Well, maybe someone doesn't know.

I didn't know.

Yeah, I get it and understand that it shouldn't sound cheap and raw. But as I see it, retrowave and similar sub-genres should stick to the roots and use synthesizers that were popular during the 70's and 80's and which shaped the sound of that times (i.e. ARP Odyssey, Yamaha DX7, Roland Jupiter, etc.). Right now, to me it sounds like modern dance music with some nods to the past, but it does not evoke any nostalgia and feels rather shallow. But that's just my point of view and maybe this genre is just not my cup of tea. I just feel that the magic of the 80's cannot be replicated today.

I'm all for progress in music and probably the opposite of 'it used to be better back in my day' (however some genres have really seen a certain dip in quality especially production-wise with all that 'Loudness war'). I think my sentiment here was to understand why these modern artists prefer to cling to the past by attaching a 'retro' tag to their music instead of moving forward and making a next logical step in synthpop music and maybe calling it futurewave or something if they are using modern equipment because their music, imo, doesn't recapture that 'retro' feel in the slightest. And 80's pop music didn't have that many instrumentals as far as I'm concerned, but I may be wrong. P.S. I may have misclicked in the first place and was supposed to write this shout for Retrowave but ended up here. P.P.S. I was basing my conclusion off of listening to random songs of top artists listed here (i.e. Perturbator, Carpenter Brut).

Well, to be fair, there's a lot of confusion about what's what since synthwave is still a relatively young genre of music, so I can understand. Even fans get it wrong, using synthwave and retrowave interchangeably. I think it's safe to say at this point that synthwave is more the parent genre. The retro tag is mainly applied by the fans, not the artists. Artists usually don't like to be put in a box with other stuff. I still think the retro tag is ok 'cause they still have some of those elements, but it depends on the artist whether that's in a retrofuturistic way or in a nostalgic throwback to life in the 80's kind of way (retrowave). Carpenter Brut and Perturbator are/were more of a retrofuturistic nature. Perturbator the most out of those two. Still, it's only one aspect of their music. They are both considered to be part of the 'darksynth' subgenre, where most of the innovation in synthwave happens. Sometimes the term futuresynth is used, but it is more rare.

You are probably getting a bit too hung up on the terms here, because it seems that you are basically saying you can't appreciate it because of the tags applied by fans. Or maybe you just don't like it. I don't listen to much of the stuff that's that sentimental for the 80's myself, usually I do prefer to listen to some classic 80's synthpop type stuff instead.

I'd probably agree with the 90%. Though it may sound like you are talking down, but I think it's more of a compliment, ultimately. As 99.9% of [insert any genre besides synthwave] artists appear to have no ideas, the [insert any genre characteristic] is way overdone. It's all just a bit easy.

Not only industrial, but yeah, mostly. Anyway, considering industrial as homogenous genre is very inaccurate because it can contain metal, disco samples, grinding, machinery sounds and everything other you can imagine. Yes, there still are repetitive subgenres like aggrotech or old school EBM. What I'm trying to show is synthwave's limited instrumentation - I'm not a musician but I know they use some 80's synthesisers, which keeps it down from developing into more complex and/or diversed in style compositions. Hence, the ideas will be extinct sometime and the musical possibilities are pretty worn out already.

The same as synthwave is not a homogenous genre, since it can include the same and more than what you just said about industrial. There is no set standard of instruments to be used in synthwave; it's just that the synthesizer sound is pretty essential, but there's many different ways to shape that. The same as other genres have a clear pattern in what instruments they use. There's synthwave with a more metal sound incl. distorted guitars, some more industrial, some drifts more towards post-punk and darkwave type stuff, some more towards 80's synthpop, some towards chiptune or other modern electronica, some has sax, some has vocals, some is more ambient, some more energetic, some darker, some harder, and some even has orchestral arrangements. Also, most don't actually use 80's synthesizers, but rather softsynths. From your charts it doesn't seem that you actually listened to a lot. If you just hate it, that's fine. It seems it's more about a matter of taste here than anything else.

The bulk of industrial bands doesn't use really unique instrumentation either. The only one truly unique there is Author & Punisher. Though I feel actually creative artists are the exception to the rule anyway, for any genre, so I guess I just don't get your point. People have always created great music with a limited set of instruments, and I personally don’t even see a major limitation to the instrumentation in synthwave.

Well, i am not fully into electronic music, but synthwave is something more than just music. Which genres can you recommend me ? Something except the modern ones (i mean dubstep/witchhouse and music with strange symbols in titles, i just literally can't stand it). Any ideas ? Thank you in advance.

Synthwave is based on 80s new wave, synth pop and space/italo disco, so you would probably enjoy these genres. Try some italo disco compilations, there are plenty of them, you can get the idea of this genre from these examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAXnBuPx6uM or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNtgk4CRUV8 . Synth pop and new wave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPF1Mxz8WV4 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upgCCAUI6TI Talking about more modern stuff, I'd probably recommend to explore some french house and nu-disco https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZgfrDMQFas

Few months has passed and i must say thank you for your recommendations, especially for italo disco. This thing really brings me good emotions when i need some soft and kind of dancing tunes.