Microgenres
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Microgenres
A microgenre is a specialized or niche genre. The term has been used since at least the 1970s to describe highly specific subgenres of music, literature, film, and art. In music, examples include the myriad sub-subgenres of heavy metal music, heavy metal and electronic music. Some genres are sometimes retroactively created by record dealers and collectors as a way to increase the monetary value of certain records, with early examples including Northern soul, freakbeat, garage punk, and sunshine pop. By the early 2010s, most microgenres were linked and defined through various outlets on the Internet, usually as part of generating popularity and hype for a newly perceived trend. Examples of these include chillwave, slam death metal, dungeon synth (and its own sub-genres), witch house (genre), witch house, seapunk, shitgaze, dreampunk, and vaporwave. Etymology and definition Hyper-specific formulas and subgenres have always featured in popular culture. In a 1975 French article about h ...
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Vaporwave
Vaporwave is a microgenre of electronic music, a visual art style, and an Internet meme that emerged in the early 2010s and became well-known in 2015. It is defined partly by its slowed-down, chopped and screwed samples of smooth jazz, 1970s elevator music, contemporary R&B, R&B, and lounge music from the 1980s and 1990s; similar to synthwave. The surrounding subculture is sometimes associated with an ambiguous or satirical take on consumer capitalism and pop culture, and tends to be characterized by a nostalgic or surrealist engagement with the popular entertainment, technology and advertising of previous decades. Visually, it incorporates early Internet imagery, late 1990s web design, glitch art, anime, stylized Ancient Greek sculpture, Ancient Greek or Roman sculptures, 3D rendering, 3D-rendered objects, and cyberpunk tropes in its cover artwork and music videos. Vaporwave originated as an ironic variant of chillwave, evolving from hypnagogic pop as well as similar retro- ...
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Chillwave
Chillwave (originally considered synonymous with glo-fi and hypnagogic pop) is a music microgenre that emerged in the late 2000s. It is characterized by evoking the popular music of the late 1970s and early 1980s while engaging with notions of memory and nostalgia. Common features include a faded or dreamy retro pop music, pop sound, Escapism, escapist lyrics (frequent topics include the beach or summer), psychedelic music, psychedelic or lo-fi music, lo-fi aesthetics, mellow vocals, slow-to-moderate tempos, Effects unit, effects processing (especially reverb), and vintage synthesizers. Chillwave was one of the first music genres to develop primarily through the Internet. The term was coined in 2009 by the satirical blog Hipster Runoff to lampoon microgenres and indie acts whose sounds resembled incidental music from 1980s VHS tapes. Prior to this, the music would have been labelled as shoegaze, dream pop, ambient music, ambient, or indietronica. Leading acts included Neon Indi ...
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Genre
Genre () is any style or form of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other forms of art or entertainment, based on some set of stylistic criteria, as in literary genres, film genres, music genres, comics genres, etc. Often, works fit into multiple genres by way of borrowing and recombining these conventions. Stand-alone texts, works, or pieces of communication may have individual styles, but genres are amalgams of these texts based on agreed-upon or socially inferred conventions. Some genres may have rigid, strictly adhered-to guidelines, while others may show great flexibility. The proper use of a specific genre is important for a successful transfer of information ( media-adequacy). Critical discussion of genre perhaps began with a classification system for ancient Greek literature, as set out in Aristotle' ...
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Dreampunk
Dreampunk is a microgenre of electronic music characterized by its focus on cinematic ambience and field recordings, combined with various traits and techniques from electronic genres such as techno, jungle, electro, and dubstep. History Dreampunk emerged in the mid-2010s. Many early dreampunk artists drew influence from film scores, vaporwave, and drum and bass. Dreampunk originates from the debut of 2814, the ambient duo composed of Luke Laurila () and David Russo ( Hong Kong Express). The name is derived from the word cyberpunk because of its frequent use of imagined metropolitan spaces in its sound design, evoking the experience of walking through a futuristic city. Origins Dreampunk initially began on January 29, 2014, when British musician David Russo launched the Dream Catalogue label, which specialized in vaporwave and "dream music" (the forename to dreampunk). Inspired by the films of Wong Kar-Wai, Russo explored dreamlike ambient music under the name Hong Kong Ex ...
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Seapunk
Seapunk is a subculture that originated on Tumblr in 2011. It is associated with an aquatic-themed style of fashion, 3D net art, iconography, and allusions to popular culture of the 1990s. The advent of seapunk also spawned its own electronic music microgenre, featuring elements of Southern hip hop and pop music and R&B music of the 1990s. Seapunk gained limited popularity as it spread through the Internet, although it was said to have developed a Chicago club scene. History Originally, seapunk started as a trend and an Internet meme on Tumblr in 2011. The term "seapunk" was coined by DJ Lil Internet in 2011, in a humorous tweet: "Seapunk leather jacket with barnacles where the studs used to be." In December 2011, ''Cluster Mag'' reported on the emergence of seapunk in electronic media and quoted Pictureplane, who described seapunk as "a mostly Internet-based phenomenon birthed out of the Tumblr and Twitter universes as a means to describe a lifestyle aesthetic that i ...
