How slowed + reverb remixes represent the pervasive melancholy of a generation.
And how we can overcome it.
Everyone is victim to having listened to one of these songs before. Given their sheer number, how could you not have? The intriguing part of this is once you stumble onto one of these videos, you fall into a completely isolated side of the website, song after song has been given this melancholic makeover and you are smothered in more recommendations. The comment sections are largely an introspective space to share stories, a vast contrast to the shallow jokes on most videos. These types of songs clearly resonate with their listeners. It is easy so see why this sort of sound would have such an infectious effect, especially on a generation which is characterized by their self-deprecation and existential dread. The songs begin to croon and each moment is drawn out resonantly at their lowered speed. When listening to these songs it is easy to find yourself getting emotional and existential. Over time the pairing of these songs with loops of retro anime have become kind of a trope, as the animations serve as a convenient way to convey the dreamy and forlorn nature of the songs in a visual sense. These videos are lo-fi in every sense of the word. And while many would renounce the substance of these videos as low effort, which could certainly be true, its heart lies in its low fidelity.
“Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit — all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided. It’s the sound of failure: so much modern art is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart.” — Brian Eno, in “A Year With Swollen Appendices (1996)
What is striking to me however, is the way in which these videos encapsulate our generation. They are emotional, and rebellious in some ways. They are nostalgic but also self-indulgent. They are a representation of the pervasive sense of melancholy and unease within young people who have grown up wired to the outside world. They are the sound of a struggle.
The sound of a struggle
There is a certain indefinable moment contained within an existential struggle where one stops resisting their own existence. There is an ethereal sense of relief in letting go. A rush of everything that stems from the feeling of nothingness. For that single indefinable moment the world can seem corrected. In a period of confusion, self-hatred and sadness, simply letting go of all cares can feel incredibly freeing. What the slowed + reverb and vaporwave aesthetic videos are so effective at doing is suspending this moment, and allowing oneself to indulge in these feelings. These remixes can transform most songs to a more haunting and depressing version of themselves. They cater themselves to self described nihilists and those in emotional turmoil. Under the comment section you’ll find many different stories and experiences but they will all convey a similar message. An outcry of hopelessness, yearning, or doubt. When we listen to slowed + reverb music there is a certain sanctuary we are searching for. A recognition that our worries are shared by others, and a recognition that they are insignificant in the context of our journey so far. The mere existence of these creations is a byproduct of a generation filled with anxiety and apprehension searching for ways to escape themselves. This is a collective who have become disillusioned with the lives they lead. With ever-decreasing numbers of people who can turn to religion, and ever-increasing hegemony in modern society, it becomes harder to reason our own existence. God is dead and we have killed him... So where do we go from here? The universe is an absurd one, and people are beginning to recognise that. Above all things, humans crave meaning and purpose, a desire which is fundamentally opposed by the inherently meaningless nature of our reality. Our relationship with the universe is incoherent by nature.
I hate the universe but it does not hate me back
Nihilism has become increasingly popular among younger generations — the idea that life is meaningless can be an incredibly freeing one. However, no other way of philosophical thinking is more misunderstood and wrongly applied. When Nietzsche pronounces “God is dead”, he gives rise to the rejection of a physical or cosmic order, and by doing so he rejects any basis of absolute moral truth. He concludes that absolute values can no longer hold if there are no metaphysical values to uphold them, as all morals, ethics, and meaning, are simply a perspective of human constructs. If the words of Nietzsche are to be true, there is no morality, and no meaning, and the foundations of western morality — which are constructed upon christianity — are undermined. Nihilism is not an idea to be celebrated, if we take our universe to be meaningless, this is something that must be overcome. Much of our suffering may then come as a result of simply misunderstanding what our lives can or should be. Perhaps, much of our suffering is simply self afflicted. People tend to give their negative thoughts more consideration than their positive ones. The purpose of slowed + reverb music is not to give our sadness and emptiness more fuel but often it does. Just like our generation, this melancholic heart of youtube is sensitive, and emotional, but with these qualities there is a tendency to revel in self-destruction. Nietzsche believed the western world was destined for a moral collapse under these nihilistic realisations. He created the concept of an Übermensch, the superior few who would create new values and banish nihilism. Where this concept fails is in the creation of meaning and the fundamental construction of an individual’s meaning. Self-defeat can be languidly beautiful in an ophelian way, which is what can make our self-destructive tendencies so intoxicating. In this sense, slowed + reverb music and creations alike are a medium in which we delve into our most nihilistic and melancholic parts of ourselves. However this is not the solution to our existential problem. When one’s morals and values can face up to the absurd nature of our world, the simple pursuit of meaning can contain meaning within itself. To live purposefully is to rebel, and to find meaning in a meaningless world is to embrace the absurd.
Melancholy is a boulder rolling down a hill
If we are fated to live in a world which is inherently meaningless can there be anything more to our lives than crushing existential crises? When we lock ourselves in a state of melancholy, playing the saddest, slowest, most reverb’ed music we can find, isn’t this a natural response to our reality? When we make these sorts of realisations, this is a recognition of the absurdity of life. The incoherency between our desire for meaning and purpose and the ultimately meaningless and chaotic nature of our universe. Under these realisations, just as Nietzsche proposed, it can seem that our beliefs and ideas of our world suddenly do not operate anymore. Imagine Sisyphus straining to push a boulder up a hill, only to see it roll back down in an endless cycle of futility. Albert Camus uses this image as a vessel to communicate his idea of the absurd. If our struggles are represented by the boulder, then we go through each day, working, studying, sleeping, to push a boulder up a hill, only for it to result in something meaningless. Albert Camus would conclude in his works “one must imagine Sisyphus happy”. Sisyphus is our futile hero, destined to a life of pain and suffering, we can embrace the absurd nature of our positions just as he does. If the pain of our struggles is enough to fill our hearts, then the pursuit of the top of the hill can be one filled with our own meaning. The boulder and the hill themselves imbue no meaning, instead we can derive our own sense of purpose and satisfaction simply by continuing to live as we do. The only thing that can make sense, is an acceptance of our task, and rebellion against life itself. This does not mean that escapism and art are invaluable. In fact, the process of interacting with art — be it movies or music — is our most powerful tool in which we can construct our own meaning. As we live within the absurd, we must accept the nature of our existence, and in doing so we can obtain freedom in the now, and a passion for life itself. An acceptance of the absurd comes when we recognise our mortality, yet cling onto life and when we know the limitations of our own purpose but allow it to sit close to our hearts. We must imagine Sisyphus happy and keep pushing our boulders up the hill.
Our generation is more self-aware of their own existence than any that have come before them. The tension between passion and melancholy is strong and is only indulged by the existence of slowed + reverb music. There are simply very few things which accurately represent the nature of millenials and gen-z as neatly as these washed out and spacey creations. But in order to overcome the sadness that rules a generation, we must simply accept our own place in the world. Our struggles can serve as a reminder of our rebellion, and the songs we listen to can become soundtracks of absurdity. The beauty of slowed & reverb music, and much of what we create, is that they exist in a vacuum, separate from the context of our own lives. Nothing else needs to exist. Every one of your thoughts can fall away. Every place, every person, every thing, will meld into one nameless being. New York, Berlin, Tokyo, will become shadows. You can embrace this in whichever way you like. Reality morphs into a melting pot of different emotions, and soon it all blends into one potent scene. The night sky lights up. A river flows serenely. Then the lights of the city will reflect like glitter off of the smooth surface of the river and it will always be 2am as you reflect over lost love. All you need to do is sit by in silence, and take in the moment.
