Metrosong General

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Why bother pretending to edit songs when you can just steal it and change the track title? Metrosong, the new low in vaporwave and related subgenres.

digital-mills-the-marketplace-Cover-Art.png


Metrosong is a subgenre of vaporwave that emphasizes the present as opposed to the nostalgic past. A parody of liberal futurism, capitalism, and SWPL culture, the art form attempts to destroy the gloss and sheen of the current advertising. This is not to be confused with a mere fixation or nostalgia for the 2000's-2010's -- rather it is consistently welcoming the latest source material, in whatever focus-grouped trends may appear.

In a nutshell:


View: https://youtu.be/w-tFdreZB94


A key feature of metrosong is the de-emphasis on destructive editing (and artistic integrity), and the increased emphasis on presentation (artwork, track titles, etc). Songs are generally either stolen (Digital Mills, Sprint & AMC Theatres) or composed entirely from scratch (Axico Industries, Trademarks & Copyrights). However, they can of course be made via remix and sound collage.

The name "metrosong" came from the brief "metro" graphic design trend that occurred during the Windows 8 era, where every logo was a white vector graphic on a brightly colored background. The movement (which was largely forced) rose and fell between 2015-2016 with the rise and fall of Cardboard Future and a subsequent label called Clear Visions. Major artists included L. John Hubbard (James Flamingo, The Illuminati), pine voc, Trademarks & Copyrights, Jude Frankum (Axico Industries), 2047, and Bonus Fruit. There are also now a few albums that can be said to be metrosong despite the lack of connection to the original movement -- James Ferraro's Human Story 3 and releases off of the PC Music Label, such as GFOTYBUCKS. Today there are still some people interested in metrosong, and there are still releases occasionally being made -- but this is mostly people who were around during its 3 seconds of fame (if you could call it that) in late 2015. This thread is for those people.

Resources


View: https://tvg-blog.tumblr.com/post/147822611656/the-complete-cardboard-future-catalog


Trivia: 'The Sustainable Future' compilations feature some more familiar artists under assumed aliases: HKE, Wolfenstein OSx, Shinatama, Staqq Overflow, PEGA, Donavan Hikaru, and Cobalt Road.
 
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IlluminatiPirate

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Why bother pretending to edit songs when you can just steal it and change the track title? Metrosong, the new low in vaporwave and related subgenres.

digital-mills-the-marketplace-Cover-Art.png


Metrosong is a subgenre of vaporwave that emphasizes the present as opposed to the nostalgic past. A parody of liberal futurism, capitalism, and SWPL culture, the art form attempts to destroy the gloss and sheen of the current advertising. This is not to be confused with a mere fixation or nostalgia for the 2000's-2010's -- rather it is consistently welcoming the latest source material, in whatever focus-grouped trends may appear.

In a nutshell:


View: https://youtu.be/w-tFdreZB94


A key feature of metrosong is the de-emphasis on destructive editing (and artistic integrity), and the increased emphasis on presentation (artwork, track titles, etc). Songs are generally either stolen (Digital Mills, Sprint & AMC Theatres) or composed entirely from scratch (Axico Industries, Trademarks & Copyrights). However, they can of course be made via remix and sound collage.

The name "metrosong" came from the brief "metro" graphic design trend that occurred during the Windows 8 era, where every logo was a white vector graphic on a brightly colored background. The movement (which was largely forced) rose and fell between 2015-2016 with the rise and fall of Cardboard Future and a subsequent label called Clear Visions. Major artists included L. John Hubbard (James Flamingo, The Illuminati), pine voc, Trademarks & Copyrights, Jude Frankum (Axico Industries), 2047, and Bonus Fruit. There are also now a few albums that can be said to be metrosong despite the lack of connection to the original movement -- James Ferraro's Human Story 3 and releases off of the PC Music Label, such as GFOTYBUCKS. Today there are still some people interested in metrosong, and there are still releases occasionally being made -- but this is mostly people who were around during its 3 seconds of fame (if you could call it that) in late 2015. This thread is for those people.

Resources


View: https://tvg-blog.tumblr.com/post/147822611656/the-complete-cardboard-future-catalog


Trivia: 'The Sustainable Future' compilations feature some more familiar artists under assumed aliases: HKE, Wolfenstein OSx, Shinatama, Staqq Overflow, PEGA, Donavan Hikaru, and Cobalt Road.

Idk how to feel about this because I REALLY like nostalgia :BurgerTime:
 
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Nostalgia to me is the backbone of vaporwave's appeal. Not just aesthetically, but intellectually as well, as I think vaporwave's commentary on nostalgia is quite sophisticated. It's significant that vaporwave is primarily popular among younger millenials and Gen-Z. With the 80's/90's aesthetics, it's nostalgia for a time that they never even experienced. Furthermore, it's nostalgia for a time period when people were optimistic about the future that technology would usher.

