Macintosh Plus

Both for its sonic makeup and its instantly recognizable sleeve imagery, Floral Shoppe from 2011—issued under the Macintosh Plus moniker belonging to electronic musician and visual artist Ramona Andra Xavier—stands as the recording most frequently linked to vaporwave, the genre that emerged from online communities. Slowed-down and extensively altered excerpts from soft rock, smooth jazz, and ’80s R&B form the basis of its tracks, while every title appears in Japanese script. The artwork itself places a Greco-Roman bust against a pastel-toned computer-graphic backdrop. Together these traits helped define the sonic and visual identity of the movement, alongside Daniel Lopatin’s Chuck Person’s Eccojams, Vol. 1 and James Ferraro’s Far Side Virtual.

Xavier entered the world in Washington in 1992 and started producing and self-releasing material in 2005. Numerous projects appeared under the names Vektroid, Laserdisc Visions, and dstnt before Floral Shoppe surfaced online in late 2011. Beer on the Rug subsequently pressed a limited run of cassettes in 2012, drawing notice from outlets including Tiny Mixtapes. In the years that followed, Xavier concentrated on output credited mainly to Vektroid—alongside further aliases such as Tanning Salon and New Dreams Ltd.—through the PrismCorp imprint, deliberately stepping away from vaporwave’s signature traits. Yet as the style gained traction across the internet, Floral Shoppe developed its own devoted audience. Its second track, built around a Diana Ross sample, spread rapidly online and accumulated millions of YouTube plays, leading some critics to dismiss the entire genre as little more than slowed-down Diana Ross recordings. The sleeve design itself turned into an enduring meme, spawning countless references and parodies. Scarce copies of the original cassette edition have sold for hundreds of dollars on secondary markets. Responding to sustained demand, Olde English Spelling Bee finally brought the album to vinyl in 2017. In late 2019 Xavier revived the Macintosh Plus project with the twelve-minute piece “Sick & Panic.”