For someone who enjoys more Lo-Fi mediums of storage, (casettes, floppy discs, etc.), you'd think that I would like lofi(the genre) more than I currently do. I regret that I am not one of the millions of enjoyers of this genre, because there is a lot of it and the fundamentals are pretty good!
Let's break down lofi into it's fundamental parts.
The melodies are one of the shining stars of the lofi constelation, they are typically relaxing and uplifting! This is a very nice feature of Lofi, and can often be a remix/sampled from another song.
the melodies typically feature either a piano or a plucky synth. Either choise is good, and they both fit the genre's "purpose" to create a chill, relaxing tune. The kick drum -while unconventional- is a suprisingly plesant addition to the group! It helps establish a sense of rythm along with the snare, and if configured correctly, can really help bring out the other instrumentation.
Where the waters start to get muddied -I belive- is the snare, but in order to fully understand the problem I have with it, and why I think it ruins so many lofi songs, we have to delve into the mixing.
most lofi usually features a Low-pass filter, cutting off the higher, harsher tones of the main instumentation, that I figure is inteded to mimic the limited band width of old radios/speakers, wich is why the genre is named Low Fidelity. The problem that I have with the mixing is that the low pass filter is NOT applied to the snare in most songs.
The ommision of the filter on the most tinny sudden insturment (made worse while everything else is on a lower band) makes the snare in most songs a jarring, loud, startling, unfitting, nusiance! it's like trying to listen to a classical song but somebody is snapping their fingers in your ear!
It's annoying enough for me that it gave me a grudge against the entire genre, despite there being plenty of good exceptions.
in all those youtube lofi compilations there'll be 2 good songs before the snare starts snapping in your ear 12 minutes in. but my grudge against it really started to manifest in partial fault of youtube.
Youtube's algorithmic reccommendation system is designed not to show you content you like, rather content that will keep you on it's website for the longest period of time. This is because it was programmed to prioritize watchtime, because the longer you're on the website the more advertisements they can serve you, and the more advertisements they can serve you the more money they make. This causes a number of ethical and moral problems, but let's table that discussion for now because those issues are:
A. Obvious, once somebody realises that what I said is true they can extrapolate why it's a bad idea
B. not the point of this page.
When you search lofi on youtube, what comes up is not individual songs, but hours long compilations of songs in that genre. People will have these things playing 24/7, because with it's limited frequency band, and lack of vocals, it is perfect background music for most people! but what this tells the algorithm is that lofi is something that you can play for a long time without making someone leave the app. so occasionally you'll listen to a lofi song, or even a song similar to lofi, and your entire reccommendations feed will be infected.
Do you like electronic music, with usually high energy? but you listened to one low energy electronic song, hey you know what else is low energy and electronic? lofi! everyone loves lofi I'll just dump a bunch into your SuperMix.
Do you listen to jazz and classical music typically? oh but you also clicked on a lofi song a month ago, you disliked a bunch of lofi music then, but maybe your opinion on it has changed! Ill just put one in there. Oh you lisened to it? All the way through?! It was an accident? Your phone was in the other room, and you couldn't skip the song? I don't know what that means! Here let me just convert your entire reccommendations feed to lofi and we'll see how that goes.
I swear to god it's like a reccommendations black hole. I had to look up examples in an incognito tab in order to avoid the infection. if you even moderately dislike the genre youtube will make sure that you aboloutely hate it.
Lastly, I know it's kind of petty but a lot of lofi sounds identical. im pretty sure there's like a lofi making kit that just has a bunch of preconfigured instruments and filters that a ton of people use.
| local ginger | "lofi is nice, not something I listen to very often but it can def be a vibe if im in the right mood" |
| RORY | "I think it’s alright I use to like it in highschool more and I still like some songs but I don’t seek it out these days" |
| tceeib | "Cringe" |
| weird guy I found on the side of a highway with no sidewalk. | "not my style but it sounds good." he also went on a entire paragraph rant after I asked him to go more in depth but that shit sucked so I wont write it here |