Younger millenials and Gen-Z (I fall flat in between being born '97 myself) came to age in the 2010's, a period when many of the promises of technology finally arrived. Computers are incomprehensively more powerful then they were in the 80's and 90's, Internet speeds are instantaneous, and we carry around miniature computers in our pockets. "No matter where you go, we're all connected", just as the anime Serial Experiments Lain predicted would happen. And like Lain, this reality is no where near the Utopia people thought it could be in the 80's and 90's. As a young adult myself, I don't feel like I live in the present. I feel like I live in a failed future, where a genie granted us our wish for technological advancement and is now hysterically laughing. Telling us that "we should have been more careful for what we wished for!"

I think many people who are into vaporwave also identify with the Doomer wojak meme. This sentiment of demoralization, hopelessness, and the utter disappointment of all the false promises we were told as kids the future would be, fuels a false nostalgia for a time we never knew.

Nostalgia is a theme that can be explored in any medium and subgenre of art, but for vaporwave nostalgia is the central core as far as I can see. Metrosong (if I'm understanding it correctly) seems like it goes against all of that. Almost like a sort of cope, an attempt to convince ourselves that modern reality isn't soulless and culturally/aesthetically bankrupt. If that's the case, then I disagree with Metrosong's premise.
 
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FundingMissions

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Nostalgia to me is the backbone of vaporwave's appeal. Not just aesthetically, but intellectually as well, as I think vaporwave's commentary on nostalgia is quite sophisticated. It's significant that vaporwave is primarily popular among younger millenials and Gen-Z. With the 80's/90's aesthetics, it's nostalgia for a time that they never even experienced. Furthermore, it's nostalgia for a time period when people were optimistic about the future that technology would usher.

Younger millenials and Gen-Z (I fall flat in between being born '97 myself) came to age in the 2010's, a period when many of the promises of technology finally arrived. Computers are incomprehensively more powerful then they were in the 80's and 90's, Internet speeds are instantaneous, and we carry around miniature computers in our pockets. "No matter where you go, we're all connected", just as the anime Serial Experiments Lain predicted would happen. And like Lain, this reality is no where near the Utopia people thought it could be in the 80's and 90's. As a young adult myself, I don't feel like I live in the present. I feel like I live in a failed future, where a genie granted us our wish for technological advancement and is now hysterically laughing. Telling us that "we should have been more careful for what we wished for!"

I think many people who are into vaporwave also identify with the Doomer wojak meme. This sentiment of demoralization, hopelessness, and the utter disappointment of all the false promises we were told as kids the future would be, fuels a false nostalgia for a time we never knew.

Nostalgia is a theme that can be explored in any medium and subgenre of art, but for vaporwave nostalgia is the central core as far as I can see. Metrosong (if I'm understanding it correctly) seems like it goes against all of that. Almost like a sort of cope, an attempt to convince ourselves that modern reality isn't soulless and culturally/aesthetically bankrupt. If that's the case, then I disagree with Metrosong's premise.
Metrosong was never intended to be a celebration of modernity; it's rather a parody of the "future vision" of modern westerners. Some artists have taken it in an optimistic direction but the entire point was that people are so certain of a utopian paradise because they haven't yet been exposed to the nostalgia / decay of the current messaging. So metrosong attempts to create that uneasiness before it naturally occurs on its own


View: https://cardboardfuture.bandcamp.com/album/sustainable-future-village
 
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Sweet n' Comfy

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Metrosong was never intended to be a celebration of modernity; it's rather a parody of the "future vision" of modern westerners. Some artists have taken it in an optimistic direction but the entire point was that people are so certain of a utopian paradise because they haven't yet been exposed to the nostalgia / decay of the current messaging. So metrosong attempts to create that uneasiness before it naturally occurs on its own


View: https://cardboardfuture.bandcamp.com/album/sustainable-future-village

If you didn't tell me the whole context I would think it's just generic happy early 2010's songs (some of which are nice tbh) and really wouldn't think it's deep art or whatever. I mean the whole "deconstructionism" aspect that's talked about I don't really understand it nor am I able to see it at all.
 
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FundingMissions

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If you didn't tell me the whole context I would think it's just generic happy early 2010's songs (some of which are nice tbh) and really wouldn't think it's deep art or whatever. I mean the whole "deconstructionism" aspect that's talked about I don't really understand it nor am I able to see it at all.
It's basically the same "deconstruction" you see with vaporwave and capitalism. Kind of pretentious and often doesn't ring through. Basically just ironic depictions

a0lbxvd087281.jpg
 
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Sweet n' Comfy

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It's basically the same "deconstruction" you see with vaporwave and capitalism. Kind of pretentious and often doesn't ring through. Basically just ironic depictions

View attachment 10666
I don't really see the irony at all. Do these fellows understand at all that art limited to the artists is nothing more than senseless aesthetic onanism?
 
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vaporwavemaster1

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これをサブジャンルに分類するかどうかはわかりません。それは非常に別のタイプの音楽のように感じます。できることはあまりないので、あまり好きではありません。ヴェイパーウェイヴのすべての可能性と比較して、それは一種の退屈です

これは私がこのタイプの音楽の背後にある音楽理論について見つけた興味深いビデオです


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIxY_Y9TGWI
 
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