Floral Shoppe

Vaporwave is an Internet-based genre of music that is defined by its slow, chopped and screwed remixes of popular 1980s and 1990s music. The subculture that developed from the genre has been described as a parody on consumerism and often includes retro computer imagery to reflect on 1990s aesthetics. The genre had its first templates from Chuck Person's Eccojams Vol. 1 (2010) by Daniel Lopatin and Far Side Virtual (2011) by James Ferraro. Floral Shoppe by Ramona Andra Langley, under the pseudonym Macintosh Plus, is frequently cited as the first proper example of the then-emerging genre, along with works from other artists released by the record label Beer on the Rug.{{cite web |title=How Vaporwave Was Created Then Destroyed by the Internet |url=http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/a47793/what-happened-to-vaporwave/ |last=Beauchamp |first=Scott |date=August 18, 2016 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170403132708/http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/a47793/what-happened-to-vaporwave/ |archive-date=April 3, 2017 |access-date=December 9, 2023 |website=Esquire}}{{cite journal |url=http://www.dummymag.com/features/adam-harper-vaporwave |title=Comment: Vaporwave and the pop-art of the virtual plaza |journal=Dummy |location=London |date=December 7, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140116165132/http://www.dummymag.com/features/adam-harper-vaporwave |archive-date=January 16, 2014 |access-date=December 7, 2013 |author=Harper, Adam}} Prior to Floral Shoppe, Macintosh Plus had previously produced other releases under multiple pseudonyms, including Vektroid, Laserdisc Visions, and New Dreams Ltd.

{{Listen

| pos=left

| filename=Lisa Frank 420.ogg

| title=Macintosh Plus – "リサフランク420 / 現代のコンピュー"

| description= An excerpt from "リサフランク420 / 現代のコンピュー" by Macintosh Plus

}}

Adam Harper of Dummy, in an article about the vaporwave culture, described the album's content as "chopped, glitching and screwed adult contemporary soul alongside twinkling spa promotional tunes." Other descriptions that have been attributed to Floral Shoppe, and to the vaporwave genre in general, include 1980s funk, elevator music, and heavy use of sampling and remixing of such genres. Macintosh Plus takes an unorthodox approach to sampling throughout Floral Shoppe, with "voices slowed to wordless drawls, tempos abused at whim, [and] snippets mashed over each other at clashing time signatures."{{cite web|author=Downer, Adam|date=February 16, 2014|title=Review: Macintosh Plus – FLORAL SHOPPE|url=https://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/61016/Macintosh-Plus-FLORAL-SHOPPE/|access-date=February 27, 2014|website=Sputnikmusic}} The album's second track, "Lisa Frank 420 / Modern Computing" which is a slowed down, chopped and screwed remix of "It's Your Move" by Diana Ross, has been noted as a model for vaporwave songs.

Floral Shoppe was released digitally to Macintosh Plus' Bandcamp music store on December 9, 2011, by the independent record label Beer on the Rug.{{cite web |url=http://beerontherug.bandcamp.com/album/floral-shoppe |title=Floral Shoppe {{!}} Beer On The Rug |publisher=Beer on the Rug. Bandcamp |access-date=December 7, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131026035708/http://beerontherug.bandcamp.com/album/floral-shoppe |archive-date=October 26, 2013 |url-status=dead }} It received considerable online popularity, eventually becoming "the most hyped vaporwave release on the Internet."{{cite web |url=http://www.wqhs.org/31322271452/ |title=Vektroid: Rainbowtrinity |publisher=WQHS-DT |access-date=December 28, 2013 |author=Gierczak, Antoni |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141129161234/http://www.wqhs.org/31322271452/ |archive-date=November 29, 2014}}

