Synthwave has one thick trunk and a handful of branches. In the Frekvenci archive the trunk is plain synthwave, with 8,105 listed releases. The branches are the heavier darksynth family, the softer dreamwave family, the song-led popwave family of synthpop, italo disco and nu-disco, and a few small tags such as retrowave, outrun and spacesynth. Nearly all of these names are community labels rather than official genres, and writers do not always agree on where one stops and the next starts.[1]
The map below comes from the tags that MusicBrainz and Discogs users put on records, folded into our genre tree. The numbers show how people label music, which is more honest than a definition because it shows which names are really in use.
How the family tree works
Frekvenci sorts tags into families, each with a parent tag and sub-tags, and a release can carry several. Beside the synthwave family there is the vaporwave family, which is the largest of all and is a separate tradition; see What is vaporwave? A guide to the internet's slowed-down mall music and Synthwave vs vaporwave: same neon, different music for that side. Here is how big each family is:
SHOW THE NUMBERS
| Family | Releases |
|---|---|
| Vaporwave | 10,473 |
| Synthwave | 8,105 |
| Popwave | 2,678 |
| Darksynth | 1,803 |
| Dreamwave | 833 |
| Cyberpunk | 6 |
Inside the synthwave family the split is very uneven. Of its 8,105 releases, only a small minority carry a named branch such as retrowave (429), outrun (120) or spacesynth (115). Most artists and listeners simply say synthwave.
SHOW THE NUMBERS
| Genre tag | Releases |
|---|---|
| Synthwave (untagged sub-genre) | 7,435 |
| Retrowave | 429 |
| Outrun | 120 |
| Spacesynth | 115 |
| Futuresynth | 4 |
| Spacewave | 2 |
Outrun and retrowave: one word or two?
These two tags cause most of the arguments. Wikipedia's synthwave article gives retrowave and futuresynth as other names for the genre and describes outrun as a sub-genre that was later used more loosely for the whole retro-1980s look.[1] A large online station, Nightride FM, puts "Synthwave / Retrowave / Outrun" on one channel.[2] The safest summary is that they overlap heavily, and the choice of word depends on the scene and the year.
"Outrun" itself is borrowed from Sega's Out Run, the arcade racer that came out in September 1986.[6] Kavinsky's album OutRun took the same name. In the archive the tag is small: 120 releases, first seen in 2011, with LANDOLSI at the top. Retrowave is larger, with 429 releases first seen in 2010, and FiXT Neon is its busiest label. The detailed pages are Outrun vs retrowave vs synthwave: are they the same?, Retrowave: the name, the sound and where it overlaps synthwave and Outrun music: the racing-game sound of synthwave.
Darksynth and its offshoots
Darksynth is the heavy end of the family: distorted bass, horror-film atmosphere, and sometimes borrowings from metal and industrial music. It is the fourth-largest family in the archive, with 1,803 releases by 866 artists. Look closer, though: 1,597 of those releases sit under the older tag Darkwave, and only about two hundred are tagged darksynth itself. Darkwave is a much older word, for gloomy European post-punk and new wave from the late 1970s onwards, so it describes different music even though some labels and artists straddle both.[4] Darkwave vs darksynth: two dark genres people mix up sorts them out.
Next to it sits Horrorsynth: 95 releases, first seen in 2014, with Diskonekt the busiest label. Nightride FM runs horrorsynth on a station of its own, apart from darksynth, which suggests stations treat the two as neighbours and not as twins.[2] Start with What is darksynth? The heavy, horror-lit side of synthwave, then What is horrorsynth? Synthwave for the slasher-movie crowd.
Dreamwave, chillsynth and chillwave
This is the soft side. The family tag is Dreamwave, with 833 releases, but most of them are filed under its sub-tags: Chillwave (624), Chillsynth (131), Dreampop (43) and Sovietwave (34). The overview pages are Dreamwave: synthwave's soft, nostalgic side, Chillwave explained: the hazy 2009 sound and what followed, What is chillsynth? The relaxed, late-night side of synthwave, Dream pop and synthwave: the shoegaze-adjacent overlap and What is sovietwave? Space-age nostalgia from the former USSR.
