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This article analyzes the close relation between synthwave music and cinema, focusing on the role played by the former in paradigmatic films and TV series from the 1980s and the 2010s. To the two eras correspond two sets of semantic “associations,” which designate the functions and connotations embodied by synthwave in the cinematic context. The first analysis focuses on the context in which the association between the two protagonists of this affair has taken place for the first time, trying to understand why sci-fi cinema is often privileged when it comes to the association with (proto-)synthwave music—especially soundtracks by Tangerine Dream, John Carpenter, Giorgio Moroder and Vangelis, which are often referred to as main sources of inspiration for contemporary synthwave. The result is a first set of two “first-order associations” between synthwave and sci-fi cinema on the one side, and with the 1980s geek culture on the other. The focus then shifts towards the present times, exploring the ways in which synthwave soundtracks remediate 1980s popular culture by employing two “second-order associations” between synthwave and mediated, hyperreal versions of the 1980s and its products. In particular, the protagonists of this second analysis are the functions of synthwave soundtracks as an “age-synecdoche” and as an “aesthetic mediator,” especially in the series Stranger Things, in the movie It Follows, and in the late works by director Nicolas Winding Refn.

Progressive rock was among the most successful genres of the 1970s, yet only recently has it partly regained the respect it once had. Indeed, for almost three decades, the prog genre has often been disparaged and condemned as a bombastic and excessive version of psychedelia, thus obliviating its importance and cultural value. Many rebirths of prog can be traced back to the 1980s and the 1990s, but none were able to restore the genre’s lost respect or success. The ‘traditional’ historiography of rock points to the emergence of punk as the moment at which prog was killed, but a deeper analysis can demonstrate how progressive music did not die at all, if we are willing to leave behind the reductive and stereotypical idea of prog as a merely British and “symphonic” phenomenon. Indeed, if we look outside the UK, it is easy to see that prog was far from over. The attempt to explain why a certain historiographical view has been widely accepted can provide insights into the ongoing struggle to define progressive rock as a genre. Indeed, such an analysis can explain why new post-progressive artists (e.g. Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel, Robert Fripp) were not recognised inside the prog canon, and why new albums by classic artists have been reinterpreted as flops, thus influencing aesthetic judgement for decades with a peculiar inversion of values. This study will mainly focus on the role of critics and of the Anglo-symphonic stereotype, seeking to give an alternative account of the death (and rebirth) of prog from a contemporary and postmodern perspective (capable of interpreting the two main breeds of contemporary prog in light of Baudrillard’s concept of simulacrum), and to give some of the forgotten histories the relevance they deserve.