Packaged within the album are aesthetics that convey 1980s visuals which define the genre. With heavy implication on retro computer imagery, it depicts a sculpture of the Greek god Helios and the Japanese title in bright pink, tiled surroundings with a background of the Twin Towers.{{cite web |title=Vaporwave and the Dada revival |url=https://www.michigandaily.com/arts/vaporwave-and-new-dada/ |last=Michalsky |first=Max |date=September 12, 2018 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211028031058/https://www.michigandaily.com/arts/vaporwave-and-new-dada/ |archive-date=October 28, 2021 |access-date=October 28, 2021 |work=The Michigan Daily}}{{cite web |title=Love in the Time of VHS: Making Sense of Vaporwave |url=https://thepolitic.org/love-in-the-time-of-vhs-making-sense-of-vaporwave/ |last=Colton |first=Stefan |date=April 15, 2017 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170420180943/https://thepolitic.org/love-in-the-time-of-vhs-making-sense-of-vaporwave/ |archive-date=April 20, 2017 |access-date=December 9, 2023 |work=The Politic}} Macintosh Plus later launched a line of tank tops and hoodies sporting a variation of the Floral Shoppe album cover.{{cite journal |url=http://adhoc.fm/post/vektroid-now-making-t-shirts-hip-hop/ |title=Vektroid is Now Making T-Shirts, Hip-Hop |journal=Ad Hoc |location=New York |date=August 20, 2013 |access-date=December 28, 2013 |author=Petty, Alec |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130828160004/http://adhoc.fm/post/vektroid-now-making-t-shirts-hip-hop/ |archive-date=August 28, 2013 |url-status=dead }}

File:Head Helios AM Rhodes E49.jpg found in the Archaeological Museum of Rhodes]]Floral Shoppe was met with polarizing reception from critics and casual listeners alike, being equally "criticized and acclaimed for [Macintosh Plus'] soulless take on muzak". Jonathan Dean of Tiny Mix Tapes wrote positively of Floral Shoppe, citing the album as "one of the best single documents of the vaporwave scene yet, a series of estranged but soulful manipulations of found audio that carefully constructs its own meditative headspace through the careful accretion of defamiliarized memory triggers."{{cite web |url=http://www.tinymixtapes.com/features/favorite-30-albums-of-2012-so-far-staff-feature |title=Favorite 30 Albums of 2012 (So Far) – Macintosh Plus: Floral Shoppe [Beer On The Rug] |work=Tiny Mix Tapes |date=July 2012 |access-date=December 7, 2013 |author=Dean, Jonathan}} YouTube music critic Anthony Fantano's review of the album has been credited with establishing the album as a representative album of the vaporwave subgenre, and also as being a pivotal moment in the decline of the subgenre as a whole.{{Cite book|last1=Cook|first1=Nicholas|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VtGoDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA122|title=The Cambridge Companion to Music in Digital Culture|last2=Ingalls|first2=Monique M.|last3=Trippett|first3=David|date=2019-09-19|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-107-16178-8|pages=122|language=en}}{{Cite book|last1=Whiteley|first1=Sheila|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7nWECwAAQBAJ&pg=PA422|title=The Oxford Handbook of Music and Virtuality|last2=Rambarran|first2=Shara|date=2016-02-01|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-061404-1|pages=422|language=en}} Fantano reviewed the album negatively, rating it 4/10 and concluding "certainly it sounds nice, it has style, but there's really not much there in terms of how it's assembled".{{Cite web|last=Fantano|first=Anthony|date=2012-11-28|title=Macintosh Plus - Floral Shoppe ALBUM REVIEW|website=YouTube|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0D9IyyeEEU|access-date=2021-08-11}} In a 2019 video "10 Times I Changed My Opinion On Albums Pt. 2", Fantano reiterated feelings that the execution of the album was unsophisticated, but noted its influence on later developments in the vaporwave genre, and opined that the songs on the album have "artistic merit independent of the songs actually being sampled".{{Cite web|last=Fantano|first=Anthony|date=2019-03-30|title=10 Times I Changed My Opinion On Albums Pt. 2|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90xeylVOooE|access-date=2021-08-11|website=YouTube}}