Chillwave is the oldest of these words and the best documented, and its history shows how a label can outrun the music. A Grantland retrospective credits the blogger Carles, of Hipster Runoff, with inventing it, says it lasted as a live term from the summer of 2009 to early 2011, and notes that artists such as Toro y Moi pushed back on the tag.[3] So chillwave began as a blog joke about hazy, sample-heavy indie electronic music and not as a synthwave branch. The archive still has 624 releases under the tag, many dated after the press had moved on. Chillsynth is the newer word for the same unhurried mood, played with a synthwave palette. If you want it for work, Synthwave for studying and coding: a focus listening guide, with the numbers has the practical side.
Sovietwave is the smallest of the group. A Bandcamp Daily guide places its start in the early 2010s, when interest in Soviet-era electronic music revived, and calls it arguably more of a mood than a fixed style.[7] The archive lists only 34 releases under the tag, and no label stands out.
Spacesynth and futuresynth
Spacesynth is the cosmic strand: mostly instrumental, melodic, built on sweeping lead lines. It is usually described as an offshoot of Italo disco, the Italian dance music of the late 1970s and 1980s, and Wikipedia's Italo disco article places acts such as Koto and Laserdance in that space-disco neighbourhood.[5] We found no strong source for spacesynth's own history, and fan accounts disagree on who belongs, so we leave those details out.
In the archive, Spacesynth has 115 releases, first seen in 2012 and at its busiest in 2014. Nightride FM lists "Space Disco" and "Vocoder Italo" alongside spacesynth on one of its channels.[2] Futuresynth, which some writers use as another name for synthwave itself, has only 4 listed releases. Read Spacesynth: the cosmic, Italian-rooted corner of synthwave for the longer version.
Pop-leaning cousins: synthpop, italo disco and nu-disco
The popwave family holds the songs. Synthpop has 1,749 releases, nearly as many as the whole darksynth family. Nu-Disco has 497 and Italo Disco has 432.
Two cautions apply. First, the "first year" figures are not birth dates: synthpop and nu-disco were around long before 2000, where our archive begins. Nu-disco, for example, has roots in the mid-1990s.[8] Second, the original italo disco came from Italy in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and the ZYX label helped spread the name abroad from 1982.[5] The busiest label under our italo tag is Subterrane Records, and under synthpop it is NewRetroWave. Longer reading: Synthpop and synthwave: where the 1980s sound meets the revival, Italo disco and synthwave: the 1980s sound that keeps coming back and What is nu-disco? Where synthwave meets the dance floor. If you prefer to start with a vocal act, If you like GUNSHIP: artists to try next, If you like FM-84: artists to try next and If you like Timecop1983: artists to try next are good doors in.
The vaporwave family has its own branches: Future funk: vaporwave's dance floor, explained for the upbeat sampled side and What is barber beats? The vaporwave micro-genre named after one prolific artist for the polished downtempo one.
The table: every tag in numbers
Counts are listed releases in the Frekvenci archive (music with a listen link). "First year" is the earliest release date on file, which can reflect an old record that someone tagged much later.
| Tag | Family | Releases | First year | Busiest label |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Synthwave | Synthwave | 8,105 | 2000 | RetroSynth Records |
| Retrowave | Synthwave | 429 | 2010 | FiXT Neon |
| Outrun | Synthwave | 120 | 2011 | LANDOLSI |
| Spacesynth | Synthwave | 115 | 2012 | Retrowave Touch Records |
| Darksynth | Darksynth | 1,803 | 2000 | Werkstatt Recordings |
| Horrorsynth | Darksynth | 95 | 2014 | Diskonekt |
| Dreamwave | Dreamwave | 833 | 2000 | Stratford Ct. |
| Chillwave | Dreamwave | 624 | 2000 | Stratford Ct. |
| Chillsynth | Dreamwave | 131 | 2007 | Neon Retro Records |
| Synthpop | Popwave | 1,749 | 2000 | NewRetroWave |
| Nu-Disco | Popwave | 497 | 2002 | NewRetroWave |
| Italo Disco | Popwave | 432 | 2008 | Subterrane Records |
Reading notes. The busiest label is the one with the most releases carrying that exact tag, so a label with a huge general catalogue can top a small tag. Chillsynth has a three-way tie at the top (Neon Retro Records, Girlfriend Records and B O G U S // COLLECTIVE are within one release of each other), so treat that cell loosely. Several tags start in 2000 or 2002 because older records were tagged long after the fact. And the darkwave tag, much bigger than darksynth proper, is left out so the darksynth row stays about modern darksynth.
Do the branches rise and fall together?
