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Mallsoft (also known as mallwave) is a
Often based on corporate lounge music, it is meant to conjure images of shopping malls, grocery stores, lobbies, and other places of public commerce. Mallsoft artists typically elicit nostalgic memories of these retail establishments, even to those who did not experience them, firsthand through easy listening,
vaporwave
Vaporwave is a microgenre of electronic music, visual art style, and Internet meme that emerged in the early 2010s. It is defined partly by its slowed-down, chopped and screwed samples of smooth jazz, elevator, R&B, and lounge music fr ...
subgenre themed after retro shopping malls.
Overview
Often based on corporate lounge music, it is meant to conjure images of shopping malls, grocery stores, lobbies, and other places of public commerce. Mallsoft artists typically elicit nostalgic memories of these retail establishments, even to those who did not experience them, firsthand through easy listening, bossa nova
Bossa nova () is a style of samba developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is mainly characterized by a "different beat" that altered the harmonies with the introduction of unconventional chords and an innovativ ...
, and smooth jazz music while providing commentary on consumerism and corporate capitalism
In social science and economics, corporate capitalism is a capitalist marketplace characterized by the dominance of hierarchical and bureaucratic corporations.
Overview
A large proportion of the economy of the United States and its labour mark ...
. Much of the enjoyment from listeners is derived from nostalgia and the "pleasure of remembering for the sake of the act of remembering itself".
Characteristics
Some artists simply take existing 1980s' pop songs, slow them down, and add reverb as if to make it sound like it's coming from the overhead speakers in an empty or abandoned mall. Reverb and distortion is often overlaid on top of a track to give it an isolating and disorienting feeling. YouTube videos are also made to pair mallsoft tracks with images of malls with an emphasis on selected images that appear to have been taken from the 1980s and 1990s. The visuals can often be meant to invoke a sense of loneliness along with the cold nature of meandering through overly-corporate mercantile environments.Reception
Music journalist Simon Chandler described Cat System Corp.'s 2014 album ''Palm Mall'' as being "perhaps the definitive mallsoft album".See also
*Ambient music
Ambient music is a genre of music that emphasizes tone and atmosphere over traditional musical structure or rhythm. It may lack net composition, beat, or structured melody.The Ambient Century by Mark Prendergast, Bloomsbury, London, 2003. It u ...
* Postmodern architecture
* Dead mall
A dead mall (also known as a ghost mall, zombie mall, or abandoned mall) is a shopping mall with a high vacancy rate or a low consumer traffic level, or that is deteriorating in some manner.
Many malls in North America are considered "dead ...
References
{{Electronica 21st-century music genres Neologisms Microgenres 2010s in music 2020s in music Nostalgia Shopping malls Vaporwave