on some hazily remembered aesthetics of my 90's childhood, and the questionably mind-numbing uniformity of corporate interior design. ball pits and colorful wall to wall carpeting...paintings of flowers, pastel printed dixie cups...

OCT-O=0.doc

 

 

Fantastic essay! I guess I should try and articulate my thoughts on this and the relationship with vaporwave (forgive me if any of this is incoherent or pompous, I've just finished off a bottle of wine...)

 

For me 90's culture symbolised a very innovative yet limited aspect of individual creativity. Whilst technology was certainly at a point where we were able to create art that we beforehand could not have even have comprehended, the technology still reflected an alternate reality, one which distinctly presented the creators imagination as opposed to a near imitation of reality. What I mean by that is that even though we felt like we were looking at the future, it was still obvious the future looked nothing like the present; the sounds and visuals of the 90s could be easily distinguished from reality, relying on our imagination to fill that gap to answer the question 'What would this be like in reality?'. To me that's a real advantage; the ability to grow up in this high speed advancement of technology, whilst having the real life exploration and human interactions of the tubes and the ball pit described in your essay, allowed a real, emotional connection with both fantasy and reality

 

What I feel separates these times between now and then is that relationship with our imagination. I remember imagining how cars were made as I was young and making these incredibly naive diagrams of how they were constructed. The important thing wasn't that I was right, but rather I was using my imagination. Nowadays a child of the same age could simply Google it out of curiosity, accept whatever is told to them as fact, then forget that fact the same day as something more important comes along. Technology is so advanced now it's easy to forget those limitations we had before and how they controlled our creativity (of course, there's a counter argument to be made how technology today has advanced creativity due to exposure of so much information to research).

 

Now in the context of vaporwave, I feel the genre is largely about subscribing to those limitations of the 90s; the cheesy instrumentation, the vapid commercialism, the naive and child like lack of self awareness in regards to social status. Whilst I can appreciate a genre focused on the frustrations on how limitless possibilities have hindered creativity rather than enhanced it, I can't help but shake off a feeling of pretentiousness about the genre. The ideas of making a political statement and criticising aspects of society somewhat irk me, mainly as it doesn't actually call for any sort of action or present the problems in a negative light that needs to be changed; in a way the political aspect feels just like clutching straws to keep the music relevant in these times of constant change. If vaporwave is to last beyond a flash in the pan Pitchfork genre of the month, the artists involved really need to emphasise the emotional aspects of their music rather than making something that fits in the genre, then trying too hard to make it seem politically relevant.

 

Edited because the new quoting system sucks :(

yes I agree, It will need to go somewhere, or this music will fail, but god damn, there something so exciting about this music, I shouldnt like this at all, but lately Ive been listening more and more of this style, so damn hilarious! This music is literraly using the worst music ever created and trying to make something good out of it. And it almost work, genius stuff.

Edited March 5, 2013 by murphythecat8

[joshuatxuk]

both sides of this make me just want to set my laptop on fire and never ever go on the internet ever again. music journalism: worst thing to happen to music, ever

 

Honestly I love this stuff, even if it's ridiculous and absurd. These are great points/counterpoints: the Dummy Mag features were relentless and fascinating brainstorming sessions regarding vaporwave and distroid and the Shallow Rewards is a focused breakdown of everything (and more) discussed in this thread and in threads about dubstep, witch-house, etc. I really like how knowledge based that guy is - the main criticism of mine would be he ends up touting his peers but at least he's presenting evidence and it's relevant. He also is a Simon Reynolds fan like myself which probably explains why I like his analysis so much.

 

Music journalism was all hero worship and arbitrary critical bullshit back in the heyday of of rock in the 60s and 70s. That's why Rolling Stone was essentially just long-winded writers hashing out love for bands they personally liked and/or new and completely ignored or derided developments like hip-hop and metal. As Zappa said "Most rock journalism is people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, for people who can't read." Well, I consider this stuff the tiny select portion of music journalism worth reading. I'm sure I'm not even acknowledging most of the crap.

[joshuatxuk]

I'll just flat-out say it, this guy nails it sometimes. He's articulating things I've concluded myself in the last couple of years (specifically before he goes into the focus of this video he hits on something I finally got over - the odd jealousy and resentment of a artist you like getting hyped and famous) - ironically he actually blasts the music journalists toward the end.

 

http://vimeo.com/54523062

 

I've looked up older articles he wrote and one of them mentioned the Pipettes, who were hyped up through 2006 and got rave reviews (including a 8.4 from pitchfork) and then fizzled out. He said "Like those who fawn over them, the Pipettes have talked their way into this party, and I suspect we will not notice when they have left" and he was completely right. Likewise Pitchfork in it's best of 00s lists had a feature of forgotten artists they thought would have notable careers based on hit singles.

 

I suppose part of what he's talking about here is the fact that the 00s had so many genres and hyped artists become completely forgotten, at least in the sense of being revered and recognized later. I could name off plenty of artists and genres and fads and I kind of feel like that might be going away to a certain extent. There's new thresholds and standards now for "fame" and "hype" that weren't around even in the mid-00s.

Edited March 5, 2013 by joshuatx

[cruising for burgers]

i still have yet to dig on this thread but from what i've listened it sounds like a lot of what i'm diggin these days, specially this soundtrack by TD!

check it out dudes, fo real!

 

@10:50

@33:17
@41:28
@56:20

 

[youtubehd]yvgWaPLHr3s[/youtubehd]

 

 

 

 

[youtubehd]Ytf-S1KNdQc[/youtubehd]

[Salvatorin]

http://adhoc.fm/post/keith-fullerton-whitman-posts-12-hour-mix/

I dare you to listen to all of this

like, dose on DOB and lock yourself in a dimly lit room with only an old static tv or sumtink

Edited April 16, 2013 by Salvatorin

[joshuatxuk]

THE Colin Field has a new cassette release out on what's probably my favorite tape label, Constellation Tatsu.

 

 

ANGEL 1PURPLE HAZE

 

[Guest Retosik]

http://beerontherug.bandcamp.com/album/home-tm

http://beerontherug.bandcamp.com/album/clearskies-tm

Everybody should check this

[gmanyo]

Haven't listened to them too much yet, although from what I heard I didn't like these as much as Vektroid's other stuff under names that aren't Vektroid. My favorite thing by her so far is either Laserdisc Visions or Virtual Information Desk (in Japanese). Or if you count Sacred Tapestry then that, but it was never officially released. Just on Soundcloud.

Edited May 5, 2013 by gmanyo