The politics of credit in remix of Japanese popular culture: Between “an 80's Japanese disco floor” and “this remix is worthy of the actual game”

Abstract

In this article, we examine songs that reuse decades-old Japanese media, in which the Japaneseness is both important and attenuated. While there is clear desire for and pleasure in the Japaneseness of source materials in vaporwave (electronic music featuring manipulated sounds and images from the 1980s and 1990s) and future funk (which commonly samples 1980s Japanese music and speeds it up), actual sources matter primarily as a signifier of Japaneseness. Conversely, game sounds (songs that sample or mimic 1990s and 2000s video game music) and chiptunes (songs made with 1980s and 1990s video game hardware) have a direct relationship with either specific video games or material hardware that highlights a direct tie to transnationally distributed culture. Overall, these ways of engaging with Japanese media have significant implications for theorizing cross-cultural exchange.