More than just a genre, hyperpop feels like a cultural moment – a vibrant, chaotic, and often ironic maximalist aesthetic that’s as challenging as it is exhilarating.
Imagine taking the most saccharine elements of mainstream pop, cranking them up to 11, then running them through a digital shredder while simultaneously dousing them in autotune, glitch effects, and an almost aggressive level of emotional sincerity. That’s a taste of hyperpop. It’s a sound born from the internet, steeped in meme culture, queer aesthetics, and a fearless approach to production that prioritizes exhilaration over traditional polish.
At its core, hyperpop is characterized by its extreme sonic palette. You’ll hear heavily processed vocals – often high-pitched, layered, and drenched in autotune – atop beats that can range from frantic, stuttering electronic drums to distorted 808s. Synths shimmer and clash, melodies are both catchy and abrasive, and the overall effect is one of sensory overload in the best possible way. It’s a sound that embraces its artificiality, celebrating the digital tools that create it rather than trying to mask them.
While its roots can be traced to experimental electronic music and even bubblegum pop, hyperpop truly exploded into mainstream consciousness around 2019-2020, largely thanks to its fervent online communities and platforms like TikTok. Artists like 100 Gecs, the duo of Laura Les and Dylan Brady, became accidental torchbearers, with their track “money machine” serving as an unofficial anthem for the nascent scene. Their music epitomizes hyperpop’s embrace of absurdity and sonic collage, blending pop hooks with noise music, trap, and even nu-metal inflections.
But hyperpop is far from a monolithic sound. Its expansive nature allows for incredible diversity, like Charli XCX, who has frequently collaborated with hyperpop producers to push her own boundaries.
The often feels like a futuristic reimagining of pop anthems, designed for a rave in cyberspace. On the other, you might find the more melancholic or aggressive edges from artists exploring heavier themes with the same distorted lens.
What makes hyperpop so compelling isn’t just its sound, but its ethos. It’s a genre that feels incredibly authentic to the digital native generation, unafraid to explore vulnerability, identity, and the anxieties of modern life through a maximalist, often joyful, lens. It’s a music for those who find beauty in chaos, who embrace the synthetic, and who understand that sometimes, the most honest expression comes through the most extreme filters. As it continues to evolve and cross-pollinate with other genres, hyperpop remains a thrilling indicator of where pop music is headed: louder, bolder, and more beautifully bizarre than ever before.
Image: Raph_PH, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