On the year-end annual Pazz & Jop critics' poll for albums, administered by The Village Voice, the album received two votes.{{cite journal |url=http://www.villagevoice.com/pazznjop/albums/2012/RmxvcmFsIFNob3BwZXx8fE1hY2ludG9zaCBQbHVz/ |title=Albums – Votes For Macintosh Plus: Floral Shoppe |journal=The Village Voice |location=New York |access-date=December 7, 2013 |archive-date=February 18, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130218225724/http://www.villagevoice.com/pazznjop/albums/2012/RmxvcmFsIFNob3BwZXx8fE1hY2ludG9zaCBQbHVz/ |url-status=dead }} Perfect Sound Forever{{'}}s Miles Bowe cited Floral Shoppe as one of his year-end best albums.{{cite journal |url=http://www.furious.com/perfect/2012writerspoll.html |title=2012 writers' poll: Miles Bowe |journal=Perfect Sound Forever |location=New York | date=December 2012 |access-date=December 29, 2013 |author=Bowe, Miles}} It was also named the sixth-best album of the year by Tiny Mix Tapes, with reviewer James Parker opining that it "slid seamlessly between pure pop pleasure and the ironic framing of that pleasure, the presence of the artist at turns barely noticeable and dramatically foregrounded."{{cite web |url=http://www.tinymixtapes.com/features/2012-favorite-50-albums-of-2012?page=4 |title=2012: Favorite 50 Albums of 2012 |work=Tiny Mix Tapes |date=December 2012 |access-date=December 28, 2012}} Assessing the influence of Floral Shoppe on vaporwave, along with the genre's perceived decline, Parker wrote:

{{blockquote|In many ways, New Dreams Ltd., the umbrella moniker for Macintosh Plus, 情報デスクVIRTUAL, Laserdisc Visions, and Sacred Tapestry, embodied the genre best. Not only did it provide some of vaporwave's most essential releases, but it also cannily folded at just the right moment, thanking us all for visiting the Virtual Casino. 2012 wasn't just the year vaporwave broke; it was also the year it exhausted itself: morphed, rebranded, its practitioners moved on. If any single release deserves to be remembered, though, it is surely Floral Shoppe. From the very beginning, it stood out not only for its artful marrying of the conceptual with the sensual but also for its performance of the inseparability between the two.}}

Floral Shoppe has since been heralded as one of the most significant albums in the early days of vaporwave.{{Cite web|url=https://www.bandwagon.asia/articles/vaporwave-subversive-dream-music-for-the-post-internet-age|title=Vaporwave: subversive dream music for the post-Internet age|date=May 18, 2016|website=Vaporwave: subversive dream music for the post-Internet age | Editorial | Bandwagon - Live music, bands and concert guide for Singapore, Manila and Jakarta}} In a retrospective review, Adam Downer of Sputnikmusic characterized the album as "constantly—and delightfully—unsettling" and "a beautiful record that's both warm and strange, nostalgic and futuristic, bizarre and totally simple." Writing for Pitchfork, Miles Bowe concluded, "Nothing could change or improve its sound which, even after thousands of soundalikes, has lost none of its perception-shattering power."{{cite web|author=Bowe, Miles|date=April 21, 2019|title=Macintosh Plus: Floral Shoppe|url=https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/macintosh-plus-floral-shoppe/|access-date=April 21, 2019|work=Pitchfork}} Vice (Noisey) included Floral Shoppe on their ranking of the 100 best albums of the 2010s.{{Cite web|url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-100-best-albums-of-the-2010s/|title=The 100 Best Albums of the 2010s|website=Vice|date=November 6, 2019|access-date=November 6, 2019}}

