Hypnagogic pop

Hypnagogic pop (or simply h-pop) is a loosely defined style of pop and psychedelic music that evokes cultural memory and nostalgia for the popular entertainment of the past (principally the 1980s and early 1990s). It emerged in the 2000s through a wave of American Millennial home recording artists in the lo-fi and post-noise scene, who adopted retro aesthetics from their childhood, such as radio and soft rock, new wave, video game music, synth-pop, R&B, film soundtracks, new-age and early Internet aesthetics. Recordings were typically marked by the use of outmoded analog equipment and DIY experimentation, while distributed on cassettes and CD-R's with circulation primarily based on the Internet through blog sites. The genre's name was coined by journalist David Keenan in an August 2009 issue of The Wire to label the developing trend, the term was inspired by a comment made by musician James Ferraro about the notion that 1980s sounds had seeped into the unconscious of contemporary musicians while they were toddlers falling asleep.