Look, "vaporwave" gets thrown around a lot as a descriptor almost as much as its closely-related predecessor "chillwave." We music writers hear a ~90 BPM funk groove run through a low-pass filter and we're like "ah yes, the artist has recontextualized nostalgia through the lens of postmodern angst and the internet's ability to blah blah blah…" You get the idea. That being said, Katy Perry's much-anticipated new single "Chained to the Rhythm" definitely skews high on the chintz scale, with Max Martin and co. doing their best Daft Punk impression, so comparisons to music you'd put anime clips over aren't totally unfounded, just mostly.Speaking of anime, the lyric video features a hamster and cute little cartoon hamsters bouncing along to the words. Shouts to Hamtaro and the merchandising empire it ran for a bit back in the day. Bob Marley's young grandson Skip Marley gets a guest verse, which means that pop stars are still on that Caribbean tip somehow. That, or Perry is still woker than any of us could possibly realize. You can watch the "Chained to the Rhythm" lyric video below.Phil cares, truly. He's on Twitter.
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