{{Track listing

| all_writing =

| headline = 2011 digital release

| title1 = Boot

| note1 = {{nihongo2|ブート}} Būto

| length1 = 3:24

| title2 = Lisa Frank 420 / Modern Computing

| note2 = {{nihongo2|リサフランク420 / 現代のコンピュー}} Risa Furanku 420 / Gendai no Konpyū

| length2 = 7:20

| title3 = Floral Shoppe

| note3 = {{nihongo2|花の専門店}} Hana no Senmon-ten

| length3 = 3:55

| title4 = Library

| note4 = {{nihongo2|ライブラリ}} Raiburari

| length4 = 2:43

| title5 = Geography

| note5 = {{nihongo2|地理}} Chiri

| length5 = 4:46

| title6 = Chill Divin' with ECCO

| note6 = {{nihongo2|ECCOと悪寒ダイビング}} ECCO to Okan Daibingu

| length6 = 6:42

| title7 = Mathematics

| note7 = {{nihongo2|数学}} Sūgaku

| length7 = 6:54

| title8 = Standby

| note8 = {{nihongo2|待機}} Taiki

| length8 = 1:10

| title9 = Te

| note9 = {{nihongo2|て}}

| length9 = 2:16

| total_length = 39:15

}}

{{Track listing

| headline = 2012 digital reissue

| title10 = Moon

| note10 = {{nihongo2|月}} Tsuki; untitled on original release

| length10 = 6:14

| title11 = Seabed

| note11 = {{nihongo2|海底}} Kaitei; untitled on original release

| length11 = 2:18

| total_length = 47:47

}}

{{Track listing

| headline = 2012 cassette and 2017 vinyl/digital releases

| title1 = Boot

| note1 = {{nihongo2|ブート}} Būto

| length1 = 3:21

| title2 = Lisa Frank 420 / Modern Computing

| note2 = {{nihongo2|リサフランク420 / 現代のコンピュー}} Risa Furanku 420 / Gendai no Konpyū

| length2 = 7:12

| title3 = Floral Shoppe

| note3 = {{nihongo2|花の専門店}} Hana no Senmon-ten

| length3 = 3:18

| title4 = Library

| note4 = {{nihongo2|ライブラリ}} Raiburari

| length4 = 2:47

| title5 = Geography

| note5 = {{nihongo2|地理}} Chiri

| length5 = 4:38

| title6 = Chill Divin' with ECCO

| note6 = {{nihongo2|ECCOと悪寒ダイビング}} ECCO to Okan Daibingu

| length6 = 6:23

| title7 = Mathematics

| note7 = {{nihongo2|数学}} Sūgaku

| length7 = 7:31

| title8 = Foreign Banks Aviation

| note8 = {{nihongo2|外ギン Aviation}} Soto Gin Aviation

| length8 = 2:30

| title9 = I Am Pico

| note9 = {{nihongo2|ピコ}} "Piko"

| length9 = 2:03

| title10 = Standby

| note10 = {{nihongo2|待機}} Taiki

| length10 = 1:10

| title11 = Te

| note11 = {{nihongo2|て}}

| length11 = 2:02

| total_length = 42:57

}}

Notes

• "Lisa Frank 420 / Modern Computing" ({{small|{{nihongo2|リサフランク420 / 現代のコンピュー}} Risa Furanku 420 / Gendai no Konpyū}}) is sometimes translated as "The Computing of Lisa Frank / Contemporary 420"

{{Reflist}}

• [https://vektroid.bandcamp.com/album/floral-shoppe Floral Shoppe] on Bandcamp
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20131026035708/http://beerontherug.bandcamp.com/album/floral-shoppe Original Bandcamp release] (under the Beer on the Rug label)
• [https://archive.org/details/MACINTOSHPLUS-FLORALSHOPPE_complete Floral Shoppe] [https://archive.org/details/MACINTOSHPLUS-FLORALSHOPPE on Internet Archive]

{{Vektroid}}

{{Vaporwave}}

{{Authority control}}

Category:2011 albums

Category:Vektroid albums

Category:Collage film

Category:Vaporwave albums