Nostalgic Soundscapes S01E02 | Forgotten | Windows 95 Retro Ambient

Update* for those asking where can you download/buy this season of nostalgic soundscapes, it WILL be released once episode 10 airs, so in the meantime feel free to check out my other music, who knows maybe you'll like it! retrovex.bandcamp.com/ I composed an ambient track using nostalgic elements reminiscent of a certain iconic operating system, maybe some of you might like it, old-school vibes guaranteed! You can support me on: ko-fi.com/retrovex

After private computers were invented, but before social media, there was a golden age. All computing was associated with visual images of green meadows and rolling hills, occasionally with rustic structures such as Greek ruins or Maine county estates. We were not being monitored nor spied on, and we were free to look at whatever website we wished and find our own niches. We unfortunately do not realise true value, until we cant get it anymore.

I used to be jealous of younger people and children being born. They had their whole life ahead of them and so much time to live and experience everything. But then I thought a lot and reached the conclusion: Growing up before smartphones and social media was incredible. Humans will never have that again, there will always be ubiquitous technology now. Things were slower, things were calmer, things were better in many ways. This post is dedicated to all the 80's and 90's kids out there. Godspeed.

When us 90's kids pass away, this is what we'll hear as we go to the Great Beyond.

I keep coming back here. It’s not that I miss the past, it’s that I miss the future that we never got. Something hasn’t felt right since the early 2000’s. I can’t be the only 80’s/90’s kid that feels this way.

This gets me pretty emotional. The internet had a lot more soul back then. Reminds me of spending countless hours finding fan sites and other hidden gems.

It's funny how everyone that grew up in the 80's and 90's seems to agree that computers, the internet and life in general was much more fun back in the day, especially before social media came around. Although we now have technology we could only dream of back then, there was much more serenity and peace when surfing the internet or playing a game. I'm 40 now, so it may also be related to the fact I was still in my teens when the internet became a thing, but this ambient mix really seems to reflect the feeling I sometimes had when playing Sim City 2000, Transport Tycoon or Quake, sometimes for hours on end and just forgot about the time and other things in life.

"No Midjourney or any other AI’s has been used to make this video happen" - Thank you!

So Microsoft paid Brian Eno $35,000 for the opening soundbite of Windows 95!! Brian Eno is considered by many to be the father of ambient music.

My mind just went straight back to my parent's office in the late 90's, as a pre-teen, sitting at that old PC. That memory feels more real, more substantial, and more precious to me than the current moment & place I am in now as I type this in 2024. I feel frozen, with a bittersweet emotion; realizing how incredibly precious that time in my life, and that era, was. I want to just step out of this mental tesseract that I find myself in, standing beside the childhood version of me, unbeknownst to him, and for just one tear-filled moment, just hug my young, former self. I want to tell him how beautiful this moment is, that every doubt he ever had about himself at that tender age is totally ok (don't be so hard on yourself), and just go tell your family, your pets, your friends...just how much you love them. Some of them won't be here much longer... Then step outside, look into the sky of the world that will sadly never be again, and take a breath so big, that your future self will feel it all those years later. I imagine all of us, another quarter century from now, will wish we could do the same for the 2024 versions of ourselves we experience now. This life is just one giant, gentle, beautiful & bittersweet mirage... Incredible the power this music has on the mind, and what that humble little windows environment in the innocent infancy of computing has on all of us: a power so great that it would both build an entire new world, and innocuously, but eventually, eradicate an old one. Thank you for your creation, Retrovex. This helped me get in touch with a part of me I haven't felt in a long, long time...

all I can say is thank God I was alive to witness the 90s... peak of the human experience

in 1995 Brian Eno planted a sonic seed... then after 29 years, people hear it bloom into infinity. This is the essence of humanity.

We were lucky. I never get sad with these things because I always think "Don't be sad that it's gone, be happy that you got to experience it"

The 90's. The last decent decade.

It's like waking up from a 29-year-long nightmare!

Gen-Z will never know what they missed. Thank God I had my childhood in the optimistic, colorful, ethereal, mystical 90s.

Beautiful and haunting. The soundtrack of a lost futuristic hope and optimism of the 90's.

Windows '95 is strongly connected to my childhood. I can't explain it to you, but you if know, you know.

It's seems you entered in some kind of portal and traveled to the past, but everything there disappeared, its only you and this computer in a totally empty dimension.

Amazing, truly the Golden Age of personal computing. Who remembers those awesome discs that you got with PC magazines, packed with cool stuff like music software, or demos for up and coming video games? What a fantastic time it was indeed!