Lostwave is a type of music for which very little or no information is known about its beginnings. This includes details such as the names of the songs, the artists or groups who created them, and the dates when they were recorded or released. Efforts by many people online working together have been made to find out where these songs came from.

History

Lostwave became well-known because of two events. The first was the search for a song called "Ready 'n' Steady." This song briefly appeared on a list below the main Billboard Hot 100 and was noted by music experts and collectors as if it did not exist anywhere. Many years of searching and guesses that it might be a copyright trap ended in 2016 when the song was discovered. The second event was the search for "The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet." This song was recorded by Darius S. from a German radio station, Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR), in the mid-1980s, likely in or after 1984. In 2007, Darius' sister, Lydia H., shared the song on best-of-80s.de and The Spirit of Radio, which caused widespread interest online. In 2024, the song was identified as "Subways of Your Mind" by the German new wave band Fex.

As other examples of lostwave appeared online, a Reddit community with the same name was created in 2019. This community was formed to separate the topic from the search for "The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet" and to increase awareness about lostwave. This was the first time the term "lostwave" was used. The term follows the naming style of "new wave," similar to other internet music styles, such as vaporwave and chillwave.

Notable examples

"Spelling on the Stone" is a song recorded by an Elvis impersonator and released in 1988 by LS Records. No artist was credited for the song, and it reached number 82 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. The song is written from Elvis Presley’s perspective and suggests that he may have faked his death. Music historians believe Dan Willis, who recorded with LS Records, may have been the singer, but this is not confirmed.

"On the Roof" is a song by Johan Lindell, a former musician who used the name "Stay (The Second Time Around)." The song was not identified until 2013, when a listener of a Swedish radio show played it, hoping others would recognize it. Lindell had stopped making music to focus on painting and did not know about the search for the song.

"How Long (Will It Take)" is a song by Canadian musician Paula Toledo. It was used in a TV film and a series called Secret Lives and 15/Love. Short parts of the song appeared on Russian bootleg DVDs. The search for the song began in 2007 on a Ukrainian message board, where it was called "How Long Will It Take." In 2023, a user found the song in a music database. Toledo then shared it online, and the money from her Bandcamp page was donated to a charity. Fake versions of the song later appeared on streaming services.

"Ammunition" is a song from the 1994 album Fetish Fetish by the Canadian band All Good Children. The song was recorded in 1993 from a radio broadcast in Hamilton, Ontario, by Robin and Erin Hanson, who compared it to the band U2. It was not identified until 2015, when it was played on CBC Radio One to help find it.

"Ready 'n' Steady" is a song by Dennis Lucchesi and Jim Franks, who used the name D.A. It was recorded in 1979 but was never officially released. Despite this, it appeared on the Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100 chart, reaching number 106. It was confirmed to be real in 2016 and was played on a radio station in Minnesota. It is the only song without an official release to appear on a Billboard chart.

"Subways of Your Mind" was recorded by a teenager named Darius S. from a radio program on a German public station. The song was saved on a cassette tape with other songs by XTC and the Cure. The DJ’s voice was removed to make a clean copy, which may have hidden the exact date it was played. The song was shared online between 2004 and 2007 but gained attention in 2019 when a Brazilian teenager named Gabriel da Silva Vieira shared it on YouTube and Reddit. A subreddit called r/TheMysteriousSong was created to find the song. In 2019, a music website wrote about the search, and in 2024, a user identified the song as "Subways of Your Mind" by the band Fex. The band performed an acoustic version of the song on a German radio station.

In 2016, a user on 4chan asked for help identifying a demo EP of D>E>A>T>H>M>E>T>A>L by a band called Panchiko, which he found in a charity shop in Britain. The band members were only known by their first names, and no information about them was online. In 2020, the members were found by using information from a price sticker on the EP to locate the shop in Nottingham, England. The band reunited and started international tours, and they released a debut album.

In 2021, a user named carl92 shared a 17-second clip of a song recorded between 1982 and 1999. He said he found it on a DVD and thought it might be from Spain. Users guessed the song’s title as "Everyone Knows That" based on the lyrics. The search for the song grew slowly but gained more attention over time. A subreddit was created, and two members were interviewed by a French TV network in 2024. Some people thought the song came from a 1990s MTV show, production music, or a commercial. In 2024, the song was identified as "Ulterior Motives" by Christopher and Philip Booth, from the 1986 film Angels of Passion.