April 20, 2012 • Beer on the Rug
In theory, nothing about vaporwave should have been successful. Cheesy, generic stock music, shamelessly ripped off and re-purposed from the awful corporate mood music of the '80s and early '90s, music that should have stayed on the Weather Channel and home shopping networks. I can't explain why in 2010 it suddenly came back out of nowhere, wanting to be taken semi-seriously, even. But I still have this odd fascination with 札幌コンテンポラリー, and it's definitely an album worth knowing about.
There's a lot going on all over this album, though it's hard to notice at first. The cheesy MIDI arrangements are just a distracting surface element; just underneath that are some actually well-arranged and well-performed smooth jazz and ambient pop tunes. There's a surprising amount of diversity, too, like the African-sounding influence on tracks like "iMYSTIQUE エジプト航空「EDU」" or the downbeat, droning "HB☯ PORN". And yet there's nothing very challenging about the album, because it all stems from a place that's at least a little bit familiar to people who were around during that time (or at least experienced the bits of its culture that this music comes from).
It kinda goes without saying at this point that 札幌コンテンポラリー is not for everyone—not by a long shot. Even if you can get into the aesthetic of the album as a whole, the tracks themselves can vary quite a bit in quality and listenability (take "CONTEMPORARYセーター", which sounds like it comes from an awful soap opera, or the disgustingly-saccharine soul of its successor "HOTEL TAIWAN WELC☯MES U") and the album does feel somewhat too long (at one hour and twenty-seven tracks). Personally, I can't bring myself to hold it any higher than a novelty act, but at the same time it's still a pretty good novelty act, one that makes you stop and think for a minute. It's so unlike anything I'd ever naturally listen to that I just have to like it, even for just a little bit.
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