yo dudes
 
I recently found something I saw a long time ago in a psychology class, it's this real nifty 1970's cartoon about the stages of human development according to Erik Erikson. 
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_e17mS7VBY&feature=youtu.be
 
It's by a couple of animators called the Hubleys who did some really great short animations of the kind that just really scratch a certain aesthetic itch, y'all sally cruikshank fans out there can probably dig it (not that this stuff is even similar in genre but like, there is this strange sort of aesthetic line that connects a lot of 1960's-70's smalltime animations that I just can't get enough of that I imagine most Cruikshank fans could appreciate, this sort of intimate and handcrafted feel and vibrancy)
 
anyways I watched this when I was 17 and I couldn't believe my eyes that this was a kind of thing I got to watch in a school, it had a real big impact on me at the time not only for the aesthetique reasons, but also in that way that a lot of babby's first psychology do to you when the pieces kind of fit together in your mind about these aspects of your humanity

can't express how much I like the hubleys
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hV5P4egjbY

bury me with my hubley DVDs
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we0vBoQfSjQ

There have been a few things I see my teenage friends post that I would happily put here except it's too popular. Certain things like weird garish shapes and colors, melty acid visuals, and reappropriating corporate images are super popular now. I imagine the love of these concepts were floating around in the mind of artists for the last decade or so and we're just starting to see it really catch on and take shape in the world. It's only gonna get more popular because treating Mickey Mouse and the Simpsons like they're liquid icons to be dismantled and treated like a medium or set of signifiers is like the coolest fucking thing ever and I'm surprised it took so long for large swathes of people to get interested. On one hand I like that everyone's starting to realize that the things I think are cool are, indeed, cool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIE8IKe6ZHk
 

I liked the vaporwave thing before it disappeared because I don't think anyone here ever directly addressed it.

 
i had this spoilered in that post originally.

on the other I don't like seeing low-quality stuff that only seems to ape the edges of the feelings I want. I actually started losing interest in vaporwave fairly early (years ago*) because while I liked a bunch of what people were doing with it there was just so much shit that I felt like my field of interest was being populated AND popularized with and by zombie replicas, and now I'm gonna be bitter about a nascent music scene displacing my affection for crystalline geometry and Lisa Frank stylism until I'm an old old man and become bone dust. Welcome to earth......!

I'm happy I got Mastaba Snoopy out when I did or it would be seen as more of a response to the current state of things instead of being based on older striations running through fiction.

 
 
* i imagine like lots of people i found out about EccoJams and my mind was blown to realize that cutting down tiny SPECIAL parts of songs and changing the speed you approach them at is NOT just something that people like Ulillillia do for fun but something other people will actually listen to, you can release a whole album like that! And the look of it was insane too, up there with James Ferraro for GETTING IT. Unfortunately no one ever "got" the pure vapor idea quite like Dan Lopatin did... in 2010... and now he's moved away from that style... so all the inertia i had for getting into the style faded because most people who make it do it for the aesthetic, and there's nothing inherently wrong with that; it's made for a lot of awesome album covers and stuff, but without the "holy-fication of commodity" multiplicative dimension which is HARD to do there's just no reason to actually listen to it.......? I do like that one Macintosh Plus song too with the 420 in it; that one also has a special energy of its own and knows what it's doing.

Also I bet everyone here pretty much knows him, or I've posted these before or something (probably), but these two are my favorite James Ferraro songs and they have a unique structure/style that he didn't do on his other albums. *fellow theatre patrons grumbling as i shuffle an immense load of youtube links and selfish opinions down too-narrow aisles* Sorry... Sorry.... Pardon me.... Thanks for ya patience....
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hnH2eyxrno
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xacj2zBp458
 
the lyrics as far as i can tell do not exist anywhere on the internet. i have almost all of them figured out though.
 
These songs mean so much to me it's a little silly. They're like the perfect summation/distillation/fusion of 1980s teen flicks, TV horror, lo-fi alien-based rock, creepy adolescent sexuality, the absolutely perfect childified vocals, saturday morning cartoons, also lots of others with an unheard of level of sincerity. If anyone knows anything that even vaguely comes close to the style of power inherent in these tracks I'll commission a friendly bear to fly to where you are and hug you in his soft arms.

OH YEAH! Phalangius makes dope shit, him and legowelt both have made extremely on-point albums that do what you're talking about.
 
Also I didn't realize it until i listened to the whole album - Night Dolls With Hairspray - ideal name imo - but part of the out-of-nowhere interlude in Killer Nerd with the sort of radio tuning in-out thing through time effect is a sample from another later track in the album. that's pretty cool too, since if you don't listen to it it's just this totally alien structure. The rest of the album is nowhere near as memorable for me (yet) but the song titles are all admirable. jf REALLY gets early pc and dos and amiga etc.

 
vv DURRRR haha ohyeah!! *sweat* that video's great!!..... The Neo Golden Era.... I'm happy to bw aroound for the great art of are time....

actually Phalangius is just another of Legowelt's many many aliases.. In any case, his music fits this topic perfectly.
 
Never really looked into vaporwave too much, most of the music I heard was not so interesting. Some of the tumblr imagery also seems a bit lazy (bunch of corporate logos and random VHS tape effects or something).
 
I think I posted this one here before, I actually like this track.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e089x6ba1Zo

 
Incredible that a j-pop idol group like this can exist, what a time to be alive.. get into that vaporwave pop market before it's too late.
 
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2014/06/03/music/especia-takes-road-less-traveled-idol-acts/
 

“Vaporwave samples a lot of Muzak, but what you hear at grocery stores is usually Muzak versions of pop. So I was imagining Especia as being mainstream enough to be played in supermarkets.”
 
All of this is done to make Especia different from the idol masses, and it extends to packaging and merchandise.
 
“The CD cover of ‘Gusto’ doesn’t feature any of us,” Mise says. “Idols are usually always on the front, but our picture is on the back.”
 
This has been a consistent strategy in the way Especia is marketed, with T-shirts even going so far as to not mention the group’s name and instead feature fictional corporations that dabble in things like food-delivery services. It’s this approach that helps make the unit one of the best “alternative idol” acts in Japan right now, but “Gusto” is a solid album on its own and rarely lags. It lasts as long as most idol-pop CDs (more than an hour), but other groups tend to burn up their sugar-fueled tunes early on. Yokoyama’s varied approach makes the album enjoyable throughout.
 
Especia still indulges in one kind of idol marketing strategy, though. If fans buy both versions of “Gusto,” they can get a limited-edition copy of a live performance from late last year. The twist? It’s a VHS tape!
 
“I used to record things on those all the time,” Mise says before Wakita spends some time fondly recalling video stores. Mori, meanwhile, appears a little lost.
“I was aware they existed . . . but I don’t think I ever watched one.”