But wait... What exactly is Lo-Fi?

Lo-Fi is the short form for Low Fidelity, which in itself is used to describe a low-quality recording. That doesn't help much, since considering something low-quality is completely relative. Take a cassette tape from the 80s as an example, it wouldn't be considered low quality at the time, but it sure would be today. Modern music that we consider Hi-Fo (High Quality) maybe become Lo-Fi in 50 years. Traditional Lo-Fi has a little more going for it than just low quality though. There is usually a DIY and nostalgic feel to it, allowing the artist to go wild... But not too wild. Many Lo-Fi tunes have a rather slow pace to them, often being very repetitive and simple. That is Lo-Fi at its core, but it has truly branched out to nearly every corner of the music industry.

Is this the same music I use to study?

It's not specifically Lo-Fi music that people want to study to. Many people enjoy a slow instrumental tune in the background. Before Lo-Fi, certain classical music had taken the role of studying music, but Lo-Fi seems to fit the bill perfectly and has taken the top spot away from classical music. Studies were conducted on what was called the "Mozart Effect", it was a theory connecting listening to Mozart's music and scoring higher on an IQ test. In reality, it wasn't Mozart's music that made people smarter, the people just preferred that type of music since it made them happy. In another study, participants regarded that the slow tempo of the music they listened to helped them focus, along with it being instrumental. Though just because many enjoy this music to study with, it doesn't mean you have to love it. It all comes down to preference, it's not like Lo-Fi is magical and gives you special studying powers.

Simple History

• 1960s

  

  Lo-Fi in the 1960s is completely different from what we know today. Most music described as Lo-Fi during this time just meets the current dictionary definition of Low Fidelity, that being just a low-quality recording and instrumentation. One of those bands meeting the criteria was the Beach Boys. The Beach Boys would constantly innovate with new sounds that are very DIY. At this time, music that people considered Lo-Fi was pretty much just the dictionary definition of it. The Beach Boys fit into this as their leader, Brian Wilson, created many of their songs during the 60s in his own home.

• 1980s

  

  Around this time, Lo-Fi itself was morphing and changing based on popular instruments. To capture this new era of music, Bill Berger would create a new radio show named "Low-Fi" (The "w" would soon be lost) on WFMU 91.1 FM, the ~30-minute show was a collection of listener-submitted music which was entirely homemade. The first song in the attached video is quite close to what you would consider Lo-Fi today. That's only with the audio clip linked here, the full video can be found in the media section of the nav bar. The rest of the songs aren't as close to modern Lo-Fi, and are interesting to listen to.

• 2000s

  

  The turn of the century brought new technology, or to be a little more specific, it granted easy access to technology. The Lo-Fi genre exploded with music made with electronic instruments and samples. Around this time was when one of the most influential Lo-Fi songs would be produced for the 2006 anime: Samurai Champloo. Composed by the late Nujabes, it shook the entire Lo-Fi genre. What made Nujabes stand out from the crowd of Lo-Fi artists was his use of jazz chords. Along with other samples, Nujabes took new technology and utilized it in a way that no one had ever seen before.

• 2010s

  

  This is when the popularity of Lo-Fi exploded. With the introduction of youtube live streams, tons of channels started 24/7 radios on Youtube. Tons of new Lo-Fi channels appeared, including one of the most popular channels today: ChilledCow (Now known as Lofi Girl). These channels would advertise their content as "Lo-Fi Beats to Study To" or something close to that. Many people enjoy listening to Lo-Fi music whilst studying, and science agrees. Many people prefer to listen to slow, easily predictable music. These new channels quickly exploded in popularity and caused a tsunami of new channels to flood the platform, spreading the genre to even further audiences.