Are Old Tunes Vol. 1 and 2 Vaporwave prototypes?

80s aesthetic synths produced at a time later than the 80s, samples of 80s tracks downpitched, samples of commercials showcasing American consumerism, seems like vaporwave to me predating anything from the 2010s vaporwave era.  If this were released today people would call it vaporwave is all I'm saying, and a top vaporwave album of all time at that

Floral Shoppe's aesthetic is essentially the same as this

if that's true then all plunderphonics is proto vaporwave

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpRh1PnQHM0

agreed but there's no synths

lol

lock this thread pls

I initially read the topic title as "Are Old Tunes Vol 1 and 2 VaporWARE Prototypes"...

  On 8/20/2018 at 4:18 PM, Joyrex said:

I initially read the topic title as "Are Old Tunes Vol 1 and 2 VaporWARE Prototypes"...

That would be a more accurate and astute observation, I think.

Can you please rename the thread? Kthanx.

Trapped for sure is

But yeah, definitely has that feel - though I guess it's more that Vaporwave stuff is trying to emulate the 80s/90s tape scene anyway so the comparisons are inevitable.

why do people obsess about vaporwave anyway? is such a shitty genre

  On 8/20/2018 at 5:12 PM, MIXL2 said:

why do people obsess about vaporwave anyway? is such a shitty genre

When it's done well it touches the nostalgia bone like nothing else. Good example being:

  On 8/20/2018 at 5:25 PM, mcbpete said:

 

  On 8/20/2018 at 5:12 PM, MIXL2 said:

why do people obsess about vaporwave anyway? is such a shitty genre

I wouldn't say it's a shitty genre, just that it's a genre that is easily abused for shitty & lazy derivative works.

 

When it's done well it touches the nostalgia bone like nothing else. Good example being:

 

 

I'm in camp mcbpete on this.

First 10 minutes of this album is probably some of the best vaporwave I've heard.

Cool, now I have two things for the queue: BoC Old tunes 1&2, and some more of this nmesh.

I was getting ready to roflmao at this recursive vaporwave, but it's actually pretty listenable. Fuck, I think I'm another lost soul to vaporwave. I'm sorry everyone.

https://nmesh.bandcamp.com/album/mirror-shoppe

If you hate vaporwave, you're a plebeian 

  On 8/23/2018 at 10:40 AM, Zeffolia said:

If you hate vaporwave, you're a plebeian 

 

Awwww yeah.

  On 8/20/2018 at 4:25 PM, mcbpete said:

Trapped for sure is

 

 

But yeah, definitely has that feel - though I guess it's more that Vaporwave stuff is trying to emulate the 80s/90s tape scene anyway so the comparisons are inevitable.

The whole MASK series could be considered vaporwave precursor to some degree?

Like this Autechre remix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1bTis9ee3U

Or even more this Anodyne remix of Duran Duran

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvY9cyThMUw

Also maybe some of the stuff that people like The KLF and The Orb put out, although they sampled more from the previous decades before 80s.

  Quote

Are Old Tunes Vol. 1 and 2 Vaporwave prototypes?

No. They are their own thing.

  Quote

If this were released today people would call it vaporwave is all I'm saying, and a top vaporwave album of all time at that

People call everything vaporwave nowadays, nothing posted in this thread caters to what vaporwave was (slowed down endless samples, that's it).

I say was because vaporwave has been dead since 2014 or whenever it became some anticap bs genre.. and morphed into an umbrella term for synthwave, ambient, and the hauntology feel in general.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqDUNEeOc90

when i first heard the opening track on OTV2, it was part of a mislabeled set of Play by Numbers tracks i found on slsk. at first i wasn't even sure it was BoC (because that album isn't on slsk) but i definitely being totally blown away by this track, and i listened to it several times.

it's clear they were aiming for a very specific feeling - distorted, pitched down and washed out. not only does it become disturbing and menacing, but it contrasts and flares against the feel-good pop music nature of the source material. even a simple vocal line can become an intense musical element when drawn upon it in this way.

