“Do You Have a Moment to Talk About Vaporwave?” Technology, Memory, and Critique in the Writing on an Online Music Scene

Abstract

Vaporwave is an online music scene first surfacing in the early 2010s. Vaporwave producers manipulate samples from commercial music, especially from the 1980s and 1990s (mainstream hits, Muzak, new age, and related “easy listening” styles). The genre has garnered significant attention, from fan communities, journalists, and scholars. Writing on vaporwave tends to discuss what it is “about” in a consistent way. In this chapter, the interpretive frames typically used to make sense of vaporwave are described and contextualized. Engaging with how this writing expresses the musical meaning and significance of vaporwave highlights the status of this writing, as an important element of the genre itself, with effects and implications beyond the scene and the music, rather than merely a description or discussion of it.