Review: YAWC-TV — Broadcast Complete

YAWC-TV
Broadcast Complete
WORLD END COLLAPSE
Street: 08.22.25
YAWC-TV = Weather Report + The Weather Channel

I am of the opinion that vaporwave as a collective genre is uncreative and disingenuous. Most vaporwave made today consists of direct rips of easy listening tracks with a couple effects laid over the top, with ‘80s advertisements and TV samples interlaced, passed off as a new product. This is an ironic rehashing of genres that were so severely rehashed in their day that they were diluted to elevator music. This was, of course, the intent of early vaporwave artists. A regurgitation of regurgitated consumerist media created by independent musicians and labels. Vaporwave in its early days was a rather clever form of protest art against consumerism.

Thanks to its ease of production, it became rather popular among amateur producers. The market was flooded, and the meaning was lost. The irony shifted even further as it became more mainstream, and the same imagery and sonic characteristics were rehashed over and over and over again – a parody of a parody of a parody of music. Unauthenticity in its purest, unadulterated form. 

Suffice to say, I have rather strong opinions on the creative potential of a modern vaporwave record such as YAWC-TV’s Broadcast Complete. I find it hard to be disappointed with this record considering the state of the genre as a whole.

Broadcast Complete needs credit where it’s due. YAWC-TV shows demonstrable competence in the structuring of his records, though he takes an unorthodox approach with Broadcast Complete. The record chronicles a broadcasting day of a weather channel, with the naming system of each track following the hours. The tracks selected for the times of day do make sense. The record flows with relative cohesion as a whole. Selected samples are at times humorous, like when “11am” samples MAD TV’s “GI Junkie” segment. Other samples are intriguing to listen to, such as the news segment on “6pm.” Both work to break up the onslaught of corporate jazz to great effect.

Unfortunately, we need to address the lack of creativity in this record. There is very little processing put into the record apart from the stereotypical ‘AM Radio/Grocery Store PA’ sound commonly associated with vaporwave and The Weather Channel samples. This isn’t to say that there isn’t some form of creativity put into the record. Take, for instance, the track “3pm,” which consists of a standard jazz number slowed and expanded into a sluggish 15-minute-long ambient track using post-processing. This track gives me an uncomfortable looming feeling, which appears to be the intent. 

This slowing effect is used much more effectively on the closing track “8am,” where the baritone sax number is slowed down into a drone, resulting in a very melancholic-sounding 16-minute track. After sitting with this record for an hour and 20 minutes, “8:00am” is a truly devastating way to close this record. 

So yes, Broadcast Complete sounds good. It’s a relatively easy record to listen to for its hour and 40-minute runtime. The issue lies within the fact that it’s uncreative in nature. I could replicate the sound of this record with some thrift store vinyl and an AM radio. Whether that is due to its inherent traits as a vaporwave record or the fault of YAWC-TV’s plagiarism is up to scrutiny. I believe that YAWC-TV is a good producer, but if he wants to gain any traction as an artist, he needs to ditch the genre he’s fallen in groove with and learn to actually write music. —Ezra Smith

Read more local music reviews by Ezra Smith:
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