this is what i love about vaporwave, and i agree with the earlier posts itt that vaporwave died several years ago - only a fraction of vw albums are good enough to re-listen. so i should say, this is what i love about GOOD vaporwave. and this track - along with Trapped, The Way You Show, Soylent Night and various other related tracks - is a definite precursor to all the things that make brilliant vaporwave music.

this has been a long time coming actually, and i'm glad there is now a thread for it. jesus wept, that We've Started Up remix is bliss. do you think they ever realised, while most likely just playing around with their mix tapes, that they hit upon something so good, so unique?

before vaporwave this would have been called a precursor to idm

an equally useless term

  On 8/23/2018 at 12:57 PM, MIXL2 said:

I say was because vaporwave has been dead since 2014 or whenever it became some anticap bs genre.. 

 

 

your chronology is a bit off. Internet Club coined the term "Vaporwave" while referencing both vaporware and the quote from Marx's Communist Manifesto "all that is solid melts into air."

short reminder

  On 8/26/2018 at 1:57 AM, Rhombix said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqDUNEeOc90

 

when i first heard the opening track on OTV2, it was part of a mislabeled set of Play by Numbers tracks i found on slsk. at first i wasn't even sure it was BoC (because that album isn't on slsk) but i definitely being totally blown away by this track, and i listened to it several times.

 

it's clear they were aiming for a very specific feeling - distorted, pitched down and washed out. not only does it become disturbing and menacing, but it contrasts and flares against the feel-good pop music nature of the source material. even a simple vocal line can become an intense musical element when drawn upon it in this way.

 

this is what i love about vaporwave, and i agree with the earlier posts itt that vaporwave died several years ago - only a fraction of vw albums are good enough to re-listen. so i should say, this is what i love about GOOD vaporwave. and this track - along with Trapped, The Way You Show, Soylent Night and various other related tracks - is a definite precursor to all the things that make brilliant vaporwave music.

 

this has been a long time coming actually, and i'm glad there is now a thread for it. jesus wept, that We've Started Up remix is bliss. do you think they ever realised, while most likely just playing around with their mix tapes, that they hit upon something so good, so unique?

We've Started Up is one of my favourite Old Tunes Hell Interface tracks... interesting to compare with the original source:

I definitely agree with mcbpete. I also think that's true with pretty much every genre.

Also, The Autechre remix of Crazy for Love is still my favourite Atechre song. Hard to make a comparison to their incredible discography, but that one somehow stands above the rest in my mind. It's really just one of my favourite songs from any artist.

  On 8/23/2018 at 12:57 PM, MIXL2 said:

 

  Quote

Are Old Tunes Vol. 1 and 2 Vaporwave prototypes?

No. They are their own thing.

 

  Quote

If this were released today people would call it vaporwave is all I'm saying, and a top vaporwave album of all time at that

People call everything vaporwave nowadays, nothing posted in this thread caters to what vaporwave was (slowed down endless samples, that's it).

 

I say was because vaporwave has been dead since 2014 or whenever it became some anticap bs genre.. and morphed into an umbrella term for synthwave, ambient, and the hauntology feel in general.

 

irritates the fuck out me - reddit is a cesspool of that mob mentality bullshit and statements like "genres and styles don't matter, it's what you like / I'm 14 and I'm sooo nostalgic for stuff from the 80s"

  On 8/26/2018 at 5:01 AM, Salvatorin said:

 

  On 8/23/2018 at 12:57 PM, MIXL2 said:

I say was because vaporwave has been dead since 2014 or whenever it became some anticap bs genre.. 

 

 

 

your chronology is a bit off. Internet Club coined the term "Vaporwave" while referencing both vaporware and the quote from Marx's Communist Manifesto "all that is solid melts into air."

