Clash of the Titans: 24/7 Vaporwave YouTube Streams
A Short Review of Two Online Aesthetic Radio Stations
Whenever I sit down to write, most often on Saturday and Sunday mornings, I’ll put on some background music to help focus me. For instance, I was working on a weird-fantasy-western piece, and I ended up putting on a “12 Hours Of Desert Ambience” video to help me build the setting.
My most frequent companion while I write has been vaporwave, a genre of music that takes old 1980s tracks and manipulates them, slowing them down, looping different sections, or adding effects. The purpose of these manipulations is to evoke a nostalgia for the past, as well as critiquing and/or celebrating capitalism. Currently, my go-to source for vaporwave has been YouTube, which has served as a critical platform for sharing vaporwave music since the genre’s inception. Usually, sharing vaporwave tracks presents in the form of mixes, hour-long videos that curate a selection of music from various vaporwave artists.
In recent years, YouTube has began allowing 24/7 radio/video stations, which play nonstop music for as long as the creator wishes. Naturally, vaporwave artists latched on to these types of videos, creating what is essentially an infinite mix.
There are two stations on YouTube to which I prefer to listen, and I think that they have an interesting contrast when comparing the content they provide.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Sweet Daddy D to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.