Mallsoft

Mallsoft (also known as mallwave) is a vaporwave subgenre centered around shopping malls.^[1]

Overview

Often based on corporate lounge music, mallsoft is meant to conjure images of shopping malls, grocery stores, lobbies, and other places of public commerce.^[2] Mallsoft artists typically elicit nostalgic memories of these retail establishments, even to those who did not experience them firsthand,^[3] sampling easy listening, bossa nova, and smooth jazz music. The genre also often attempts to provide commentary on consumerism and corporate capitalism.^[4] Much of the enjoyment from listeners is derived from nostalgia and the "pleasure of remembering for the sake of the act of remembering itself".^[5]

Characteristics

Some artists simply slow & reverberate existing 1980s' pop songs to make them sound like they're coming from the overhead speakers in an empty or abandoned mall.^[6] Reverb and distortion are often overlaid on top of tracks to give them an isolating and disorienting feeling.^[6] YouTube videos often pair mallsoft tracks with images of malls, with an emphasis on selected images that appear to have been taken from the 1980s and 1990s.^[6][7] The visuals can often be meant to invoke a sense of loneliness along with the cold nature of meandering through overly-corporate mercantile environments.^[8]

Reception

Music journalist Simon Chandler described Dutch artist Cat System Corp.'s 2014 album Palm Mall as being "perhaps the definitive mallsoft album".^[9]

See also

• Ambient music
• Postmodern architecture
• Dead mall

References