Barber Beats: Need a Haircut?
The popular vaporwave subgenre pays homage to jazzy 1990s trip-hop
Within the vaporwave community, a new subgenre has emerged and become extremely popular in recent years, and it goes by the name of barber beats.
The term was reportedly coined by one of the managers of London vaporwave label Aloe City, at first referring strictly to producer Haircuts For Men’s music. Their early albums, released between 2016 and 2018, might be referenced as some of the first releases of the genre, even though the tag wasn’t widely used back then.
So, what exactly is it all about? First of all, it developed from vaporwave, sharing similar aesthetics, but adding significantly to the visual canon: Aside from the usual Japanese typefaces, Renaissance art and Roman busts, you’ll see artwork inspired by Greek and Egyptian mythology, high fantasy, hentai or manga. The colors will be darker, and there will be a lot of monochrome imagery.
Sonically, barber beats are based on the eccojams/plunderphonics template of slowing down and editing existing songs. In every other artist bio, you will find the slogan “everything is plundered”. Some are taking it a step further and trying to make more original barber beats. They still use recognizable samples, but chop them up, add effects and other elements.
The big difference to traditional vaporwave is the source material. Barber beats typically don’t reference 1980s R&B, city pop, and mall muzak. Instead, they’re based on trip-hop, downtempo and chillout music from the 1990s and 2000s. Adjacent styles like nu-jazz, ambient house and atmospheric drum’n’bass are being plundered as well.
To make that clear, there are obvious stylistic similarities between barber beats and lo-fi hip-hop/chillhop, but those scenes have developed independently, without much overlap. And there are sonic differences as well. Barber beats sound more straight-forward, clean and heavy on the drums and bass, a far cry from the muffled kicks dominating most lo-fi playlists. The overall vibe is more dark and cinematic, deep and tripped out.
Barber beats is probably what happens when kids that grew up on vaporwave discover the Mo’ Wax and Ninja Tune catalogues. Most of these producers’ “albums” are basically tasteful DJ sets consisting of slowed + reverb versions of Earth compilation tracks and Kruder & Dorfmeister remixes pitched down to minus 8, slightly edited and rearranged.
This is exactly why some controversy has been stirring around barber beats as well. These producers essentially take other people’s work, create versions and then put out collections of these versions as their own artist albums – mostly without crediting the source material and the original artists.
Is this even art, some people on the internet ask, given that most treatments on any barber beats release could possibly be applied with a DJ controller. Very often, no actual compositional element is added to the songs, so no production software would be necessary. Some commenters on the forums are already calling for some sort of “ban” of barber beats. They think the genre is essentially about “ripping off” other peoples’ music.
I think these people do miss the point though. They seem to completely ignore the history of vaporwave, and their overly simplistic assessment reeks of elitism.
Vaporwave started with techniques adapted from the late Houston hip-hop DJ Screw. Screw had mixed current rap tunes, pitched them down and simultaneously added echo effects by crossfading between two copies of the same record that played slightly out of sync. He recorded these mixes to tapes, later CDs, and sold them in his shop in Houston. They became wildly popular.
A decade after Screw’s untimely death in 2000, early vaporwave producers rebranded his chopped & screwed technique to eccojams or plunderphonics, applying it to other genres of music, mostly ones that were deemed distasteful: sugary 1980s R&B, boring lounge music, soulless mall muzak, esoteric new age.
In the second half of the 2010s, barber beats came along and applied the same treatment to downtempo, trip-hop, liquid drum’n’bass and chillout music – again, records that weren’t exactly flying off the shelves anymore. The genre has recently expanded to deep house and nu disco, and it’s still developing as I write this.
I’d argue its main artistic value lies in curation and recontextualization. Slowing down and adding effects brings out interesting nuances in these older dollar bin tunes – similar to a great DJ set. If you start listening to some of the originals, many of them ripped from 2000s lounge bar and restaurant chain compilations, they will sound rather dated today, but that slowed + reverb treatment makes them weirdly listenable again – they’re adding that hauntological vaporwave angle.
I also think the confusion around the nature of barber beats “albums” stems from the fact that they typically aren’t mixed like DJ sets, and they mostly lack any credit to the original tracks.
In the producers’ social media bios, you will often find a semi-clarifying statement, usually a variation of the below:
All art is recycled
Everything is plundered
I take no credit
Enjoy the curation
Like Nas, these producers seem to say that no idea’s original, there’s nothing new under the sun – it’s never what you do, but how it’s done.
Though I’m sympathetic to the idea, it’s not quite that easy though.
