My guide to The Essential Albums of Vaporwave in Entropy Magazine got a good reaction recently, especially from those new to vaporwave, a genre of electronic music that’s new in itself. In spite of its relative age though, the vaporwave scene has spawned a huge amount of albums deemed classic by its fervent fanbase, along with a wide array of different sub-genres that run the whole gamut on the nuance scale. Getting to know the scene therefore takes a lot of time to get your head around, and, in an 800 word article, choices have to be made, alongside painful omissions. It was meant to be a beginner’s guide to vaporwave, after all, not an encyclopedia.

The following five albums therefore can be the newbie’s next step when exploring the vaporware discography. Consider it a companion to the Entropy piece, with a third and final part on its way looking at one of those vaporwave sub-genres just mentioned.