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Witch House (genre)
Witch house (sometimes referred to as drag, screwgaze or haunted house) is a microgenre of electronic music that is musically characterized by high-pitched keyboard effects, heavily layered basslines and trap-style drum loops. Aesthetically, it employs occult- and gothic-inspired themes. The witch house visual aesthetic includes occultism, witchcraft, shamanism, terror- and horror-inspired artworks, collages and photographs as well as significant use of hidden messages and typographic elements such as Unicode symbols. Artworks by witch house visual artists have incorporated imagery from horror films such as '' The Blair Witch Project'', the television series ''Twin Peaks'', and the fantasy show '' Charmed'', as well as mainstream pop culture celebrities of the 2000s. Common typographic elements in titles, such as by Salem and White Ring, include triangles, crosses and Unicode symbols. These elements are seen by some as a method of gatekeeping (in an effort to keep the sc ...
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Simon Reynolds
Simon Reynolds (born 19 June 1963) is an English music journalist and author who began his career at ''Melody Maker'' in the mid-1980s. He subsequently worked as a freelancer and published a number of books on music and popular culture. Reynolds has contributed to '' Spin'', ''Rolling Stone'', ''The New York Times'', ''The Village Voice'', ''The Guardian'', ''The Wire'', ''Pitchfork'' and others. Biography Early life and ''Blissed Out'' (1990) Reynolds was born in London in 1963 and grew up in Berkhamsted. Inspired by his younger brother Tim, he became interested in rock and specifically punk in 1978. In the early 1980s, he attended Brasenose College, Oxford University. After graduating, in 1984 he co-founded the Oxford-based pop culture journal ''Monitor'' with his friends and future ''Melody Maker'' colleagues Paul Oldfield and David Stubbs along with Hilary Little and Chris Scott. In 1986, Reynolds joined the staff of ''Melody Maker'', where his writing was marked by enthu ...
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Power Pop
Power pop (also typeset as powerpop) is a subgenre of rock music and form of pop rock based on the early music of bands such as the Who, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and the Byrds. It typically incorporates melodic hooks, vocal harmonies, an energetic performance, and cheerful-sounding music underpinned by a sense of yearning, longing, despair, or self-empowerment. The sound is primarily rooted in pop and rock traditions of the early-to-mid 1960s, although some artists have occasionally drawn from later styles such as punk, new wave, glam rock, pub rock, college rock, and neo-psychedelia. Originating in the 1960s, power pop developed mainly among American musicians who came of age during the British Invasion. Many of these young musicians wished to retain the "teenage innocence" of pop and rebelled against newer forms of rock music that were thought to be pretentious and inaccessible. The term was coined in 1967 by the Who guitarist and songwriter Pete Townshend ...
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University Of Michigan Press
The University of Michigan Press is a university press that is a part of Michigan Publishing at the University of Michigan Library. It publishes 170 new titles each year in the humanities and social sciences. Titles from the press have earned numerous awards, including Lambda Literary Awards, the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Joe A. Callaway Award, and the Nautilus Book Award. The press has published works by authors who have been awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the National Humanities Medal and the Nobel Prize in Economics. History From 1858 to 1930, the University of Michigan had no organized entity for its scholarly publications, which were generally conference proceedings or department-specific research. The University Press was established in 1930 under the university's Graduate School, and in 1935, Frank E. Robbins, assistant to university president Alexander G. Ruthven, was appointed as the managing editor of the University Press. He would hold this position until 195 ...
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Post-rock
Post-rock is a subgenre of experimental rock that emphasizes Texture (music), texture, atmosphere, and non-traditional song structures over conventional rock techniques. Post-rock artists often combine rock instrumentation and rock stylings with Electronic musical instrument, electronics and digital production as a means of enabling the exploration of textures, timbres and different styles. Vocals, when present, are often used as an instrumental layer, with many bands opting for entirely instrumental compositions. The genre began in Indie music scene, indie and underground music scenes, but deviated. The term ''post-rock'' was coined by music journalist Simon Reynolds, being popularized in a review of Bark Psychosis' 1994 album ''Hex (Bark Psychosis album), Hex'', and he later expanded the concept as music "using rock instrumentation for non-rock purposes". The term has since developed to refer to bands oriented around dramatic and suspense-driven instrumental rock, making the t ...
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Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era, 1965–1968
Originality is the aspect of created or invented works that distinguish them from reproductions, clones, forgeries, or substantially derivative works. The modern idea of originality is according to some scholars tied to Romanticism, by a notion that is often called romantic originality.Smith (1924)Waterhouse (1926)Macfarlane (2007) The validity of "originality" as an operational concept has been questioned. For example, there is no clear boundary between "derivative" and "inspired by" or "in the tradition of." The concept of originality is both culturally and historically contingent. For example, unattributed reiteration of a published text in one culture might be considered plagiarism but in another culture might be regarded as a convention of veneration. At the time of Shakespeare, it was more common to appreciate the similarity with an admired classical work, and Shakespeare himself avoided "unnecessary invention".Royal Shakespeare Company (2007) ''The RSC Shakespeare - Wi ...
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Hauntology (music)
Hauntology is a music genre or a loosely defined stylistic feature that evokes cultural memory and aesthetics of the past. It developed in the 2000s primarily among British electronic musicians, and typically draws on British cultural sources from the 1930s to the 1960s, including library music, film and TV soundtracks, psychedelia, and public information films; often through the use of sampling. The term was derived from philosopher Jacques Derrida's concept of the same name. In the mid-2000s, it was adapted by theorists Simon Reynolds and Mark Fisher. Hauntology is associated with the UK record labels Ghost Box and Trunk Records, in addition to artists such as the Caretaker, Burial, and Philip Jeck. Music genres hypnagogic pop and chillwave descended from hauntology. Etymology The term ''hauntology'' was introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his 1993 book '' Specters of Marx'' as a term for the post-Marxist understanding of what is perceived as the ten ...
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