Vaporwave is an internet-born genre made mostly from old recordings: smooth jazz, 1980s and 1990s pop, lounge and office muzak, slowed down, looped and drenched in reverb. It took shape between 2010 and 2011, spread through Bandcamp and SoundCloud, and is now the largest family in the Frekvenci archive, with 10,473 listed releases from 3,182 artists. Most of it comes from small labels and tape-style imprints, not from the music industry.
Vaporwave in one minute
If synthwave is a new film score for the 1980s, vaporwave is the 1980s film itself, slowed until you notice what is in it. The producer lifts a few seconds from a commercial recording (a lounge track, a jingle, a pop ballad), stretches it, and loops it until a cheerful sample sounds eerie or sad. Wikipedia describes the raw material as 1980s and 1990s smooth jazz, elevator music, R&B and lounge, treated with chopped-and-screwed techniques, repetition and heavy reverb.[6] A peer-reviewed paper calls it a "memory play", a genre whose subject is remembering.[5]
It is also a look, with pastel colours, 1990s computer graphics, statues and Japanese text. This page covers the music; the contrast with its neighbour is in Synthwave vs vaporwave: same neon, different music, and the synthwave basics are in What is synthwave? A plain guide, with the numbers.
From Eccojams to Floral Shoppe: how it started
Nobody agrees on a first vaporwave record, or on who first used the word. Wikipedia reports that the earliest known use of "vaporwave" was an anonymous blog post in October 2011, and also reports a rival claim crediting Robin Burnett of Internet Club.[6] The safe wording is that the genre took shape between 2010 and 2011. Tiny Mix Tapes adds a useful reminder: in 2012, many artists now filed under vaporwave had not yet adopted the term.[3]
The records people point to, in order:
- August 2010: Chuck Person's Eccojams Vol. 1. Daniel Lopatin released it as a run of 100 cassettes on The Curatorial Club, built from short, slowed loops of 1980s and 1990s pop with delay, reverb and pitch-shifting.[2] The archive lists it as Chuck Person’s Eccojams, Vol. 1.
- 2011: James Ferraro's Far Side Virtual. Bandcamp Daily files it as the root of the "utopian virtual" branch.[1]
- December 2011: Macintosh Plus, Floral Shoppe. It first appeared on cassette on Beer On The Rug, ended up at #6 on Tiny Mix Tapes' 2012 year-end list, and got a pink vinyl edition in 2017.[3] Wikipedia says a November 2012 video review helped make it the genre's representative record.[6] The archive lists it as Floral Shoppe.
- 2012: Blank Banshee's Blank Banshee 0. Bandcamp Daily's example of vaportrap.[1] See Blank Banshee 0.
By the end of 2013, Adam Harper wrote that vaporwave had exploded, with anonymous artists flooding Bandcamp and SoundCloud, and that its formula was minimal and open to anyone.[4] The archive agrees: the family has 32 listed releases for 2012 and 135 for 2013, then 614 in 2015.
SHOW THE NUMBERS
| Year | Releases |
|---|---|
| 2009 | 2 |
| 2010 | 5 |
| 2011 | 21 |
| 2012 | 32 |
| 2013 | 135 |
| 2014 | 241 |
| 2015 | 614 |
| 2016 | 796 |
| 2017 | 672 |
| 2018 | 995 |
| 2019 | 842 |
| 2020 | 1,007 |
| 2021 | 914 |
| 2022 | 796 |
| 2023 | 933 |
| 2024 | 1,001 |
| 2025 | 1,110 |
The count dipped in 2017 to 672, then climbed again, and the busiest full year is the latest one: 1,110 releases in 2025. (2026 is a part year.)
How it sounds and how it is made
The core technique is sampling. Harper separates vaporwave made from samples from "new-composed" vaporwave made largely from scratch, and says the range runs from lo-fi fragility to glossy hi-fi, funky, poignant and funny.[4] You will hear some of these in most records:
- Slowed tempos and pitch. Sampled songs are dropped in speed until voices go low and syrupy.
- Loops. A phrase repeats until it stops being a phrase and becomes a texture.
- Heavy reverb and delay. Everything sounds as if it is played in an empty room.
- Muzak and lounge sources. The material is often background music that was never meant to be noticed.
The user tags in the archive say the same. After "vaporwave" itself, the most common tags on the family's releases are "electronic" (7,032), "experimental" (3,936), "ambient" (2,658) and "plunderphonics" (1,744, a word for music made of other recordings).