Many listeners, I suppose mostly younger ones, don’t understand that barber beats releases, in most cases, don’t contain any original music. Judging by their comments on the forums, they seem to believe Macroblank or Monodrone must be creative geniuses that actually write, play, record and produce all of the music on these albums they’re churning out weekly themselves. While in reality, they didn’t actually make the music. They curate, edit and distribute – that’s what they do.
Legally, barber beats exist in a dark-grey zone. Most “samples” aren’t cleared, and credits are rarely given. That’s why producers tend to stay anonymous and not monetize their albums on the big streaming services. They work with indie labels that sell limited runs of vinyl, CD and tape editions, and they offer merchandise with their “original” graphics (they’re pretty much all plundered as well).
Just like vaporwave, the genre isn’t set up for commodification. That’s exactly what I love about it though. It’s beautiful, fun, and a little anarchic.
Similar to vaporwave, there’s an impregnable amount of barber beats releases out there. Much of it sounds quite decent and listenable. Just browsing through the discographies of its main producers, you’ll have days and weeks of material to skim through. It’s an ephemeral stream of music, made to dissolve into the background, like William Basinski’s idea of a “room perfume”.
Having grown up on trip-hop and nujazz, listening to barber beats feels a bit like coming home after a while abroad. Everything looks a little different now. Some shops have closed, while new ones have opened. Some of the people in the streets you haven’t seen before, and some are wearing new clothes you don’t quite understand yet. The old buildings up the street have been refurbished. You liked them in their retro shabbiness, but they do look much nicer now. It’s still home though.
Discover barber beats on Bandcamp
These are three of my favorite barber beats producers:
01 – Macroblank
In true vaporwave fashion, Macroblank is an anonymous artist (some speculate it’s a collective) that has been active since 2020 and become hugely popular in barber beats circles. Their releases are steadily among the top albums in the experimental and vaporwave categories on Bandcamp; for obvious reasons, their music is currently not available on Spotify and other streaming services.
Many of ‘their’ songs are just slowed-down, slightly manipulated versions of existing chillout tunes from the late 1990s and 2000s. Which is totally in line with the tradition of the genre – again, early eccojams and classic vaporwave didn’t do much more. It also explains the sheer volume of stuff they’ve released in a rather short period of time. Still, some of it is alarmingly addictive.
Music archive: Bandcamp (65+ albums, mostly name-your-price downloads)
Start here: 行方不明 (2021)
02 – Monodrone
This Canadian vaporwave producer also went by Jaded Luxuries when starting to release music in 2020. Forbidden Fruit is actually my favorite album from the subgenre so far, though I couldn’t imagine this being played in a barbershop (Macroblank’s work would be much more suitable for that use case). Monodrone’s music transcends the barber beats genre – it’s a more of a moody experience for deep headphone listening while railway traveling across the city at night.
Music archive: Bandcamp (currently 9 albums, mostly name-your-price downloads)
Start here: Forbidden Fruit (2021)
03 – Haircuts For Men
Often referred to as the godfather of barber beats, HCFM doesn’t actually like being grouped in with the genre anymore. For that defiance, they’ve been receiving a lot of hate and vitriol in the vaporwave community. Still, they were arguably the first producer adapting the cinematic trip-hop feel, dubby bass and heavy drum sounds for the vaporwave age. They’re apparently located in Honolulu, Hawaii, but as usual, all biographical information could as well be totally made up. They do have a massive discography though, and it contains loads of interesting stuff to be discovered.
Music archive: Bandcamp (100+ albums, mostly name-your-price downloads)
Start here: nothing special, nothing wonderful (2020)
Fascinating, thank you for the guide.
This is enlightening, Stephan, thank you. Hardly anyone makes much money on these musical paths, especially nowadays, so any copyright infringement happening is probably of little financial significance to the possibly “offended parties”, and I’m sure it can be good listening. Depending on the prominence of uncredited use, I do question in that the lack of respect for someone else’s work. Wouldn’t what you are describing be basically a remix of sorts, even if no stems are involved, possibly to be considered a creditable remix of an artist? Of course, that might open Pandora’s box, so I understand why that’s not done …
I did have an early experience of someone giving what could be viewed as a barber beats treatment to a down tempo album I put out in 2007. Only problem was, this person was working on behalf of a modern style hotel, having been tasked with the job of arguably “barber beating” some records to create something different (that “didn’t need licensing”), leaning towards the ambient realm, for their rooms and lobby. He reached out to me first, so fair enough, but his “work” was so bad, and this being a commercially oriented venture, so I didn’t give permission.
I’d certainly be open minded and curious to hear barber beats versions of my music in a less commercial scenario, if it was innovative and good, and I’ll be checking out the barber beats you mention.