Vapor

Vapor is a term used to describe an internet-based Electronic musical movement that arose in the early 2010s, beginning with the rise of Vaporwave. The 2010 release of Chuck Person's Eccojams Vol. 1 by Daniel Lopatin under his Chuck Person alias is commonly recognised as the beginning of vaporwave as a genre as well as the vapor movement as a whole (Eccojams is used as a name for this original style). The album would soon be followed by Macintosh Plus's Floral Shoppe and James Ferraro's Far Side Virtual in 2011, bringing greater exposure to the sound of vaporwave and its associated aesthetics.

Most early vaporwave releases were based around processed and manipulated samples of corporate mood and background music, particularly of 1980s and 1990s Pop, Contemporary R&B, and Smooth Jazz, combined with influence from Chopped and Screwed editing techniques (slowing down and cutting up) and the psychedelic, hauntological trends that cropped up in the late 2000s: Hypnagogic Pop, Chillwave, and Witch House. The use of looping, glitching, pitch-bending, panning, and echoing these samples came to define the sound of not just the original vaporwave style but also the derivatives and variations which soon emerged, giving this music a hazy, surreal, and often atmospheric quality. The original "vaporwave" name itself comes from the concept of "vaporware" (a software or hardware project that fails to be released to the public); as such, the movement alludes to a disconnection or separation from reality presented through its original form (heard by a song's manipulation vs. its original source). Also, Far Side Virtual would introduce the usage of retro MIDI-esque electronic instruments to evoke muzak with a focus on hyperreality, and the album is considered to be a defining work in the substyle known as Utopian Virtual.

In addition, vaporwave birthed a distinct aesthetic that would come to be associated with the term and, subsequently, the whole of the vapor movement. The visual side would already be established with early releases, which had artwork that incorporated elements of media and culture of the 1980s and early 1990s, as well as related subcultures like cyberpunk and anime, and tracklistings using uncommon symbols, full-width characters, and Japanese script. In conjunction with the manipulated, often intentionally degraded sound of vapor music, much of this artwork also featured VHS-like image distortion or digital artifacts and glitching, embracing the limitations and flaws of past technology and positioning it within the broader post-internet art landscape. This aesthetic, alongside the music, has also been associated with satirising and critiquing consumer capitalism and the culture surrounding technology, particularly in the past decades it draws material from, though often with a heavy dose of irony.

The vapor movement would explode in 2012 due to the relative ease of creating vaporwave in digital audio editors, the decentralised online nature of the movement, and more mainstream exposure through websites like YouTube and Reddit, along with interest in the connected "seapunk" aesthetic. Thousands of new producers and aliases would pop up on sites like Bandcamp and SoundCloud, as would netlabels like Beer on the Rug, Dream Catalogue, and DMT Tapes FL that provided audiences for many of these new artists. Vaporwave also fractured into many directions, with the vapor community being quick to identify and name new subgenres based on specific visual or musical aesthetics. Some of these remained closer to the original vaporwave style and its usage of manipulated samples, such as Mallsoft with atmospheric reverb intended to evoke the soundscape of a mall, and Broken Transmission which typically takes the form of a Sound Collage based around Radio Broadcast Recordings.

Yet other trends brought in influences from other music genres, transforming the vapor sound and aesthetic to the point where it has been argued that they may no longer be vaporwave proper. One of the earliest and most popular of these is Future Funk, which combined the editing techniques with a more sped-up dance sound based on Nu-Disco as artists like Saint Pepsi and Macross 82-99 pioneered the style with sampling focused more explicitly on Japanese City Pop. Other offshoots include, but are not limited to, the aforementioned utopian virtual; Vaportrap, which was pioneered by Blank Banshee and incorporates percussion influenced by Trap; Dreampunk, originating in the work of 2814 and HKE on Dream Catalogue, which applies vapor aesthetics to Ambient; and Hardvapour, a style of abrasive Electronic Dance Music that emerged as a direct reaction and intentional opposition to the original vaporwave sound, as prominently showcased on the various artists Hardvapour. album in 2016. Though these genres ditch some of the core musical elements of vaporwave, including its hazy atmosphere and even the use of sampling altogether, they are still commonly considered part of the vapor movement due to their shared aesthetic and common origin, and fittingly many of these artists release their music on vaporwave netlabels.

After vaporwave gained mainstream exposure in the mid-2010s, some would (often jokingly) refer to the genre as "dead", but the vapor movement has lived on both in its original vaporwave style and its many variants and offshoots. Even as it has faded out from mainstream prominence, there still remains a vibrant underground of artists and netlabels, and in 2019 the influential vapor artist George Clanton hosted the first 100% ElectroniCON, a music festival dedicated to vapor music. The vapor movement has also influenced and been influenced by musical trends through the 2010s that emerged alongside it, like Cloud Rap, chillwave, and Lo-Fi Hip Hop, as well as the retro aesthetic of Synthwave.