Last July, a blogger named Carles, writing for the site Hipster Runoff, clustered together a handful of up-and-coming bands with a similar sound and recording approach and, by most accounts, birthed a new genre: “chillwave.” It didn’t take long for other music sites to start throwing around the term. “About six months removed from the summer of chillwave, Toro Y Moi’s debut LP is being released in the dead of winter,” read a recent Pitchfork review of an album by multi-instrumentalist Chaz Bundick, who performs under the name Toro Y Moi.

 

Summer of chillwave? Wait. What exactly is chillwave anyway?

“It generally has an ‘80s influence, which is definitely pretty heavy in my stuff,” said Ernest Greene, a.k.a. Washed Out, one of the acts being touted as part of the trend. New Wave-sounding samples and ambient music is often  interlaced with dance-y beats, and the approach to recording is decidedly lo-fi. Carles explained the genre this way in a post last...

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http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/03/13/is-chillwave-the-next-big-music-trend/

Via:

http://altreport.hipsterrunoff.com/2010/03/wall-street-journal-covers-the-chillwave-genre.html

Can’t believe we did it. We invented chillwave. One of the most relevant genres in the history of the modern world. The perfect mix of a ’stupid name’, interesting/listenable music, and the opportunity to discuss the framework of the genre.

VV:

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/archives/2010/03/in_defense_of_c.php

Pareles critiques chillwave's formal elements, referring to its fuzzy grooves and gated drums as "annoyingly noncommittal"--"a hedged, hipster imitation of the pop [Chill-wavers are] not brash enough to make [themselves]." In short, chillwave sucks because it retrofits older, better music for younger, more ignorant, stuck-up weirdos and nerds. Sounds like the critique lobbed at every indie trend of the past decade.

Problem is, chillwave is the most interesting and vital, stupid indie trend in a minute, and in attacking it, Pareles fundamentally misreads chillwave's influences and ignores its heady intentions. '80s pop is everywhere--the sound chillwavers search out goes way beyond the

Via:

http://altreport.hipsterrunoff.com/2010/03/village-voice-blogger-writes-post-in-defense-of-chillwave.html

 

After the New York Times wrote a ’scathing’ blog post about chillwave, some Village Voice blog writer wrote a piece ‘in defense’ of chillwave.

He ‘asserts’ that old people h8 every new trend:

In short, chillwave sucks because it retrofits older, better music for younger, more ignorant, stuck-up weirdos and nerds. Sounds like the critique lobbed at every indie trend of the past decade.

Wonder if critics even care about ‘the scene’ / ‘art’, or if they are just trying to get blog hits with the google search term ‘chillwave.’