i know exactly what you mean, although i can't place the carpenter brut songs you're talking about. but often i'm listening to music, usually noise or weird edm (or anything bfv mentions), and the sounds physically annoy me to a degree that i have to close the tab. i have never understood why anyone would put that in their music. com truise is up there at the top of synthwave for me, but there are plenty more. kavinsky, timecop, miami nights 1984 (let me know what you think of ocean drive).
I kind of like Kavinsky actually. The songs of his I've heard kind of have this edge to them that's not in your face but also not under the surface. I'm checking out TimeCop now and they feel very '80s. Ocean Drive was pretty alright. But it felt kind of just there, like background music for a video game, enough to give you a sense of feeling but not so much it demands your attention. Synth-Wave isn't too much my thing, but I really enjoy Gunship, though if you give their lyrics a good listen, half the time they sound kind of ridiculous. I introduced Dala to Lazerhawk once and she really liked them.
cool cool. did you ever see drive, the ryan gosling movie? it gets a lot of credit for revitalizing synthwave, and rightfully so, or at least it utilized the synth sound to make a soundtrack exactly how i would expect. it had some kavinsky. i don't think there is much point to synthwave beyond being in the background and tugging at your emotions, though. i game to it sometimes, but then i game to fucking rainymood too.
Drive? Heck, I own it on DVD. I like it enough that intend to get a Blu-Ray version eventually. I'd give the movie some credit, but I think it's partly just at the right place at the right time. I don't know if I'm using the term right, but I think there's a minor movement in art right now to re-capture feelings from the '80s. On Netflix, there's a new series called Glow. People love pixel art. Synthwave. Retro-gaming. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if someone said old school cyberpunk was making a comeback. Background music is good music. I've been listening to a lot of synthwave for the past week or so while reading articles on Wikipedia or looking up images on Wikimedia. It's very easy to ignore and pay attention to at the same time.