Theoretically Speaking S5:E13: What Makes Hyperpop Hyperpop ?

A continuing theme in this series is that as each new genre emerged, some older folks thought it was the end of music.

Someone disapproved and saw the new genre as a sign of civilization’s demise.

I don’t think my 89-year-old father has ever heard Hyperpop, but I can already hear him say, “That’s not music.”

I’m not going to suggest Hyperpop isn’t music.

But it’s the first genre in this series I really had to work to understand.

And I may still not understand it. I guess that officially makes me an out-of-touch old fogey. Some Hyperpop artists were born in the 21st Century. I was born, let’s just say, earlier.

To put it in perspective, Hyperpop is as many years removed from Punk as Punk is from Swing.

The people making Hyperpop are the same age as The Beatles when A Hard Day’s Night came out, and they might be too young to remember 9/11.

These musicians have never known life without the internet, cell phones, video games, or social media.

Hyperpop is so new that there’s disagreement as to whether it’s a standalone genre or a subgenre of EDM. That probably remains to be seen, as Hyperpop is still developing, but its proponents think it’s the next big movement. At the same time, part of Hyperpop’s aesthetic is that its first goal is to create art, and that commercial success is a byproduct of good art.

They promote the philosophy behind Hyperpop as much as the music itself. There’s the age-old balance of art and commerce, and the Hyperpop community thinks the two aren’t mutually exclusive. They even seem to enjoy that tension.

An important aspect is to push Pop music’s extremes as far as they will go, and those extremes go in different directions, so Hyperpop has no one specific sound. Pick any aspect of music and some Hyperpop artist is pushing hard in that direction. The cutting edges of what’s possible will have moved between the time I write this and the time you read it.

Producer Oren Ratowsky said something that helps explain it.

I believe he’s referring more to Denniz Pop and Max Martin than he is to ABBA and Roxette, because he continued, “I feel like that’s kind of the main current – modern music software and growing up with Britney and the Backstreet Boys.”

The word that’s used to describe Hyperpop more than any other is “maximalist.” It’s intentionally trying to push Pop and sounds and software further than they’ve gone before. 

If you play a note that sounds bad, keep playing it until it sounds good. Like a lie repeated often enough becomes perceived as the truth, a wrong note repeated often enough becomes perceived as the right note. 

Likewise, Hyperpop artists and producers want to push the boundaries to the point where their music is almost annoying but grows on you. It still needs to be fun and interesting, and something you’ve never heard before.

In the early 2010s, two microgenres developed online – and only online.

These songs were uploaded to various websites, most notably: Soundcloud. Online communities developed around these, and other, microgenres, and more people got involved. There are some minor genres that exist only on Soundcloud. Some break through to the mainstream, or at least into the wider consciousness.

Someone got the idea to make original music that sounded similar to both, often focusing on Nightcore’s hyperactive drums and pitched up vocals. These new songs were also uploaded to Soundcloud, Bandcamp, and elsewhere, with little thought about making money. The idea was just to see what could be done. And people started collaborating across the Internet.

Collaboration and sharing is a major tenet of Hyperpop.

This makes Hyperpop attractive to the LGBTQ+ community. Internet music allows people to express their real selves without concern as to whether prejudice will prevent them from getting a gig at the local bar.

Artists like Crystal Castles and M.I.A. can be thought of as early Hyperpop.

But the 2013 founding of PC Music is often seen as its real beginning.

Many of those songs were collaborations and some of the artists released tracks under different names, so it’s hard to tell how many individual artists are on the label. 

PC Music will also use inexperienced singers. Vocal ability doesn’t necessarily matter because the vocals are going to be pitch shifted, autotuned, and edited into new rhythms. So, yes: you, too, may become a pop singer!

Ideas are grabbed from all over:

Computer glitches are intentionally added. Every sound, whether it’s vocals, samples, or a software synthesizer, is electronically sliced and diced until it may no longer sound like itself. When we use the word “maximalism,” we’re talking about the production.

This embrace of the glitch carries over to Hyperpop music videos.

Part of A.G. Cook’s philosophy about music is that most people see Pop as a guilty or simple pleasure, and that it can be much more than that. His goal is to make artful digital Pop music and to disprove the idea that music made with computers is emotionless.

He collaborated with Charli XCX and SOPHIE. Charli XCX is perhaps the best known Hyperpop artist, with hits like “Boom Clap,” “Speed Drive” and “Vroom Vroom” charting in multiple countries. “Vroom Vroom” was produced by SOPHIE.

SOPHIE was a songwriter, producer, and DJ from Scotland.

In January 2021, SOPHIE died as a result of a fall from the roof of a building. She was trying to take a photo of the full moon and slipped. In June of that year, the International Astronomical Union renamed a minor planet Sophiexeon in her honor.

Cook and PC Music hope for wider success – but not at the expense of art, beauty, and experimentation.

Major labels are paying attention. Notably, Atlantic has signed both Charli XCX and the somewhat abrasive duo, 100 gecs.

In the early 2010s, it was used to describe some of the more extreme pop of the time. In 2016, Holliday Howe, using the name Bubbles at the time, began marking her uploaded songs with the hashtag #hyperpop.

In 2019, Spotify created its Hyperpop playlist, and some see this as certification of Hyperpop as its own genre. The community, however, has mixed feelings about it.

As an aging punk, I remember complaints about what was and wasn’t considered Punk. Some were happy when Punk and New Wave went their own ways, though some people still complained because some people like complaining.

Punk, Folk, and other genres value authenticity. “Keeping it real” is a Hip Hop mantra. For many that means to write your own material, and to disregard performers that don’t.

Hyperpop is more about collaboration, sharing creative ideas, and not being territorial about it.

Having said that, some artists prefer to remain anonymous, using pseudonyms and avatars rather than their real names and photos. Online authenticity attracts online trolls. It was hard to find pictures of some of the artists in Suggested Listening below.

A Punk/New Wave splintering might yet happen to Hyperpop.

It may split along the commercial lines of what’s saleable and what isn’t, or along the artistic lines of what’s danceable and what isn’t, or the atmospheric lines of hard or soft.

It’s too new a genre to know. We’ll just have to stay (auto) tuned.

Suggested Listening – Full YouTube Playlist

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Enjoy these selected Articles in Bill’s “What Makes…” series:

Theoretically Speaking – S5:E12: What Makes Western Swing  Western Swing ? 

Theoretically Speaking, S4:E5: What Makes Ragtime, Ragtime?

Theoretically Speaking S2 | E8: What Makes Electronic Music, Electronic Music ?

More…