Synthwave

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This article is about the house-influenced genre from the 2000s. For topics related to the term used in 1980s magazines, see Cold wave (music), Minimal wave, and Dark wave.
Synthwave
Other names
  • Outrun
  • retrowave
  • future synth
Stylistic origins
Cultural originsMid-to late 2000s[4][5]
Subgenres
Other topics

Synthwave (also called outrun, retrowave, or futuresynth[5]) is an electronic music microgenre that is based predominantly on the music associated with action, science-fiction, and horror film soundtracks of the 1980s.[2] Other influences are drawn from the decade's art and video games.[3] Synthwave musicians often espouse nostalgia for 1980s culture and attempt to capture the era's atmosphere and celebrate it.[9]

The genre developed in the mid-to late 2000s through French house producers, as well as younger artists who were inspired by the 2002 video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Other reference points included composers John Carpenter, Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis (especially his score for the 1982 film Blade Runner), and Tangerine Dream. Synthwave reached wider popularity after being featured in the soundtracks of the 2011 film Drive (which included some of the genre's best-known songs) and the 2010s Netflix series Stranger Things.

Characteristics and related terms[]

A synthwave music video

Synthwave is a microgenre[10] of electronic music[1] that draws predominantly from 1980s films, video games, and cartoons,[11] as well as composers such as John Carpenter, Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis, and Tangerine Dream.[12][13] Other reference points include electronic dance music genres including house, synth, and nu-disco.[14] It is primarily an instrumental genre, although there are occasional exceptions to the rule.[15] Common tempos are between 80 and 118 BPM, while more upbeat tracks may be between 128 and 140 BPM.[16]

"Outrun" is a synonym of synthwave that was later used to refer more generally to retro 1980s aesthetics such as VHS tracking artifacts, magenta neon, and gridlines.[15] The term comes from the 1986 arcade racing game Out Run, which is known for its soundtrack that could be selected in-game and its 1980s aesthetic.[13][17] According to musician Perturbator (James Kent), outrun is also its own subgenre, mainly instrumental, and often contains 1980s clichéd elements in the sound such as electronic drums, gated reverb, and analog synthesizer bass lines and leads - all to resemble tracks from that time period.[18]

Other subgenres include dreamwave, darksynth, and scifiwave.[7] Journalist Julia Neuman cited "outrun", "futuresynth", and "retrowave" as alternative terms for synthwave[5] while author Nicholas Diak wrote that "retrowave" was an umbrella term that encompasses 1980s revivalism genres such as synthwave and vaporwave.[15]

Based on 1980s-inspired color schemes of pink and blue that are shared with synthwave and retrowave, a stylistic theme known as "bisexual lighting" has also been suggested by some commentators.[19]

Origins[]

Kavinsky performing in 2007

Synthwave originates from the mid-2000s[20] or late 2000s.[4] Diak traced the genre to a broader trend involving young artists whose works drew from their childhoods in the 1980s. He credited the success of the 2002 video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City with shifting "attitudes toward the '80s ... from parody and ambivalence to that of homage and reverence", leading directly to genres such as synthwave and vaporwave.[15]

Artists who helped inspire the genre were the French acts David Grellier (College), Kavinsky, M83, and Justice. These early artists began creating music inspired by famous 1980s score composers; music which was, at the time, largely associated with French house.[5] Other key reference points for early synthwave included the 1982 film Blade Runner (both the soundtrack and the film itself), 8- and 16-bit video games, 1980s jingles for VHS production companies, and television news broadcasts and advertisements from that era.[4]

Popularity and spin-offs[]

In the early 2010s, the synthwave soundtracks of films such as Drive and Tron: Legacy attracted new fans and artists to the genre.[7] Drive featured Kavinsky's "Nightcall" and, with College, "A Real Hero", which catapulted synthwave into mainstream recognition and solidified its stature as a music genre.[4] The genre's popularity was furthered through its presence in the soundtracks of video games like Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon and Hotline Miami, as well as the Netflix series Stranger Things, which featured synthwave pieces that accommodated the show's 1980s setting.[4][21] Nerdglow's Christopher Higgins cited Electric Youth and Kavinsky as the two most popular artists in synthwave in 2014.[11]

In the mid-2010s, fashwave (a portmanteau of "fascist" and "synthwave")[8] emerged as a largely instrumental fusion genre of synthwave and vaporwave, with political track titles and occasional soundbites, such as excerpts of speeches given by Adolf Hitler,[22] The phenomenon was described as self-identified fascists and alt-right members appropriating vaporwave music and aesthetics.[22][23] It was popularized in 2016 by Daily Stormer founder Andrew Anglin, who touted synthwave as the "Whitest music ever" and "the spirit of the childhoods of millenials [sic]".[24] Elsewhere, there was a growing trend of Russian synthwave musicians whose work espoused nostalgia for the Soviet Union, sometimes described as "Sovietwave".[25]

Synthwave remained a niche genre throughout the 2010s. Writing in 2019, PopMatters journalist Preston Cram said, "Despite its significant presence and the high level of enthusiasm about it, synthwave in its complete form remains a primarily underground form of music."[4] He added that "Nightcall" and "A Real Hero" remained "two of only a small number of synthwave songs produced to date that widely known outside the genre's followers."[4] In 2020, "Blinding Lights", a synthwave song by the Weeknd,[26] topped US record charts, the first song to do so during the COVID-19 pandemic.[27]

