Playlists

At a certain point, someone might have bet on it: at last, the nightmare was over. That hyper-polished smooth jazz, that stratospheric fusion which for more than a decade had run rampant among lovers of "tasteful playing," could legitimately be seen, by the mid-Nineties, as a distant memory. Sure, there was acid jazz, there were all the cocktail-lounge gentrifications of downtempo, but the aftermath of that endless bender of solos and bad taste seemed to be over once and for all. No more bloated, gentrified funk. No more unpronounceable chords stuffed into the most pandering pop songs.

Fast-forward: thirty years later, that sound is everywhere. Along with plenty else, to be clear — to the point that some might not have even noticed. But it's there in the math-prog-metal of Plini and the hugely-viewed Polyphia, and in the hip-hop-based instrumentals of hip-hop artists like Kamaal Williams and Anomalie. The vaporwave universe built its fame on plundering Eighties muzak, and unpronounceable chords (B♭7+/9, G#7♭13, D7/5♭) sit at the heart of the latest albums by Harry Styles and Japanese celebrity Fujii Kaze. Even in Italy, the tightrope-walking fusion big band Snarky Puppy packs venues, and the revival of Neapolitan funk led by Nu Genea sells out every show.

This playlist is a mixed bag. It's not meant to methodically introduce any one genre, but to show how a certain sound — extended chords, guitar vamping, showy virtuoso flourishes, an irresistible and flawless groove — has by now spread across musical fields. The title "hyper fusion" is meant as a simple riff on "hyperpop," underlining the heterogeneous, postmodern, and sometimes slightly kitsch nature of the music on offer. It's unlikely that every single area touched on in this compilation will be everyone's cup of tea: it ranges from metal to chart pop, from big-band jazz to the ultra-electronic sounds of synth-funk, taking in both niche artists and click-magnet YouTubers.

The range of influences is just as varied: amid echoes of fusion, memories of funk and nu-disco, nods to city pop, yacht rock or sophisti-pop, the real — and perhaps only — common thread is the revival of jazz or jazzy post-Seventies sounds closest to radio and dancefloors. With plenty of (though not obligatory) forays into guitar hero pyrotechnics or liquid tones bordering on new age, and without shying away from the undeniably corporate sheen that collective memory has attached to those styles.

In practical terms: scrolling through the playlist, you'll come across plenty of Japanese artists — after all, Japan is the land where prog, fusion and assorted virtuosity never really went out of style — plenty of vaporwave forays (wasn't it those faceless artists with bizarre katakana names who reignited online interest in city pop?), and a fair number of bona fide jazz musicians, dominated by the crowd around the aforementioned Snarky Puppy.

Two other notable trends that have reshaped the demographics of the jazz audience, afrobeat and nu jazz, have been covered in the past and were not placed at the center of this selection. Some overlap was nonetheless unavoidable, especially with nu jazz, and toward the end of the compilation you'll encounter a few names straddling both worlds. There would be much more to dig into, question, and pick apart, but the aim of these fifty tracks and these few lines is simply to point out directions. It's up to each listener to explore whichever ones they find most compelling.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google

19/01/2026