Greatfruit’s Luminous and Nostalgic “Arcade Love” Contains the Purity of Cherished Childhood Memories Manifested in the Present

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Greatfruit, photo courtesy the artists

Greatfruit engages in a bit of musical retrofuturism on “Arcade Love.” That’s not to merely point out this lushly beautiful and romantic synth pop song is steeped in the sounds of another time because a lot of the sounds and musical ideas weren’t quite possible in the 1980s referenced in the lyrics of falling in love with seeing someone by chance at the arcade in the mall. Rather it captures the vibe of a time and a milieu that seems less cynical, calculated and artificial than the way people often meet each other these days and couched in sentiments running through much of 80s pop. It freely cross references cultural phenomena while having a clarity of sonic line that embraces the almost gaudy production of 80s pop by making a virtue of its inherent limitations compared to all the options available to electronic musicians today. It has the purity of a childhood memory of an era that is easy to romanticize for what it represents in your life today and because of that it sidesteps mere nostalgia mining through writing something that feels like it’s coming from a genuine place. Listen to “Arcade Love” on YouTube.

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Author: simianthinker

Editor, primary content provider for this blog. Former contributor to Westword and The Onion.