A map of the branches
Vaporwave splits more than any other family in the archive. Bandcamp Daily's 2016 family tree names ten branches.[1] The archive uses ten sub-tags plus the plain one, and the two lists only partly match: Bandcamp counts post-internet, late-night lo-fi and vapornoise, which the archive has no tag for, while barber beats, slushwave and dreampunk are archive tags that the 2016 list does not name. Barber beats could not be on it; Wikipedia says the style gained popularity in the early 2020s.[6]
| Branch | What it is | Releases | Guide | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plain vaporwave tag | The base style described above | 3,673 | this page | |
| Barber Beats | The biggest branch today | 1,881 | [[story:barber-beats-guide\ | barber beats]] |
| Future Funk | Disco and funk samples sped up for dancing | 1,538 | [[story:future-funk-guide\ | future funk]] |
| Signalwave | Bandcamp's "broken transmission": fragments of radio and TV, channel-hopping style | 1,505 | [[story:signalwave-guide\ | signalwave]] |
| Slushwave | A tag of its own, with a deep catalogue | 470 | [[story:slushwave-guide\ | slushwave]] |
| Mallsoft | Spacious ambient set in an imagined shopping centre | 403 | [[story:mallsoft-guide\ | mallsoft]] |
| Dreampunk | The dreamlike, cinematic strand | 391 | [[story:dreampunk-guide\ | dreampunk]] |
| Vaportrap | Vaporwave sampling over trap beats | 274 | [[story:vaportrap-guide\ | vaportrap]] |
| Eccojams | The original loop-and-echo template | 239 | [[story:eccojams-guide\ | eccojams]] |
| Utopian Virtual | Clean, corporate-computing sounds from an optimistic past | 56 | [[story:utopian-virtual-guide\ | utopian virtual]] |
| Hardvapour | A louder, club-leaning reaction | 43 | [[story:hardvapour-guide\ | hardvapour]] |
Two things stand out. First, the plain tag is only about a third of the family: vaporwave is already mostly its offshoots. Second, the biggest branch is not one of the 2010-2012 originals. Barber beats leads, and future funk, the dance-floor branch, comes second. Hardvapour is the youngest in the table: Wikipedia dates its first releases to late 2015, and Bandcamp called it "barely a year old" in November 2016.[6][1]
Early first years in the archive, such as 2006, are usually later taggers filing older records under new names, not proof that the sound already existed then.
The labels behind it
Vaporwave is released differently from most music. Its 10,473 releases sit on only 558 labels, and a handful dominate. The busiest, DMT Tapes FL, accounts for 1,189 of the family's listed releases; our DMT Tapes FL: label profile and where to start profile tells that story. After it come B O G U S // COLLECTIVE (205), FL Tapes DMT (197), FOTOSHOPPE CO. (135) and business casual (133). Together the ten busiest labels account for 2,414 listed releases, nearly a quarter of the family. Many have "Tapes" or "Records" in the name, a nod to the cassette habit of the early scene, but the archive records the label name, not the physical format. For two of them, see B O G U S // COLLECTIVE: label profile and where to start and business casual: label profile and where to start.
A further 1,786 releases are self-released. The most active artists are not the famous names. undersaken, from Serbia, has 145 listed releases, 140 of them barber beats, and nearly all appeared from 2023 onwards. haircuts for men has 109. Their own pages are If you like haircuts for men: artists to try next and, for the famous record, If you like Macintosh Plus: artists to try next.
Country is known for 60% of releases. Among those the United States leads with 3,221, then the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan and Russia. Brazil is eighth with 174, which is why it has its own page: Brazil's vaporwave and synthwave scene in data. Vaporwave's link with Japan, through city pop sampling, is covered in Japan, city pop and vaporwave: the scene in data.
Which branch first? Three routes
- From the founding records outward: start with Eccojams Vol. 1, then Floral Shoppe, then What are eccojams? The looped, slowed edits that started vaporwave and What is utopian virtual? Vaporwave's bright, corporate-future side for the other early branch.
- If you want it danceable: go to Future funk: vaporwave's dance floor, explained, then If you like Night Tempo: artists to try next.
- If you want it spacious and slow: try What is mallsoft? The sound of an empty shopping mall, then What is dreampunk? Vaporwave's dark, cinematic dream and What is slushwave? Vaporwave stretched into ambient; for the harsh opposite, What is hardvapour? Vaporwave's loud, fast backlash. Related ideas sit in What is vaportrap? When vaporwave met trap drums and What is signalwave? Vaporwave made from old TV and radio broadcasts.
If you arrive from the hazier side of synth-pop, Chillwave explained: the hazy 2009 sound and what followed is the closest neighbour, since Wikipedia says vaporwave began as an ironic variant of chillwave.[6]
Records to start with
Picked to run from the 2010 cassette through each major branch, one record per artist.
- Chuck Person · 2010 · The Curatorial Club · LPThe 2010 cassette that set the eccojam template; short loops, heavy echo.
- Macintosh Plus · 2011 · Beer on the Rug · LPThe record most people mean by vaporwave; slowed, looped and dreamy.
- Infinity Frequencies · 2013 · Infinity Frequencies · LPAdam Harper's joint top pick for 2013 and a "definitive vaporwave album" in his words.
- undersaken · 2022 · self-released · LPBarber beats from 2022, from today's biggest branch.
- Sandtimer · 2015 · Dream Catalogue · LPHardvapour, named in Bandcamp Daily's family tree as the louder reaction.
- computer slime · 2011 · business casual · LPA 2011 release on Business Casual, from the first year of the sound.
For a softer entry through the radio, try the Dreams station (88.1 FM).
Sources
- Genre As Method: The Vaporwave Family Tree, From Eccojams to Hardvapour · Bandcamp Daily, 21 Nov 2016
- Chuck Person's Eccojams Vol. 1 · Wikipedia
- Macintosh Plus's Floral Shoppe is coming to vinyl · Tiny Mix Tapes, 7 Aug 2017
- Pattern Recognition Vol. 8.5: The Year in Vaporwave · Adam Harper, Electronic Beats, 5 Dec 2013
- Vaporwave, or music optimised for abandoned malls · Laura Glitsos, Popular Music 37(1), 2018
- Vaporwave (used as a map to its references) · Wikipedia