about half an unresearched answer, longish re: lofi hip-hop
@Felthry we have a vague idea of what lofi hip-hop is but we don't know why lofi hip-hop is
like, a big part of it is the lofi aesthetic - so, instead of making audio sound perfect and clean and like it was recorded with really good and high-fidelity equipment, you make it sound like it was recorded with equipment that's the opposite of high-fidelity - equipment that is immediately apparent in the recording, like how the original version of The Mountain Goats' "All Hail West Texas" was recorded on the built-in microphone of a Panasonic boombox https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PR_AKKuo2xc
so, like, that gives it a feel that I think is paradoxically more sincere because it's less accurate? it feels like a recording that made it to you through some obstacles instead of one that was perfectly polished and manufactured by professional processes to be perfect (even though it usually does get a lot of professional processing actually)
the other big part is, like, a kind of atmospheric mindset - like the Minecraft soundtrack, where it doesn't really demand your focus and it doesn't really lock you into a mood, but there's a lot of interesting going on if you focus on it
except I don't think Minecraft's soundtrack has the kind of percussion that lofi hip-hop has - it has that kind of hip-hop/R&B/&c. percussion groove, although filtered so it's kind of muted and weird
it's a sound! it's a genre, and we like it, and we don't know why it's popular but maybe it's fun to make?
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about half an unresearched answer, longish re: lofi hip-hop
@Felthry we have a vague idea of what lofi hip-hop is but we don't know why lofi hip-hop is
like, a big part of it is the lofi aesthetic - so, instead of making audio sound perfect and clean and like it was recorded with really good and high-fidelity equipment, you make it sound like it was recorded with equipment that's the opposite of high-fidelity - equipment that is immediately apparent in the recording, like how the original version of The Mountain Goats' "All Hail West Texas" was recorded on the built-in microphone of a Panasonic boombox https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PR_AKKuo2xc
so, like, that gives it a feel that I think is paradoxically more sincere because it's less accurate? it feels like a recording that made it to you through some obstacles instead of one that was perfectly polished and manufactured by professional processes to be perfect (even though it usually does get a lot of professional processing actually)
the other big part is, like, a kind of atmospheric mindset - like the Minecraft soundtrack, where it doesn't really demand your focus and it doesn't really lock you into a mood, but there's a lot of interesting going on if you focus on it
except I don't think Minecraft's soundtrack has the kind of percussion that lofi hip-hop has - it has that kind of hip-hop/R&B/&c. percussion groove, although filtered so it's kind of muted and weird
it's a sound! it's a genre, and we like it, and we don't know why it's popular but maybe it's fun to make?
- 🐲 🐱 💭 📼
p.s. Adam Neely made a couple videos using microtonal scales to make lofi hiphop, which we found really fun https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4KIwA8O9LU / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyxyo8E0Hx0