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Comment by chipsy | Hacker News Reader

Nobody in the thread has yet called it what it is: retrowave. This was a musical genre first. It wholly appropriates the aesthetics of a subset of 80's media and condenses it into a "historical fantasy" world that is easier to digest than the authentic thing.

You don't enjoy retrowave for its writing or storytelling, generally speaking. Treat Kung Fury like an extended music video and it makes way more sense.

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I've never heard it called Retrowave before (thought that is a good name for it). I know it by the names Outrun or Synthwave.

Carpenter Brut, Perturbator, M|O|O|N, Miami Nights 1984, Lazerhawk or basically anything from the Hotline Miami soundtracks are all good for anyone wanting more.

Don't forget Kavinsky!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kavinsky

Com Truise is another solid choice.

Or Jan Hammer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Hammer) if you want to hear some of the real sound from the 80s. For those interested (and able to "stomach" the real thing) any track from his Miami Vice soundtracks are great - I think there's a selection of them on Escape from Television on Spotify.

More "authentic 80's synth" soundtracks: Harold Faltermeyer, Vince Dicola, pre-BTTF Alan Silvestri, Tangerine Dream, John Carpenter.

I particularly enjoy Mitch Murder; Interceptor is a fantastic Retrowave album with a hint of Chiptune.

Guess what movie he just did the soundtrack for!

> Nobody in the thread has yet called it what it is: retrowave.

My favourite retrowave right now, and it's so blindingly obviously retrowave you don't even need to know its a thing, is this piece:

Todd Terje - Delorean Dynamite. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUOIvT9hzD8

It's a combined tribute to everything great about the 80s DJ scene (and Todd Terry), with a clearly tougue-in-check ironic reference to us here in the future looking back it.

I'm loving it.

I've heard it more often referred to as Vaporwave, your basic point is sound. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporwave

Synthwave is another one too

> It wholly appropriates the aesthetics of a subset of 80's media and condenses it into a "historical fantasy" world that is easier to digest than the authentic thing.

That helps a lot actually.

Also called new wave retro or futureretro

Lots of nostalgic 80s TV, movie, and video game sampling.

Here's a play list for those interested:

https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL52109BD7632583B2

I've heard before this music with groups like Digitalism, Anoraak, Bestrack, GRUM, ULTRNX, etc, but I never thought it had a style name. I included it all in the NuDisco scene [1]. So thanks for the tip, plenty of groups to listen to now!

[1] https://pro.beatport.com/genre/indie-dance-nu-disco/37

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