See also[]

  • The Rise of the Synths – 2019 synthwave documentary featuring John Carpenter[28]
  • 1980s in music
  • Cyberspace

References[]

  1. ^ a b Robert (23 September 2016). "On The Synthwave Genre and Video Games". Surreal Resolution. Retrieved 2017-01-17.
  2. ^ a b c Hunt, Jon (9 April 2014). "We Will Rock You: Welcome To The Future. This is Synthwave". l'etoile. Archived from the original on 2017-07-11. Retrieved 2015-05-18.
  3. ^ a b c Neuman, Julia (June 23, 2015). "A Retrowave Primer: 9 Artists Bringing Back the '80s". MTV Iggy. Archived from the original on 2015-06-23. Retrieved 2015-06-23.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Cram, Preston (2019-11-25). "How Synthwave Grew from a Niche '80s Throwback to a Current Phenomenon". Popmatters. Retrieved 2019-12-05.
  5. ^ a b c d e Neuman, Julia (July 30, 2015). "The Nostalgic Allure of 'Synthwave'". New York Observer. Retrieved 2016-05-16.
  6. ^ "25 Favourite Italo Disco Tracks". electricityclub.co.uk. Retrieved 2022-01-16.
  7. ^ a b c d e Young, Bryan (25 March 2015). "Synthwave: If Tron and Megaman had a music baby". Glitchslap.com. Retrieved 2015-05-19.
  8. ^ a b Hann, Michael (December 14, 2016). "'Fashwave': synth music co-opted by the far right". The Guardian.
  9. ^ Calvert, John (13 October 2011). "Xeno and Oaklander - Sets & Lights". Drowned in Sound. Archived from the original on 2015-09-13. Retrieved 2015-06-08.
  10. ^ Maxwell, Dante (September 20, 2019). "Music Microgenres: A Brief History of Retrowave, Acid House, & Chillhop". Zizacious.
  11. ^ a b Christopher Higgins (2014-07-29). "The 7 Most Essential Synthwave Artists". Nerdglow.com. Retrieved 2015-05-18.
  12. ^ Hunt, Jon (9 April 2014). "We Will Rock You: Welcome To The Future. This is Synthwave". l'etoile. Archived from the original on 2017-07-11. Retrieved 2015-05-18.
  13. ^ a b Lambert, Molly (2016-08-04). "Stranger Things and how Tangerine Dream soundtracked the 80s". MTV.com. Retrieved 2016-08-28.
  14. ^ Cram, Preston (2021-06-24). "What is Synthwave? • Electrozombies". Electrozombies. Retrieved 2021-06-24.
  15. ^ a b c d Wetmore, Jr. 2018, p. 31.
  16. ^ "Synthwave: 5 Production Essentials | ModeAudio Magazine". ModeAudio. Retrieved 2020-04-15.
  17. ^ Prisco, Jacopo (18 September 2021). "How Out Run changed video games forever". Wired UK. Retrieved 2021-11-04.
  18. ^ McCasker, Toby (2014-06-22). "Riding the Cyber Doom Synthwave With Perturbator | NOISEY". Noisey.vice.com. Retrieved 2015-05-19.
  19. ^ "Is 'bisexual lighting' a new cinematic phenomenon?". BBC News. 2018-04-21. Retrieved 2021-03-04.
  20. ^ Neuman, Julia (July 30, 2015). "The Nostalgic Allure of 'Synthwave'". New York Observer. Retrieved 2016-05-16.
  21. ^ "A Guide to Synthwave Part II – Drive, Blood Dragon & Hotline Miami". Hey Nineteen. 2017-06-22. Retrieved 2021-11-10.
  22. ^ a b Bullock, Penn; Kerry, Eli (January 30, 2017). "Trumpwave and Fashwave Are Just the Latest Disturbing Examples of the Far-Right Appropriating Electronic Music". Vice. Retrieved 2017-02-06.
  23. ^ Farrell, Paul (2018-05-18). "Fashwave: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know". Heavy.com. Retrieved 2020-03-05.
  24. ^ Hermansson, Patrik; Lawrence, David; Mulhall, Joe; Murdoch, Simon (2020). The International Alt-Right: Fascism for the 21st Century?. Taylor & Francis. p. 96. ISBN 978-0-429-62709-5.
  25. ^ Luhn, Alec (July 29, 2015). "Russia's musical new wave embraces Soviet chic". The Guardian.
  26. ^ "[LISTEN] The Weeknd's 'Blinding Lights' Is Yearning Synthwave". uproxx.com. Retrieved 2022-01-16.
  27. ^ Chris Molanphy. "Why the Weeknd's "Blinding Lights" is the first chart topper of the coronavirus era". slate.com. Retrieved 2022-01-16.
  28. ^ "Doc'n Roll Film Festival - The Rise of The Synths". www.docnrollfestival.com. Retrieved 2019-09-30.

Bibliography

External links[]

Media related to Synthwave at Wikimedia Commons

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