Chillwave
 |
| Chillwave | |
|---|---|
| Stylistic origins | Synthpop, shoegaze, ambient, music concrete, music outside of the Western World |
| Cultural origins | 2009 |
| Typical instruments | Synthesizer, drum machine, sampler |
| Derivative forms | Drag |
Chillwave (also referred to as glo-fi) is a debated term used to describe a group of music artists that although sonically disparate, are often characterized by their heavy use of effects processing, synthesizers, looping, sampling, and heavily filtered vocals with simple melodic lines. Its musical predecessors are diverse and include the synthpop of the 1980s, shoegaze[1], ambient, musique concrete and various types of music outside of the Western World. The overall aesthetic of the chillwave is generally influenced by the idea of hauntology. In this case, nostalgia of 80s synthpop is filtered through a distorted lens, re-envisioning the era in a more vague and lo-fi sense.
The genre is also a prime example of shifting the idea from defining a musical movement's birth in part by a specific geographic location, as is historically done, to focusing instead on how the groups became linked and defined through various outlets on the Internet. The Wall Street Journal wrote, "Whereas musical movements were once determined by a city or venue where the bands congregated, 'now it’s just a blogger or some journalist that can find three or four random bands around the country and tie together a few commonalities between them and call it a genre,' said Alan Palomo of Neon Indian" despite the deep musical similarities previously noted.[2]
The New York Times' Jon Pareles described it as, "They're solo acts or minimal bands, often with a laptop at their core, and they trade on memories of electropop from the 1980s, with bouncing, blipping dance-music hooks (and often weaker lead voices). It's recession-era music: low-budget and danceable."[3]
While there is some debate on where the classification began, the earliest instance of the term 'chillwave' to define the movement occurred in a Hipster Runoff post on July 27, 2009.[4] As is evidenced by the post, the name was originally proposed in tongue-in-cheek fashion, but it was nevertheless caught on by other music outlets where it became recognized as the movement-defining term.
It has been suggested that chillwave is a response to 2008's day-glo scene, which was characterized by more aggressive club music.[5]
Some of the early albums that are generally perceived by media outlets as 'chillwave' include Universal Studios Florida's Ocean Sunbirds, Big Spider's Back's Warped, and Nite Jewel's Good Evening. Other bands of the genre include Neon Indian, Memory Tapes, Blissed Out, Collarbones, MillionYoung, Small Black, The Pillars Of Creation, Beach Fossils, Ducktails, Lone, Toro Y Moi, Washed Out, Lester Brown, Soft Slip, and Corona Lite.[1][5]
The xx (Dream pop), jj (Balearic beat) and Best Coast (Lo-fi/Surf/Beach/Garage) have been confused as chillwave. [6]
References
- ^ a b How Ernest Greene Became the Poster Boy for Chillwave
- ^ Garin Pirnia (2010-03-13). "Is Chillwave the Next Big Music Trend?". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2010-05-11.
- ^ Jon Pareles (2010-03-21). "Spilling Beyond a Festival's Main Courses". The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-05-11.
- ^ http://www.hipsterrunoff.com/2009/07/is-washed-out-the-next-neon-indianmemory-cassette.html
- ^ a b Eric Grandy (2009-11-10). "Triumph of the Chill". The Stranger. Retrieved 2010-03-30.
- ^ "Best Coast responds to being called a chillwave artist by MTV".
External links
- How to invent a music genre (gawker.com)
- http://altreport.hipsterrunoff.com/2010/04/best-coast-responds-to-being-called-a-chillwave-artist-by-mtv.html Best Coast responds to being called a chillwave artist (altreport.hipsterrunoff.com)]