No, and that is one of the more useful things the data shows. Each tag has its own peak, counting full years only:
| Tag | Peak year | Releases in that year |
|---|---|---|
| Spacesynth | 2014 | 14 |
| Nu-disco | 2016 | 64 |
| Retrowave | 2018 | 56 |
| Dreamwave | 2019 | 127 |
| Synthwave | 2020 | 963 |
| Darksynth | 2020 | 243 |
| Horrorsynth | 2021 | 19 |
| Outrun | 2021 | 13 |
| Chillsynth | 2024 | 21 |
Read from the top, the table is almost a timeline. Spacesynth and nu-disco peaked in the middle of the 2010s, which fits their role as revivals of older dance styles. Retrowave peaked in 2018 and has thinned since. Dreamwave, synthwave and darksynth peaked in 2019 and 2020, and then horrorsynth and outrun in 2021. Chillsynth is the odd one: its best year so far is 2024, though its peak is only 21 releases, so the figures are small. A falling tag does not prove falling interest, because taggers may simply be moving to other words. For the curve of the whole scene, see A short history of synthwave, from French blogs to the charts.
Where the sources and the labels blur
Three disagreements are worth stating plainly. Is outrun a synonym or a sub-genre? Different writers say each, and the data supports the narrower reading. Is chillwave part of synthwave? Its own history says it began as a blog label for something else, yet the archive files it with the dreamy family and many synthwave listeners treat it as a neighbour. And is sovietwave a style or a mood? Its main guide leans towards mood.[7]
Real labels ignore the lines too. NewRetroWave tops the synthpop and nu-disco lists, is second in synthwave and sixth in darksynth, because it releases the whole range. Werkstatt Recordings leads darksynth and also sits fourth in synthwave. Artists cross over as well: Perturbator first appears under retrowave and later works in darker branches, while The Midnight is filed with synthpop for its sung, song-led records. The practical lesson is to treat the names as moods and not as walls.
Which tag should you search for?
For road music, begin with synthwave and add outrun if you want it sharper. For something to work to, go to dreamwave or chillsynth. For drums and distortion, try darksynth or horrorsynth. For songs with a singer, search synthpop and then follow the labels that appear. If a name is missing here, it is probably a scene joke or a local word that never reached the tag lists.
Ten records, ten tags
One record for each of the main branches, picked from the archive to spread across years and labels. The descriptions come from the tags and labels on file.
- Lazerhawk · 2010 · Rosso Corsa Records · LPTagged retrowave in the archive, from 2010, on Rosso Corsa Records.
- Com Truise · 2011 · Ghostly International · EPFiled under chillwave, from 2011 on Ghostly International.
- Dynatron · 2012 · Aphasia Records · LPA 2012 spacesynth-tagged album on Aphasia Records.
- Louis La Roche · 2014 · Ever After Records · EPA 2014 nu-disco EP on Ever After Records.
To hear the branches instead of reading about them, the radio sorts music by mood: the Night Drive station (92.0 FM) for the road, the Dark station (94.6 FM) for the heavy side and the Dreams station (88.1 FM) for the soft one.
Questions people ask
Is darkwave a kind of synthwave?
No. Darkwave is an older word for gloomy European new wave and post-punk, and it only overlaps with modern darksynth where labels and artists happen to touch both.[4]
Is vaporwave a synthwave sub-genre?
In our tree it is a separate family, and a bigger one. Vaporwave grew from different habits, such as slowed samples and shopping-mall music, even though some fans listen to both. See Synthwave vs vaporwave: same neon, different music.
Why do some tags show releases from 2000 when the genre came later?
Because tags are applied to old records too. The archive starts in 2000, and an older release that someone later tagged synthwave or darksynth counts under that tag.
Which sub-genre should a newcomer try first?
Retrowave or plain synthwave for the classic sound, and dreamwave or chillsynth if you want something quiet. What is synthwave? A plain guide, with the numbers explains the basics.
Sources
- Synthwave (used as a map to its references) · Wikipedia
- Nightride FM · Nightride FM, station list read 20 Oct 2026
- That Was a Thing: The Brief History of the Totally Made-Up Chillwave Music Genre · Grantland, 8 Apr 2015
- Darkwave (used as a map to its references) · Wikipedia
- Italo disco (used as a map to its references) · Wikipedia
- Out Run · Wikipedia
- A Guide to Sovietwave · Bandcamp Daily, 16 Nov 2020
- Nu-disco (used as a map to its references) · Wikipedia