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Synthwave (also called retrowave, or futuresynth) is an electronic music microgenre that is based predominantly on the music associated with the Film score of action film, science fiction, and horror films of the 1970s and 1980s. Other influences are drawn from the decade's art and video games. Synthwave musicians often espouse nostalgia for 1980s culture and attempt to capture the era's atmosphere and celebrate it.
The genre developed in the mid-to late 2000s through French house producers, as well as younger artists who were inspired by the 2002 video game . Other reference points included composers John Carpenter, Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis (especially his score for the 1982 film Blade Runner), and Tangerine Dream. Synthwave reached wider popularity after being featured in the soundtracks of the 2011 film Drive (which included some of the genre's best-known songs), the 2012 video game Hotline Miami as well as its , the 2017 film , and the Netflix series Stranger Things.
"Outrun" is a subgenre of synthwave that was later used to refer more generally to retro 1980s aesthetics such as VHS tracking artefacts, magenta neon, and gridlines. The term comes from the 1986 arcade racing game Out Run, which is known for its soundtrack that could be selected in-game and its 1980s aesthetic. According to musician Perturbator (James Kent), outrun is also its own subgenre, mainly instrumental, and often contains 1980s clichéd elements in the sound such as , gated reverb, and analogue synthesizer bass lines and leads—all to resemble tracks from that time period. There is also a visual component on synthwave album covers and music videos. According to PC Gamer, the essence of outrun visuals is "taking elements of a period of '80s excess millennials find irresistibly evocative, and modernizing them so they're just barely recognizable."
Other subgenres include dreamwave, darksynth, and scifiwave. Journalist Julia Neuman cited "outrun", "futuresynth", and "retrowave" as alternative terms for synthwave while author Nicholas Diak wrote that "retrowave" was an umbrella term that encompasses 1980s revivalism genres such as synthwave and vaporwave. Darksynth is influenced by horror cinema. Invisible Oranges wrote that darksynth is exemplified mainly by a shift away from the bright " Miami Vice vibes" and "French electro house influences" and "toward the darker electronic terrains of horror movie maestro composers John Carpenter and Goblin" also infused with sounds from post-punk, Industrial music and EBM.
The mid-2000s French house acts David Grellier (College), and Kavinsky, who had created music in the style of 1980s film scores, were among the earliest artists to be part of the emergence of synthwave. Key reference points for early synthwave included the 1982 film Blade Runner (both the soundtrack and the film itself), 8- and 16-bit video games, 1980s jingles for VHS production companies, and television news broadcasts and advertisements from that era. According to NME and MusicRadar, the 2011 film Drive was a major influence on synthwave, and included a track by Kavinsky, "Nightcall" in the film's soundtrack, as well as David Grellier, Johnny Jewel, and several tracks by Cliff Martinez. EDM.com described Kavinsky as a "synthwave pioneer", while the horror blog Bloody Disgusting describes Carpenter Brut as a "synthwave icon".
Synthwave remained a niche genre throughout the 2010s. In 2017, PC Gamer noted that synthwave influences were to be felt in early 2010s gaming releases, primarily of the "outrun" subgenre, including Hotline Miami and . Writing in 2019, PopMatters journalist Preston Cram said, "Despite its significant presence and the high level of enthusiasm about it, synthwave in its complete form remains a primarily underground form of music." He added that "Nightcall" and "A Real Hero" remained "two of only a small number of synthwave songs produced to date that are widely known outside the genre's followers."
The 2019 virtual reality game Boneworks heavily features the synthwave genre in its soundtrack, which was composed by Michael Wyckoff.
In 2020, "Blinding Lights", a synthwave-influenced song by R&B artist the Weeknd topped US record charts, the first song to do so during the COVID-19 pandemic. Matt Mills of Metal Hammer wrote in 2021 that the genre "had exploded into the mainstream, cramming dancefloors and soundtracking blockbusters."
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