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Hyperpop
Hyperpop is an electronic music movement and loosely defined microgenre that originated in the early 2010s in the United Kingdom. It is characterised by an exaggerated or maximalist take on popular music, and typically integrates pop and avant-garde sensibilities while drawing on elements commonly found in electronic, rock, hip hop, and dance music. The origins of hyperpop are primarily traced back to the output of English musician A. G. Cook's record label and art collective PC Music, with associated artists, Sophie, GFOTY and Charli XCX, helping to pioneer a musical style that was later known as "bubblegum bass".
In 2019, the genre experienced a rise in popularity with the virality of the song "Money Machine" by 100 gecs, and was further proliferated by Spotify, whose employee Lizzy Szabo launched the influential "Hyperpop" playlist, after spotting the term "hyperpop" on the platform's metadata, which had previously been added by data analyst Glenn McDonald in 2018. Following this, the style gained wider popularity among Gen Z through social media platforms like TikTok, particularly on Alt TikTok, which boosted its exposure during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Additionally, several contemporaneous styles such as digicore, glitchcore, robloxcore, dariacore and subgenres like hyperplugg and hyperfunk were also associated with the movement by the press.
After hyperpop entered the mainstream in the early 2020s, the label was rejected by artists originally associated with the scene, which led to an overall decline in emerging musicians. The genre's influence was enduring in the development of subsequent internet microgenres that emerged or primarily developed in the early 2020s, such as sigilkore, jerk, rage, hexd, and krushclub, alongside the rise of indie sleaze and the recession pop revival.
According to Vice journalist Eli Enis, hyperpop is not so much about following music rules, but "a shared ethos of transcending genre altogether, while still operating within the context of pop". Artists embody an exaggerated, eclectic, and self-referential approach to pop music and typically employ elements such as brash synth melodies, Auto-Tuned "earworm" vocals, and excessive compression and distortion, as well as surrealist or nostalgic references to 2000s Internet culture and the Web 2.0 era. Common features include vocals that are heavily processed; metallic, melodic percussion sounds; pitch-shifted synths; catchy choruses; short song lengths; and "shiny, cutesy aesthetics" juxtaposed with angst-ridden or ironic lyricism. Hyperpop has been described as "post-internet".
The movement is often associated with the LGBTQ community, drawing primary influences from queer culture. Several key artists identify as gay, non-binary, or transgender. The microgenre's emphasis on vocal modulation has allowed artists to experiment with gender presentation in their voices, as well as deal with gender dysphoria. Artists like Sophie and 8485 explore themes of gender fluidity in their lyrical content.
The Wall Street Journal's Mark Richardson described hyperpop as turning the "artificial" parts of pop music up to an extreme level, creating a "cartoonish wall of noise" that is full of catchy tunes and memorable hooks. The music moves between beautiful and ugly, with shimmery melodies crashing into mangled instrumentals. Joe Vitagliano, writing for American Songwriter, said hyperpop is an "exciting, bombastic, and iconoclastic genre — if it can even be called a 'genre'" and has "saw synths, auto-tuned vocals, glitch-inspired percussion and a distinctive late-capitalism-dystopia vibe". Artists in this style mix the avant-garde and pop music, often balancing between being addictively fun and a bit too much, according to Pitchfork's Kieran Press-Reynolds. He added that in 2024, hyperpop had become a "Frankensteinian macro-genre".
The Atlantic said the genre "swirls together and speeds up Top 40 tricks of present and past: a Janet Jackson drum slam here, a Depeche Mode synth squeal there, the overblown pep of novelty jingles throughout," but also said "the genre's zest for punk's brattiness, hip-hop's boastfulness, and metal's noise". Writer Sheldon Pearce of NPR stated that hyperpop "[...] has been a controversial catch-all for a blown-out music of excess and kitsch, unafraid of the abjectly cybernated or "lowbrow," seeking the sound of the dissociated online self."
The earliest known use of the term "hyperpop" was made in October 1988 by writer Don Shewey in an article about the Scottish dream pop band Cocteau Twins, stating that England in the 1980s had "nurtured the simultaneous phenomena of hyperpop and antipop". In the late 2000s, the term "hyperpop" was sometimes used as a genre descriptor in the nightcore scene and later associated with the artists surrounding the London-based PC Music record label and art collective in the early 2010s.
