Style recipe for Suno v5
Chillwave
Chillwave from the 2010s: hazy synth, drum machine loop, warm bass synth, nostalgic and dreamy in feel. A name-free Suno recipe that reproduces the signature sound without tripping the artist-name filter.
History
Chillwave got its name as a joke. In July 2009 the blogger Carles of Hipster Runoff threw out a list of mock genre tags for a cluster of similar-sounding acts and settled on chill wave, music that was supposed to sound like the background of an old VHS tape found in the attic. The label stuck, though the music was already there: faded, reverb-soaked retro pop on vintage synthesizers, mellow vocals and lyrics about summer and the beach, all pointing back to the pop of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Panda Bear's 2007 album Person Pitch is credited with launching the style, Animal Collective fed it, and Boards of Canada, Fennesz and J Dilla's Donuts are counted among its influences. The vanguard of the 2009 Summer of Chillwave was three one-man acts from the American South: Neon Indian, Washed Out and Toro y Moi. Washed Out's "Feel It All Around", built mostly on a slowed-down sample of Gary Low's 1983 song "I Want You", became the genre's best-known track and opened the TV series Portlandia. Cheap to make and easy to copy, the style oversaturated fast and faded by the mid-2010s, leaving vaporwave, which began as its ironic offshoot.
The recipe
Opening the recipe…
Tag breakdown
Every descriptor in this style, listed one at a time.
| # | Tag |
|---|---|
| 1 | Chillwave |
| 2 | 2010s |
| 3 | nostalgic |
| 4 | dreamy |
| 5 | warm |
| 6 | hazy synth |
| 7 | drum machine loop |
| 8 | warm bass synth |
| 9 | detuned keys |
| 10 | chorused guitar |
| 11 | cassette pad wash |
| 12 | wood block percussion |
| 13 | looped chord vamp |
| 14 | pitch drifting bends |
| 15 | male lead vocal |
| 16 | soft nasal |
| 17 | light falsetto |
| 18 | sun bleached longing |
| 19 | muffled buried phrasing |
| 20 | lazy sustained lines |
| 21 | hazy tape blur |
| 22 | washed reverb |
| 23 | cassette wow flutter |
| 24 | rolled off highs |
| 25 | smeared blurred synths |
| 26 | gritty cassette grain |
| 27 | vocal buried deep |
| 28 | smeared long wash |
| 29 | stiff machine pulse |
| 30 | lagging loose feel |
| 31 | fades in slowly |
| 32 | chorus brightens slightly |
| 33 | tape stop ending |
| 34 | warm characterful mix |
| 35 | 103 BPM |
| 36 | for chill |
This style is assembled from 36 tags (619 characters total), built for 90–115 BPM with male vocals.