Chiptune

It’s a cloudy, rainy Saturday, and a chilly 50 degrees. In my little city, that means only one thing: everyone must stop whatever they’re doing and drive to the grocery store. So I did my part and joined the mob. There was one parking space left – a narrow space situated between a wide-body SUV and a cart-return stall. Apparently, no one thought they could get their vehicle into it without hitting the SUV or the stall, and possibly both. I swung my Jeep in carefully, and it fit just fine. I went into the Martins store and it was slammed with shoppers. But I digress.

I want to mention a genre of music that may be unfamiliar to some readers. It’s called chiptune. Quoting Wikipedia,

“A chiptune, also known as chip music or 8-bit music, is synthesized electronic music produced by the sound chips of vintage computers, video game consoles, and arcade machines, as well as with other methods such as emulation.”

Chiptune has been around since the early 1980s, and by the mid-2000s 8-bit sounds began to be incorporated into mainstream music by artists such as Kesha, Snoop Dog, 50 Cent, Nelly Furtado, Timbaland, and many others.

If you want to experience chiptune, and if you’re a teenager or, at the least, young enough to remember what it was like being a teenager and trying to fit in with the kids you thought were cool, then here’s a video that just might make you smile. The song is 「MEOW」 by Anamanaguchi. You’ll want to watch it full screen. It’s somewhere between weird and hilarious.