 

short reminder

 

here's another one circa 2013 - as mentioned before vaporwave was like IDM - an outsider term for a subgenre of, in this case, a term for late 00s era hypnagogic Pop, chillwave, and retro-oriented synth and electronic music that was bubbling up from underground cassette labels and online DIY scenes.

By the time it got less underground in 2014 or so the genre was fairly diverse and labels like Dream Catalogue had become the loudest and most influential, pushing aesthetics that were related to but different from the overall themes of the original artists. Fast forward to now and most people talking about are actually referring to stuff like outrun and synthwave and often don't even know the origins of vaporwave nor it's classic albums. Reminds me of how the term dubstep was redefined and appropriated. It's no coincidence the originators of the genre moved on.

  On 8/26/2018 at 5:01 AM, Salvatorin said:

 

  On 8/23/2018 at 12:57 PM, MIXL2 said:

I say was because vaporwave has been dead since 2014 or whenever it became some anticap bs genre..

 

 

your chronology is a bit off. Internet Club coined the term "Vaporwave" while referencing both vaporware and the quote from Marx's Communist Manifesto "all that is solid melts into air."

 

short reminder

  On 8/23/2018 at 11:42 AM, mokz said:

 

  On 8/20/2018 at 4:25 PM, mcbpete said:

Trapped for sure is

 

 

But yeah, definitely has that feel - though I guess it's more that Vaporwave stuff is trying to emulate the 80s/90s tape scene anyway so the comparisons are inevitable.

 

The whole MASK series could be considered vaporwave precursor to some degree?

 

Also maybe some of the stuff that people like The KLF and The Orb put out, although they sampled more from the previous decades before 80s.

 

Totally 

  On 8/27/2018 at 7:39 PM, MIXL2 said:

 

  On 8/26/2018 at 5:01 AM, Salvatorin said:

 

  On 8/23/2018 at 12:57 PM, MIXL2 said:

I say was because vaporwave has been dead since 2014 or whenever it became some anticap bs genre..

 

your chronology is a bit off. Internet Club coined the term "Vaporwave" while referencing both vaporware and the quote from Marx's Communist Manifesto "all that is solid melts into air."

 

short reminder

the politics of it didnt become an integral part of it until later, as it went to shit

 

Internet Club was the only producer who actually mentioned Marx and Adam Harper in his Dummy Mag feature ran with it, lumped Ferraro's work in there (which is more broadly a damning critique of capitalism and more of specifically attacking materialism, artificiality, etc.) - then literally every vaporwave fan wanting to sound smart AF touting the Marx stuff. 

I always looked as vaporwave as lot more complicated and - sure it's commentary on late 80s / early 90s media and aesthetics and the context in which they emerged but there's also this aspect of tackling styles that were all but forgotten and/or languishing in thrift stores and abandoned malls, the "future past" aspect of a utopian, bright landscape of new tech and art that became a dud. As someone who remember the era hazily hearing vaporwave was cathartic because it reminded me of all of this music and television and art I loved as a kid but was not taken seriously by anyone else and/or was stuff I was too embarrassed to embrace, let alone revisit, as I got older and timed marched on. 

So yeah, fuck all of that superficial "durrr it's ironic smart anti-capitialism commentary" shit.

I would def call old BoC and many other 80s and 90s oddball songs and releases "protovaporwave"  (if it has the same sampling and retro emulation aspect) and/or unintentional vaporwave (if it's music that would make good fodder for vaporwave later on). There's also a lot of IDM peers of BoC that put out stuff similar to their music (Bola, Seefeel, Autechre, Dsjecta, etc). 

I've heard dungeon synth, VGM, plenty of new age, jazz, world music, and soundtracks and a plethora of experimental and/or underground music from the 90s and early 00s that have vaporwave vibes. It's just scattered, random, and usually all unrelated to each other. 

I should also add some of the best "vaporwave" I've heard has been released by people explicitly not part of the scene and/or self-described as such: 1991, Torn Hawk, Khotin, Sssaliva, even VHS Head at times.