Exploring Geek Music Genres

So I'm sitting in a coffee shop drawing while listening to some music with my headphones. What am I listening to? Well, lately I've been on a binge of musical genres that were created by the nerd community or music genres that my fellow nerds seem to gravitate towards exclusively. There's future funk, chiptune, lo-fi, nerdcore, slowed & reverb, city pop, J-pop, and K-pop in my library. What makes these forms of music geek music? Well, it's just as I stated. Most of these music genres were either invented by geeks or music that tends to only be listened to by geeks. For some of these the origins are hard to trace, but in the case of chiptune it's quite obvious. 

Chiptune derives its sounds from video games and dates back to the 80s when videos game really took off in the commercial space in the arcades and the home. Video games were limited in the sounds they could produce so musicians had to be more creative in their compositions. This lead to a unique sound and unaware by most the birth a new music genre known as chiptune. Now video games have come a long way since then. They are no longer limited by hardware when it comes to sound so now video game music can sound anything it wants to, but nostalgic developers still implement the call backs of the NES and SNES chiptune music in their indie titles. Sound-wise I think chiptune is one of the most distinct sounding genres out there. It cannot really be mistaken for anything else. Once you hear the classic beep boops your going to think of video games.

While I have listened to chiptune albums they personally don't hit quite the same as a video game soundtrack so I'll recommend a couple of those to listen to instead.  Try the Scott Pilgrim vs The World Soundtrack for modern chiptune and Final Fantasy VI's soundtrack for a retro one.

Moe Moe album cover by Moe Shop

Future funk is harder to trace the roots. To describe the sound of future funk it's like a joyous electronic track that usually samples an 80s J-pop song, though I have heard songs that sampled 70s or 80s r&b and soul. Future funk seems to thrive mostly on YouTube where it's set to anime gifs. Album covers in the genre usually have an anime character on the cover as well. Some notable artists in the genre include Yung Bae, Macross 82-89, Desired, and Moe Shop.

For those looking to get into the genre I recommend starting with Yung Bae's Japanese Disco Edits or Desired's Plastic Whatever.

Nerdcore is a genre that's kind of multiple genres and that's not in the sense of like how future funk takes other genres and blends them, nerdcore is a broad term that basically means that it covers instrumentals or lyrics inspired from works of geek culture. This could be technically be covers of anime or video game songs, pop songs, rock, or rap. I primarily listen to nerdcore rap. Rappers in the nerdcore genre have lyrics that references video games, anime, tech, or comic books or uses them to tell a story. They fully embrace these media into their music. My top three in the genre include Sammus, Shiki TMNS, and Noveliss. All three are vastly distinct from each other as well. Sammus produces her own beats and uses chiptune samples from video games like Metroid and Castlevania. She also makes non-nerdcore tracks as well that are still just as good or even better in some cases. Her song "Perfect Dark" is a reference to the cult classic N64 shooter, but it's a tale on how colorism and systemic racism made a young black girl dislike the skin she is in and had to reflect on herself and embrace her complexion.

Shiki TMNS is on the opposite spectrum. While Sammus lyrics reflect those of a conscious rapper, Shiki is the party trap rapper. He is an unapolagetic anime fan and a fan of those cheeks. His rhymes are set to trap beats with lyrics about having sex with anime girls. It's like if modern rappers like Travis Scott or Cardi B talked about smashing 2D girls and boys instead of real women and men.

My boy Noveliss is the most talented nerdcore rapper I've ever seen. His style is more akin to Sammus's, but he's still distinct in his own right. He started out as a part of a rap group called Clear Soul Forces who ocassionally did nerdcore tracks too. His name was J Roc back then, but going solo he changed his name to Noveliss. What I love about Noveliss is his flow. It's quite hard for me to describe with words, but it's silky, but it also hits hard. He's also creative in his wordplay as well which gives some depth to the lyrics. He does this all while telling a story using anime, comic books, and video games.

If you want to dip your toes into nerdcore rap I recommend starting with either Noveliss's Kenjutsu Under the Moonlight, or Sammus' Another M. 

Despite nerdcore being a part of rap which is currently one of the most popular music genres in the world, no nerdcore artists have made it into the mainstream. We do have artists out here who may make a reference to Dragon Ball Z or Naruto and even recently made mainstream artist Doja Cat has made a nerdcore song, but it was only on her soundcloud and never made an official release. Currently, it looks like major labels still see nerdcore as unprofitable.

Lo-fi Hip-Hop Radio is a popular music livestream on YouTube

Lo-fi is still a genre I'm not that educated on. It is also another subgenre of rap. The beats I would describe like many as chill, but also melancholic, and jazz-like, but not quite jazz. Lo-fi playlists have been popular on YouTube with most of them set to an anime gif. Lo-fi has been dubbed as the study music given that it's melodies aren't distracting and it's enjoyed better at a lower volume. It's also popular to find lo-fi mixes of video game songs. Nujabes seems to be the most popular artist in the genre. I know of him primarily from his work on Samurai Champloo. For an album recommendation aside from Nujabes' Metaphorical Music I recommend City Girl's (and that's City Girl not City Girls) Neon Impasse.

Slowed & Reverb I think might be the newest of these. The genre was started by an online user named Slater!. Slater was a fan of chopped & screwed remixes that became popular by DJ Screw. He took that inspiration and made mixes of his own which in my opinion sound way better than chopped and screwed which I never liked. These songs were always set to the background of an anime gif. Slowed & reverb sounds exactly as it sounds. It takes songs mainly from hip-hop and r&b and remixes them by slowing down the tempo and adding reverb effects.

As far as I know there aren't any slowed & reverb albums, most likely because they just alter copyrighted music, but I do have some suggestions for you. I made a playlist of slowed & reverb music you can check out.

Ultimate Slowed & Reverb 2

Now on the topic of J-pop and K-pop these are highly popular within the nerd community because the nerd community is fascinated by Asian culture. Most of that comes from anime and Japanese video games and the really old school nerds, martial arts films. So since nerds love all of the stuff that helms from Japan it's no surprise that they would get into the music from these nations as well. K-pop and J-pop are very different in sound. It's hard for me to describe and I'm not all that into K-pop, but it feels more like a catch all term for music that comes out of South Korea. There are rap, r&b, and pop sounding music from Korea that all gets labeled under K-pop. K-pop is probably the most mainstream genre in this article. It's global popularity I believe shot up in 2012 when "Gangnam Style" came out and went viral. Now K-pop and J-pop I don't listen to a lot of, but I'll recommend offonoff's album Boy.

One particular part that has resurfaced lately is city pop. City pop is basically pop from 1980s Japan. The term is westernized and is known as "shiti poppu" in Japan. I'm not sure how exactly it got popular outside Japan forty years later, but for me I was introduced to it when Taeko Ohnuki's 4:00 AM popped on my recommendation feed on YouTube and it apparently was recommended millions of others as well. It didn't take long for me to go down the rabbit hole of listening to city pop songs on YouTube. Some popular instruments in the genre are electronic bases like the CZ-101 and synthesizers. City pop gives me a feeling that I quite cannot describe. "Plastic Love" is always on rotation.

If you're looking to get into city pop I recommend Tatsuro Yamashita's For You and Love Trip by Takako Mamiya to start out with.

As you can tell from this blog I am a big geek and I equally love geek music. While it's cool that geekdom has their little own bubble of music genres they like within the culture I do hope that these genres can be more accepted among the mainstream audience.