Synthwave

Synthwave (also called retrowave, or futuresynth ) is an electronic music microgenre that is based predominantly on the music associated with the soundtracks of action, science fiction, and horror

Synthwave is a microgenre of electronic music that draws predominantly from 1980s films, video games, and cartoons, as well as composers such as John Carpenter, Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis, and Tangerine Dream. Other reference points include electronic dance music genres including house, synth, and nu-disco. Some artists, like Dance With The Dead and Zombie Hyperdrive also include elements of 1980s rock and metal music. It is primarily an instrumental genre, although there are occasional exceptions to the rule. Common tempos are between 80 and 118 BPM, while more upbeat tracks may be between 128 and 140 BPM. “Outrun” is a subgenre of synthwave that was later used to refer more generally to retro 1980s aesthetics such as VHS tracking artefacts, magenta neon, and gridlines. 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. 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 analogue synthesizer bass lines and leads—all to resemble tracks from that time period. There is also a visual component on synthwave album covers and music videos. According to PC Gamer, the essence of outrun visuals is “taking elements of a period of ’80s excess millennials find irresistibly evocative, and modernizing them so they’re just barely recognizable.” Other subgenres include dreamwave, darksynth, and scifiwave. Invisible Oranges wrote that darksynth is exemplified mainly by a shift away from the bright “Miami Vice vibes” and “French electro house influences” and “toward the darker electronic terrains of horror movie maestro composers John Carpenter and Goblin” also infused with sounds from post-punk, industrial and EBM.

Origins#

Synthwave originates from the mid to late 2000s. Molly Lambert of MTV noted the song “Love on a Real Train” by Tangerine Dream in the film Risky Business (1983) was a major influence, with “ornately repetitive synth patterns, hypnotic chimes, and percussive choogling drum machines”. while the horror blog Bloody Disgusting describes Carpenter Brut as a “synthwave icon”.

Popularity and legacy#

In the early 2010s, the synthwave soundtracks of films such as Drive and Tron: Legacy attracted new fans and artists to the genre. Nerdglows Christopher Higgins cited Electric Youth and Kavinsky as the two most popular artists in synthwave in 2014. which was composed by Michael Wyckoff. In 2020, “Blinding Lights”, a synthwave-influenced song by R&B artist the Weeknd topped US record charts, the first song to do so during the COVID-19 pandemic. Matt Mills of Louder wrote in 2021 that the genre “had exploded into the mainstream, cramming dancefloors and soundtracking blockbusters.”

Synthwave

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Origins#

Popularity and legacy#

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