From microsound to vaporwave: Internet-mediated musics, online methods, and genre

Abstract

How is the internet transforming musical practices? In this article, through a study of five prominent popular and cross-over music genres spanning the period from the late 1990s to the present, we examine how the internet has augmented the creative, aesthetic, communicative, and social dimensions of contemporary music. The five genres are microsound, hauntology, hypnagogic pop, chillwave, and vaporwave. Analysing the internet-based practices associated with these genres poses methodological and theoretical challenges. It requires new research tools attentive to the online practices involved in their creation and reception. To this end we adapt the Issue Crawler software, an established digital research method that analyses networks of hyperlinking on the worldwide web. In addition, it requires a theoretical framework that can respond to music's profuse mediations in the digital environment.We propose that reconceptualizing genre in music by reference to a theory of mediation offers such a framework. The essay concludes by reflecting on the implications of our analysis for theorizing music and place, and for problematizing existing historical periodizations, notably that of modernism and postmodernism.