Is Cryptowave the next Vaporwave?

Two images designed by the digital artist Slimesunday that appeared in early NFT offerings from Blau.

Is Cryptowave the Future of Vaporwave?

Everyone has heard of Vaporwave by now, so I won’t go into an extended exegesis about its themes of dystopian futuristic pseudo-philosophical meanderings, but since it started appearing online around 2010 there has been a slight decline in interest from the denizens on the fringe internet. Once a sonic oddity that created a mystique so aesthetic that it sliced through the web like a blade running through neon butter, this genre of reverbed slowings has somewhat diminished in intrigue in the last few years. Possibly what is tightening the grip on the neck of this micro-scene is that there is nothing new being pushed to the forefront. Instead, it’s usually more of the same predictable sound and imagery with little to no risk. The reservoir of cyberpunk visuals, 90s RnB samples, and LM-1 drum presets lay in exhaustion.

If Vaporwave artists aren’t pushing the envelope then there won’t be anyone left to enjoy anything good that actually does come out and there really will be ‘nobody here’. The scene might not face a quick death, but a smooth fade as genres in the past like New Wave and Electroclash (hardly anyone remembers that one) and nothing is worse than going slowly into that long animated gif night. Vaporwave has tried with some success to maintain its core of fervent believers, or maybe cultists more appropriately, in the face of dwindling interest with a documentary on the way but will it be seen as more of a retrospective than anything new and exciting?

The internet world changes faster than real life, often not giving you a chance to catch up to the onslaught of content flooding the spectrum of music blogs and social platforms. The attention span of the internet is getting increasingly short and even faster to forget things. Given the generational gap between the Millennials who started Vaporwave, and Gen Z who ultimately would carry the torch is widening, causing the Vaporwave flame to fight for relevancy like a candle in the wind.

Google Trends for Vaporwave 1/1/2011 - 3/2/2021

This could be attributed to many things, but partly the Pandemic may be to blame for the weening attraction to the style, as peoples’ tastes taper into other sectors of obscure art and music. People grow and evolve, and one of the biggest features of Vaporwave is that it is purposely static, frozen in time to exemplify its motto “Vaporwave is dead, Long live Vaporwave.” While that mentality is a cute way of looking at life, the Roman empire probably thought something along the same lines.

Everything changes, it’s the only certainty in life. Vaporwave too will need to adapt to the changing world around it regardless of any nostalgic attachment its creators have for it. The question remains; what is next for Vaporwave? Enter “Cryptowave”. While I might need to explain Vaporwave to an unassuming person, they won’t need an explanation on Bitcoin. Even children know what P2P cryptocurrency is and how valuable it has become in today’s world. The currency of tomorrow is heralded by many top names in almost every industry including the meme-lord tech boss, Elon Musk, who claims “owning Bitcoin is less stupid than holding cash”.

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Even more recently Musk has touted Dogecoin, which is seen as more a meme than anything and even though it’s been around for quite some time hasn’t been able to break $1 even with Musk constantly tweeting about it much to the chagrin of the SEC. Regardless of skepticism, it seems the crypto market is going to continue to grow and expand into all avenues of life as major online retailers start accepting it as valid payment. Many early investors in Bitcoin became millionaires and have created a class of investors that pray at the alter of these new forms of currency in hopes of getting in at the right time when the next one explodes. But, what exactly does that have to do with Vaporwave? We’re getting there, hold on.

With this new paradigm of what can hold value, and what something is actually worth, there is borne the latest craze in the crypto scene; the NFT. An NFT is an entry on a blockchain, the same decentralized digital ledger technology that underlies cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. But unlike most Bitcoin – which is fungible, meaning that one coin is essentially indistinguishable from another and equivalent in value – tokens on these blockchains are non-fungible. This is all jargon for a unique digital item, be it a fancy hat for your online character in a video game, digital work of art, or even a record album. The NFT cannot be duplicated in any way and is essentially similar to what a Bitcoin or any other crypto is with the feature of being completely one of kind.

This phenomenon took another form in previous years that went by the name of Cryptokitties, where you could buy, sell, and trade unique cyber-pussies with other cat-obsessed weirdos online. The main attraction of Cryptokitties is that through the trading of the assets, they evolve creating hyper-rare artifact-like currencies that are one of a kind; which people paid thousands of dollars to buy for some unknown reason. This culture of collecting things has been with humans since the dawn of civilization, and this NFT moment is just another iteration of humans wanting the rarest, most special version of whatever they can attain.

You’re probably asking yourself, what is Van going on about cyber pussies and weird acronyms when this is supposed to be about Vaporwave? Well, NFTs have only recently started to become more well known through social media and other outlets touting it as an upcoming trend at the intersection of technology, finance, and culture. Lamecore band, Kings of Leon, recently claimed they would be releasing their new album as an NFT, to whom the lucky buyer will be the sole owner and hopefully the only listener of said album. This is in some way similar to that viral scheme the WuTang Clan came up with of selling a single CD containing their ultra-rare album that was bought by human troll Martin Skrelli, then subsequently seized by the FBI.

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To really highlight the potential of NFTs today, a DJ recently auctioned off an NFT video artwork to the tune of 3 million dollars. The artist who produced the NFT, Slimesunday says this about the situation that led to him creating NFT art: “A lot of digital artists are taking this very seriously because they’re all in the same situation as me: Their art is being ripped off all the time…Somebody else could claim they made it if they really want to,” He goes on, “NFTs present a verifiable way to prove where the digital art came from and validated as being something that came from me.” Slimesunday claims having made over 600k in the last year selling his NFT artworks.

With this new trend of artists reclaiming their work and setting the value, it could spell a decline for middleman vendors like Bandcamp, Spotify, or Apple Music. NFTs present a new way for artists and musicians to make their work practically impossible to get plagiarized, ripped off, or sold as someone else’s. By creating official NFT albums, musicians and bands could see their music actually become long-term investments that won’t dwindle once interest in their sonic aesthetic dies off. Vaporwave already deals in a type of audio cassette currency, where rare tapes can fetch a nice price on websites like Discogs, but eventually, the value will be assigned to a new kind of asset because that’s just how the world works.

Vaporwave then seems like a likely candidate to start using this blockchain technology to add tremendous value to the art, music, and culture it creates without it becoming watered down and diluted due to the rampant lack of creativity it’s currently facing. Many artists in the scene struggle to get attention due to the overwhelming amount of music there is in the style and gate-keeping tendencies social networks breed, but by utilizing NFTs there could be a new world of possibility where value is given based on the quality of the work and just how much anyone is willing to pay for it. While only my personal opinion, this new paradigm for Vaporwave should rightfully be dubbed Cryptowave; the first musical currency. - Van

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AUTHOR

Van Paugam is an Internationally-Acclaimed DJ and leading figure specializing in 70s and 80s Japanese Music, dubbed City Pop. He has organized and hosted over 100 events dedicated to the style, and actively promotes Japanese culture while on the board of the Japanese Arts Foundation of Chicago. He has been featured on CNN, NHK, and many other publications for his dedication to City Pop. Van is credited with being the first person to begin popularizing City Pop online through his mixes on YouTube in 2016, and subsequently through live events. Learn More…

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