I hate 80s Music But Fell in Love With Synthwave

Categories: [Personal]
Tags: [music]

Even though I was born in 1988, I grew up in love with 70s rock and roll. My favorite band was Led Zeppelin, and they influenced much of my music taste through high school and college. My musical taste was not limited to Rock, but I also listened to hip-hop, folk, and indie across many decades. Somehow the 80s always made me cringe no matter the genre with a few exceptions here and there.

I remember being into The Cure for a while during those teenage angst days and really enjoying the song "Take Me On" by A-ha. Outside of those two examples, there was not much else I liked as a 90 to early 2000s kid. The music seemed cheesy and gave me a feeling like being embarrassed.

Weird, I know.

Then about a month back, I was watching a guy on Twitch play Cities: Skylines and he was playing some very chill music. I really dug it too. I play lyric-less music when writing, programming, or any task that I can't get distracted by my urge to sing. Most of the time it is a genre called "chillstep."

Its like dubstep but chill...

I don't know how I came to figure out the name of the genre, but I did and began to listen to it in place of the lo-fi chillstep I usually did while creating. It's great! Has a futuristic feel to the tracks that I like and it's not distracting at all when writing a blog or code.

Synthwave reminds me of something out of the 80s, but it does not make me want to cringe and turn it off like the majority of 80s style music. I can't pinpoint what makes this genre different, but it's excellent. This style of music is now my go to when I need some background noise while being able to stay focused on the task at hand.

Spotify Playlists:

For study, relaxing, gaming, etc.

Space and sci-fi themed Synthwave

P.S. Happy National Espresso Day!