Synthwave is an electronic microgenre built on 1970s-80s film-soundtrack sounds and 1980s nostalgia

Synthwave (also retrowave or futuresynth) is an electronic-music microgenre based predominantly on the sounds of action, science-fiction and horror film soundtracks of the 1970s and 1980s, alongside that decade’s art and video games. It reaches back to composers such as John Carpenter, Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis (his Blade Runner score especially) and Tangerine Dream, and it developed in the mid-to-late 2000s largely through French house producers. The defining posture is nostalgic: artists deliberately espouse nostalgia for 1980s culture and try to capture and celebrate the era’s atmosphere rather than merely borrow a few sounds. It is primarily an instrumental genre. For orientation, synthwave is identified less by a fixed tempo than by this 80s-cinematic sound-world and nostalgic intent.

Examples

Kavinsky’s ‘Nightcall’ and College & Electric Youth’s ‘A Real Hero’ (from Drive); Tangerine Dream’s ‘Love on a Real Train’ (Risky Business, 1983) as a cited influence.

Assessment

Name three 1980s reference sources synthwave draws on (spanning film, games, and composers), and explain what ‘nostalgic intent’ adds beyond simply using vintage synth sounds.