DMT Tapes FL released 29 records in 2022. A year earlier it released 113, and in 2018 it released 196. That one label's retreat explains about a fifth of why the Frekvenci archive lists 1,809 releases dated 2022, down 19% from 2021 and the second straight fall. The year still ranks seventh of the 27 on file, with more than 1,800 records, but nothing in the numbers is accelerating.
Who fell, who rose
The largest tape label alone shrank by 84 records against a total fall of 429, so the label table matters as much as the family table this year.
| Family | 2021 | 2022 |
|---|---|---|
| Vaporwave | 914 | 796 |
| Synthwave | 763 | 581 |
| Popwave | 264 | 234 |
| Darksynth | 198 | 118 |
| Dreamwave | 99 | 79 |
The darksynth family fell 40%, the sharpest drop of any family. In tags: synthwave 544, vaporwave 274, barber beats 219, synth-pop 163, darkwave 93 and future funk 79 (from 153). Barber beats, a slow, sample-based vaporwave offshoot, was at 57 releases in 2020 and 102 in 2021, and is the third most-used tag of 2022. The What is barber beats? The vaporwave micro-genre named after one prolific artist explains the style, and the What is darksynth? The heavy, horror-lit side of synthwave the family that shrank.
SHOW THE NUMBERS
| Genre tag | Releases |
|---|---|
| Vaporwave (untagged sub-genre) | 274 |
| Barber Beats | 219 |
| Future Funk | 79 |
| Signalwave | 68 |
| Slushwave | 62 |
| Mallsoft | 33 |
| Dreampunk | 29 |
| Eccojams | 15 |
| Vaportrap | 12 |
| Utopian Virtual | 4 |
| Hardvapour | 1 |
The rest of the label table
After DMT Tapes FL come RetroSynth Records and Vaporwave Tapes Brasil with 22 each, NewRetroWave and Aztec Records with 20, Underwater Computing with 19, and Country Club Corporation and No Problema Tapes with 17 each. Two synthwave labels held up better than the tape labels: RetroSynth Records kept its 22 releases from 2021, and NewRetroWave went from 30 to 20.
City pop, a student paper and a metal interview
In February 2022, an AFP report described the global revival of Japanese city pop, crediting YouTube recommendations, reissued vinyl and TikTok, and noting that The Weeknd had sampled a city pop track on his latest release.[2] City pop is a main sample source for future funk, and future funk's tag count fell in 2022 even as the pop world rediscovered its raw material. Compare with the Future funk: vaporwave's dance floor, explained.
In March, the Rensselaer student newspaper described haircuts for men and Macroblank as acts with a slow, melancholy approach to vaporwave, with blues and blacks where the genre's first wave used pinks and purples.[3] That is one outlet's description, and we cannot say how many barber beats releases sound like it; what the archive says is that the tag is this year's story in numbers.
In June, Metal Hammer published an interview with Carpenter Brut around Leather Terror, headlined with the quote "I thought it would be cool to make a metal album without guitars".[1] The archive lists 19 Carpenter Brut releases. We could not read the full interview, so we use only the headline and the album name. His neighbours are on If you like Carpenter Brut: artists to try next.
The year's numbers
The year has 1,188 artists on 528 labels. 585 are new to the archive, 49% of the year against 55% in 2021. 334 are self-released, down from 375. By format: 812 LPs, 476 singles and 308 EPs.
Country is known for 57% of the year. The United States has 367 releases, the United Kingdom 89, Germany 59, France 50 and Brazil 42. Mexico (37) is sixth, ahead of Russia (34), whose count fell from 86 in 2020.
The busiest artists are PanPan from Greece (16), an artist known as 同の字点々々 (16) and then five acts with 13 each: Makeup and Vanity Set, VIRTUAL PLEASURE from Brazil, PΣRMANΣNT//ZΣIMP from Mexico, Mabisyo from Chile and derivative 虚 from the United States. Chris Keya from Italy has 11. The spread is wide: Brazil, Mexico and Chile are all here, where in 2012 the table was American, French and Greek.
Ten albums to try
- Causeway · 2022 · Italians Do It Better · LPA synth-pop LP on Italians Do It Better.
- Empathy Test · 2022 · Empathy Test · LPA synth-pop LP released on a label with the band's own name.
- C Z A R I N A · 2022 · darkTunes Music Group · LPA darkwave-tagged LP on darkTunes Music Group.
- Brothertiger · 2022 · Satanic Panic Recordings · LPA chillwave LP on Satanic Panic Recordings.
- Forbidden Memories · 2022 · Country Club Corporation · EPA vaporwave EP on Country Club Corporation, one of the year's busiest labels.
The heavier end is on the Dark station (94.6 FM).
Sources
- Carpenter Brut: 'I thought it would be cool to make a metal album without guitars' · Alec Chillingworth, Metal Hammer (Louder), 30 Jun 2022
- City Pop: the soundtrack to Japan's boom years goes viral · AFP via The Korea Times, 22 Feb 2022
- Haircuts for Men, Macroblank, and the new vaporwave aesthetic · The Polytechnic (Rensselaer student newspaper), 15 Mar 2022