I got bored so I decided that I want to talk about music here in Teksyndicate. I’m not an expert nor I do this for living nor I get paid I just like to share music and I'd love to get you into new music.
So, today I’m going to talk about Synthwave, a genre that I got into pretty recently and it has been fresh air for me after being in a huge binge of Black Metal (I will make a few posts about Black Metal soon I guess).
So, what’s Synthwave? Well, you'd have probably heard some Synthwave in later videogames, series and movies, but if you happen to be old enough you'd have lived the whole 80's aesthetic thing. Neon lights, really cheesy action movies, girls wearing carded hairstyles... You get the picture.
Nowadays people would find that whole aesthetic thing really naff or extravagant but synthwave is the sonic representation of that. Synthwave musicians take 80s culture and give it a modern twist by mixing it with modern metal or rock, creating new music that in some ways is a nostalgic ode to those very cool years that are long long gone.
So, enough of the chitchat, let's get into the music. I have to say that tons of synthwave musicians like Carpenter Brut or Perturbator are huge metalheads and you can tell that by listening to their music. Satanic imaginery, really energetic and hard moments... The rock/metal influence is there. To sum it up, most of the Synthwave I know is made by metalheads who love 80s culture because it was badass and arrogant. Robots fighting, neon lights, high-speed car chases, badass people summoning Satan... You get the picture and if you don't you will pretty easily just by looking at the album covers of the musicians in this genre.
How does it sound like? Take 80s music made by artists like John Carpenter, Jean Michel-Jarre, Vangelis... you know, big fat sounding synths, warm yet industrial sounding drum machines, sound effects from movies or cartoons of the 80s, funk and soul influences, etc; add a rock/metal twist and you got it. Probably if you have watched Kung Fury or played Hotline Miami 2 you might have heard some of the stuff I'm going to show you. Surprisingly enough, the big bulk of good artists that make music in this style come from France. Don't ask me why, but they do. Just like France was the place to go to find cool Black Metal bands until Poland and Iceland took their place, big names like David Grellier's projects (Kavinsky, College), Carpenter Brut, etc are hailing from there. So if you wanna make cool Synthwave you have to be french, I guess.
Musicians like Perturbator or Carpenter Brut came from a more metal background in previous bands, and the influence is there and it's pretty big (Perturbator from example released his work on vinyl through Blood Music, a really nice extreme metal label).
And now, bands. I'm going to give you some YouTube links so you can check out if you dig this kind of stuff and then some places to look for new stuff.
If you want more stuff like this i'd highly suggest you to go to /r/synthwave, keep an eye on the tag synthwave on Bandcamp or simply lurk on rateyourmusic/lastfm and check out whatever is down there.
Now get in your car and take a ride at night and blast some of this stuff. And if you get a speeding ticket don't blame me, blame the music.