Characteristics[edit]
Some artists simply slow & reverberate existing 1980s' pop songs to make them sound like they're coming from the overhead speakers in an empty or abandoned mall.[6] Reverb and distortion are often overlaid on top of tracks to give them an isolating and disorienting feeling.[6] YouTube videos often pair mallsoft tracks with images of malls, with an emphasis on selected images that appear to have been taken from the 1980s and 1990s.[6][7] The visuals can often be meant to invoke a sense of loneliness along with the cold nature of meandering through overly-corporate mercantile environments.[8]
Reception[edit]
Music journalist Simon Chandler described Dutch artist Cat System Corp.'s 2014 album Palm Mall as being "perhaps the definitive mallsoft album".[9]