Making Synthwave - How an Online Music Community Invented a Genre

Making Synthwave: How an Online Music Community Invented a Genre documents the journey of an online community in their formation of the synthwave genre.

List of contents

1. From Synthetix.FM to Stranger Things (2016-2025) Making Synthwave Subcultural Capital 2. Making Synthwave Music with Music Technology 3. Metalheads in the Synthwave Community - Making Darksynth 4. Making Space for Vocals and Women: The Vocal Synthwave Subgenre 5. Making 'Live' Synthwave Performances - Tensions in Live Synthwave Practices 6. Keeping Synthwave 'Alive': Key Organisations, Events and Community Practices On/Offline

About the author

Jess Blaise Ward (Leeds Beckett University, UK) is a synth artist and researcher of genre formation, online music communities, subcultural theory and feminist scholarship. Past publications include Who remembers post-punk women? (2019) and her paper on metalheads in the online synthwave community at the Internet Musicking conference (2022).

Product details

• Authors: Jess Blaise Ward
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 13.11.2025
• EAN: 9781032732046
• ISBN: 978-1-0-3273204-6
• No. of pages: 276
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > Theatre, ballet; MUSIC / Recording & Reproduction, MUSIC / Genres & Styles / Electronic, Music recording & reproduction, Theory of music & musicology, Theory of music and musicology, Music recording and reproduction, Audio processing