r/outrun

Not the Right Time
Grunge meets synthwave. Heavy guitars, retro-futuristic atmospheres, and a late-night saxophone.
Feedback welcome.

I was just thinking about how music videos in the 80s weren't just promos—they were actual cinematic events.For me, watching the world premiere of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" or the groundbreaking animation in A-ha's "Take On Me" felt like watching history happen in real-time. The creativity back then was just unmatched.What about you guys? Which video had you glued to the TV screen back then? Was it something high-concept like Duran Duran or just a raw rock performance? Let's take a trip down memory lane!

Hey Outrun! My debut EP is live on all streaming services. I hope you guys enjoy it!

✌️💜

I posted about my 1500 followers playlists being open to submissions again, expecting to get a lot of feedback as I used to get in, say, 2019, but even as late as 2023. But the reaction has been lukewarm at best. Also, popular playlists would get hundreds of upvotes back then in Synthwave subs like r/outrun, while today you are lucky if you get ten. Or any at all for song posts, usually without any comments. The r/futuresynth subreddit is essentially dead.

I know for a fact that Reddit made some pretty significant algorithm changes, giving preference since then to deliver to the userbase posts with lots of comments instead of posts who get upvoted fast (the hot posts of yonder). Then it killed the r/All page that was the dream of every musical producer who wanted to go viral. But it does not explain why all synthwave subs are like graveyards now. There is something else going on: where did all the cool people go if they left synthwave behind?

As a side note, I noticed that large music subs like r/music or r/listentothis won’t take playlist anymore and this is a bummer since playlists are great tool for genre-based musical discovery. Reddit used to be the place where genres were born, now it seems it’s the place where music comes to die.