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Hyperpop
Hyperpop is an electronic music movement and loosely defined microgenre that originated in the early 2010s in the United Kingdom. It is characterised by an exaggerated or maximalist take on popular music, and typically integrates pop and avant-garde sensibilities while drawing on elements commonly found in electronic, rock, hip hop, and dance music. The origins of hyperpop are primarily traced back to the output of English musician A. G. Cook's record label and art collective PC Music, with associated artists, Sophie, GFOTY and Charli XCX, helping to pioneer a musical style that was later known as "bubblegum bass".
In 2019, the genre experienced a rise in popularity with the virality of the song "Money Machine" by 100 gecs, and was further proliferated by Spotify, whose employee Lizzy Szabo launched the influential "Hyperpop" playlist, after spotting the term "hyperpop" on the platform's metadata, which had previously been added by data analyst Glenn McDonald in 2018. Following this, the style gained wider popularity among Gen Z through social media platforms like TikTok, particularly on Alt TikTok, which boosted its exposure during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Additionally, several contemporaneous styles such as digicore, glitchcore, robloxcore, dariacore and subgenres like hyperplugg and hyperfunk were also associated with the movement by the press.
After hyperpop entered the mainstream in the early 2020s, the label was rejected by artists originally associated with the scene, which led to an overall decline in emerging musicians. The genre's influence was enduring in the development of subsequent internet microgenres that emerged or primarily developed in the early 2020s, such as sigilkore, jerk, rage, hexd, and krushclub, alongside the rise of indie sleaze and the recession pop revival.
According to Vice journalist Eli Enis, hyperpop is not so much about following music rules, but "a shared ethos of transcending genre altogether, while still operating within the context of pop". Artists embody an exaggerated, eclectic, and self-referential approach to pop music and typically employ elements such as brash synth melodies, Auto-Tuned "earworm" vocals, and excessive compression and distortion, as well as surrealist or nostalgic references to 2000s Internet culture and the Web 2.0 era. Common features include vocals that are heavily processed; metallic, melodic percussion sounds; pitch-shifted synths; catchy choruses; short song lengths; and "shiny, cutesy aesthetics" juxtaposed with angst-ridden or ironic lyricism. Hyperpop has been described as "post-internet".
The movement is often associated with the LGBTQ community, drawing primary influences from queer culture. Several key artists identify as gay, non-binary, or transgender. The microgenre's emphasis on vocal modulation has allowed artists to experiment with gender presentation in their voices, as well as deal with gender dysphoria. Artists like Sophie and 8485 explore themes of gender fluidity in their lyrical content.
The Wall Street Journal's Mark Richardson described hyperpop as turning the "artificial" parts of pop music up to an extreme level, creating a "cartoonish wall of noise" that is full of catchy tunes and memorable hooks. The music moves between beautiful and ugly, with shimmery melodies crashing into mangled instrumentals. Joe Vitagliano, writing for American Songwriter, said hyperpop is an "exciting, bombastic, and iconoclastic genre — if it can even be called a 'genre'" and has "saw synths, auto-tuned vocals, glitch-inspired percussion and a distinctive late-capitalism-dystopia vibe". Artists in this style mix the avant-garde and pop music, often balancing between being addictively fun and a bit too much, according to Pitchfork's Kieran Press-Reynolds. He added that in 2024, hyperpop had become a "Frankensteinian macro-genre".
The Atlantic said the genre "swirls together and speeds up Top 40 tricks of present and past: a Janet Jackson drum slam here, a Depeche Mode synth squeal there, the overblown pep of novelty jingles throughout," but also said "the genre's zest for punk's brattiness, hip-hop's boastfulness, and metal's noise". Writer Sheldon Pearce of NPR stated that hyperpop "[...] has been a controversial catch-all for a blown-out music of excess and kitsch, unafraid of the abjectly cybernated or "lowbrow," seeking the sound of the dissociated online self."
The earliest known use of the term "hyperpop" was made in October 1988 by writer Don Shewey in an article about the Scottish dream pop band Cocteau Twins, stating that England in the 1980s had "nurtured the simultaneous phenomena of hyperpop and antipop". In the late 2000s, the term "hyperpop" was sometimes used as a genre descriptor in the nightcore scene and later associated with the artists surrounding the London-based PC Music record label and art collective in the early 2010s.
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