Vaporwave is one of the most interesting genres that has popped up in recent memories. Producers in the genre use samples of '80s pop and smooth jazz music to create hazy, druggy critiques of capitalism and consumerism, while simultaneously appropriating the visual aesthetics of the '80s and '90s. It's a strange genre that has arguably reached oversaturation in recent years (mainly due to its popularity as a meme), but the best albums in the genre are excellent.
1. Chuck Person - Chuck Person's Eccojams Vol. 1
Musically and aesthetically, the genre of vaporwave was pioneered by Chuck Person, yet another alter-ego of Daniel Lopatin, best known as Oneohtrix Point Never. Several releases under the Oneohtrix Point Never name pioneered the sound and aesthetic style that came to be known as vaporwave (2009's Memory Vague, most notably), but it was Eccojams that cemented vaporwave as a legitimate musical style and artistic movement. The album cover, a corrupted interpretation of Sega's dreamy, hazy Ecco the Dolphin, set the genre's visual component in stone. The music itself, chopped and screwed bastardization of classic pop songs such as Toto's "Africa", laid out the groundwork for the musical side of the movement. It's strange, bizarre, and sometimes infuriating, but it's one of the most influential and interesting albums of the century.
2. Macintosh Plus - Floral Shoppe
Chances are if you're familiar with any vaporwave record, it's this one. For better or for worse, this is arguably the quintessential vaporwave record. The album cover has all the hallmarks of any good piece of vaporwave art. Corrupted VHS footage, tacky designs from the '80s, Roman busts, and copious overuse/misuse of Japanese characters. The album itself takes the repetition of Eccojams to its natural extreme, culminating in "リサフランク420 / 現代のコンピュー", the album's most famous track and the most famous vaporwave track in existence. The track is a surreal, repetitive interpretation of "It's Your Move" by Diana Ross, transforming a normally sultry and upbeat soul track into something nightmarish and dream-like.
3. James Ferraro - Far Side Virtual
Vaporwave is a genre that's really easy to do to death. It has a very distinct sound, a very distinct aesthetic, and an internet-savvy fan base that has a natural tendency to do otherwise unique and interesting things to death. The chopped and screwed style of vaporwave pioneered by Eccojams had already reached oversaturation by 2011 when experimental composer James Ferraro released Far Side Virtual. Ferraro's best work lies outside of the vaporwave genre, with wonderful releases such as Last American Hero and Live at Primavera Sound 2012 scattered throughout his large discography, but Far Side Virtual is nonetheless one of his most interesting releases, and one of the most unique vaporwave projects out there. The general vibe of the record is generally one of optimism, warily showcasing the rapidly changing world brought upon by smartphones, and the rather poppy, new age-esque sound of the record is eerily beautiful and entirely unique for the genre.
4. Blank Banshee - Blank Banshee 0
Combining vaporwave with dance music was a pretty logical step, and Blank Banshee combined the two genres better than anybody else. The anonymous producers first release deftly combines the dreamlike atmosphere and sampling of vaporwave with the danceable rhythms and skittering hi-hats of trap. The style of "vaportrap" has been done better by other artists, including Blank Banshee himself on 2013's Blank Banshee 1 and 2016's MEGA, but the simplicity of Blank Banshee 0 is part of what makes it so genius.
5. death's dynamic shroud.wmv - I'll Try Living Like This
Despite the relative simplicity of Floral Shoppe and the thousand other albums that have directly succeeded (read: ripped-off) Eccojams, there's still a whole lot of room for experimentation and complexity in this simple style of sample-based vaporwave. I'll Try Living Like This is filled to the brim with very obvious samples. Drake is sampled, the Sonic R soundtrack is sampled, but death's dynamic shroud still manages to do something entirely unique with these samples, combining them with experimental production styles reminiscent of wonky and deconstructed club music. It's eerie, nightmarish, and consistently captivating.
6. chris††† - No Lives Matter
Vaporwave was the first music scene to exist entirely online. Vaporwave albums are distributed on YouTube, reddit, 4chan, and Tumblr; artists in the genre communicate online rather than in clubs or at record stores; and the inherently memeable nature of the genre emphasizes just how online of a genre it is. Most vaporwave is focused around '80s and '90s pop culture, but chris†††'s No Lives Matter pays tribute to the mid-2000s internet culture that birthed the genre. "YTP Death", the album's most notable track, samples many different classic "YouTube Poop" videos, constructing something as hilarious and nostalgic as it is entirely hellish. Just like these videos that dominated YouTube in 2007 and 2008, chris†††'s corruption of classic media is as crass and anarchic as it is thought-provoking.
7. Kodak Cameo - Riviera
Riviera is arguably the vibiest vaporwave album out there. Kodak Cameo, a producer that sadly fell off the face of the earth after this album's release, does away with most of the satire so often dominant in the genre, leaving an album that's equal parts lounge, equal parts funk, and altogether incredibly atmospheric. Every track is supposed to represent a different landmark in Las Vegas, and the production is so evocative that these tracks all work perfectly.
8. Nmesh - Welcome to Warp Zone!
Vaporwave is such a large and oversaturated genre that it's nearly impossible to narrow it down to only ten albums. So, for the last three items on this list, I've decided to look at a vaporwave adjacent album along with two albums that are heavily inspirational on the genre. Nmesh is one of vaporwave's most prominent producers, and practically the only producer carrying vaporwave into the latter-half of the 2010s. Pharma is one of vaporwave's few recent successes, but 2014's Welcome to Warp Zone! is his masterpiece. Nmesh takes music from pretty much every video game under the sun and mashes them all together into a cohesive, engaging, story-driven DJ mix. It runs 4 hours and 20 minutes, but it goes by in an instant.
9. DJ Screw - Late Night F**kin' Yo B**ch
The musical aesthetic of vaporwave comes directly from southern hip-hop legend DJ Screw. During his regrettably short career, Screw transformed the sound of hip-hop with his "chopped and screwed" technique, where he would take hip-hop records, slow them down, warp them, and transform them into entirely new songs. These chopped and screwed tracks were hazy, lethargic, druggy, and a very obvious precursor to the sounds of vaporwave. Mixtapes such as All Screwed Up, 3 in the Mornin': Part Two, and June 27th rank among Screw's best, but Late Night F**kin' Yo B**ch, where he decided to chop up classic soul & R&B instead of hip-hop, is the release of his that's most obviously a precursor to vaporwave.
10. Negativland - Dispepsi
The satirical aspect of vaporwave is just as important as the musical aspect, and the gleefully anarchic Negativland were major pioneers in this regard. Negativland have better releases (Escape From Noise, especially), but Dispepsi is their most blatantly satirical, taking aim at soft drink companies for their aggressive advertising. The album title refers to indegestion, and the tracks themselves range from tongue-in-cheek jingles to noisy, purposefully irritating sound collage pieces. It's a very interesting experiment of an album, and one that would prove to be very influential once the vaporwave movement took hold.
