“cyberpunk 199x” is a proper retro-futuristic cyberpunk playlist that I put together. I started putting this together after I put together my previous cyberpunk playlist.

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Reconsidering cyberpunk

Not that there is anything wrong with my previous cyberpunk playlist. I quite enjoy it, even. But, I started thinking about how cyberpunk was a vision of the future taken from a particular period of time, specifically the late 1980s and early 1990s.

In thinking about this, I considered how much the cyberpunk aesthetic influenced my taste in music in the early 90s. It wasn’t even the early 90s; it was the entire 90s. The Matrix punctuated the whole phenomenon for me.

Music from the time period

I set forth to make a new cyberpunk playlist. This time, I only included music I was listening to in the 90s.  

My introduction to much of this music was from a friend who played Shadowrun paper RPG campaigns. He’d bring over these wild CDs, which were fascinating and skewed my interest in music forever. The first CD was the Cyberaktif, “Temper“ single. It was different, it brought me in. 

Then he brought me the Skinny Puppy, “Spasmolytic“ single. This one blew my mind. At first I hated it. Then I needed to hear all of “Too Dark Park“. Then I couldn’t stop.

My tastes eventually shot in other wild directions, but for a while it all centered around rave techno, industrial, digital hardcore and everything peripheral.