Review Summary: The album that made internet's pretentiousness peaked
Vaporwave is a group of genres that sadly I'm not an expert of, but honestly, I would like to get into those genres, it does not deserve being taken as a meme and listening to things like dreamwave or future funk really proves that vaporwave is something more than just "80's songs slowed down", but this album? well, it's the reason why this prejudice exists to begin with.
Floral Shoppe is a amazing album that lead to a clever movement that changes a lot the music for a while....or at least according to 4chan, honestly I think this album aged really bad, and it's just 9 years old, but whatever, let's get into this.
First, I want to point out the good things of this albums: From the 6th to the 9th song of the album, the album is trully amazing and if the album were only those 4 songs, I would live with the fact that the only review of this album was a 5/5, because really, they're that good.
I want to start with the 6th song and that would help to know why I think the rest is good, ECCOと悪寒ダイビング, of all that songs, I honestly think it's is the strongest song of the album, the album gives constant feeling of nostalgia, and this song was the most clever way of giving that feeling, with a calm but uplifting build-up that led to synthesizers that really helps with that, and honestly, and unlike the other songs, I think this is the only one that feels on point with the length of the song.
Most of the things that I said also applies to the rest of the songs I mentioned: The 7th song, 数*, also giving post-rock vibes, is really a song that feels more like a journey, even though I actually think is a little bit longer that it should. While ironically the 8th and 9th song, 外ギン AVIATION and て, is the short length what helps the songs the most, and work as short ambient songs.
So yeah, those songs are great, so what's the problem with this album? Well, the other 7 songs, that's the problem
Now I'm going to do the opposite, to tell the problem with the rest of the album, I'm going to point the most infamous song of the album: リサフランク420 / 現代のコンピュー
This song, like the rest of the album, tries to give that feeling of Nostalgia, which is good, but what is not good is that the song is just a one trick pony, honestly while I liked some songs of this albums because of the progression of the songs and the fact that they try to produce the feeling by different melodies, this song does not try that, it feels monotonous from the beginning to the end. Like I said in the beginning of the review, people to this day thinks that vaporwave is just "reversed nightcore", and like I said that's not true, but this song really feels like just a slowed down and down pitched 80s song, something that the good songs I mentioned does not feel like that, and the worst part: it's 7 minutes long, so you will have to endure 7 minutes of this things to reach the next song.
The rest of the songs, while not that bad at this one, I honestly think they have similar problems, ブート, ライブラリ and 花の専門店, while not being that long, they still also feels like slowed down 80s songs and even if they try to add effects that are not bad, but really does not help a lot the songs.
The last two songs of the albums: 月 and 海底, while I don't feel like they are really different of what I said, at least I have to say, the sample selection help it a lot and it really feels like the niche of the album is stronger here, so yeah, passable songs.
And another passable song is the 5th song of the album: 地理, while it tries to be more like the good songs of the album, it feels really half-baked and just that, an attempt.
And...I guess that's just all, it's an album that I don't have a lot to talk about and I'm not still that good doing reviews, but I wanted to do a contribution since it's an album that they are not enough reviews of this and I wanted to balance things hoping that someday it will be an accurate enough review of this, but right now, this is what I feel about this album: An inconsistent album that if it wasn't because the context of the album, it would not be so acclaimed.
