The Lost Promises of Hyperpoptimism

Maybe the biggest driver behind the scene’s dispersion is the fact that “hyperactivity” as a musical device has become banal and ran-through. The times we’re living in are already so speedmaxxed, digitized, relentlessly asphyxiated by stimuli. Every popular artist has a “sped-up” version of their music; presidential campaigns hurl shitposts and hype edits into the TikTok ether. Hyperpop was originally a countercultural aesthetic, a haven of forum geeks and nightcore freaks, built by and for the underground. When that abrasive style started to become watered-down, it makes sense that some would recoil or turn their attention to less zeitgeisty sounds. In 2024, hyperpop feels like the last new major genre: its dilution and adoption across the world (find hyperpop scenes in at least a dozen countries) shows how much people love it, even if it has barely ever ascended to mainstream glory. It’s helped people actualize things about themselves they never knew and spawned havens for marginalized oddballs. Some of the most fun I’ve ever had going out has been to hyperpop clubs, drunkenly swaying to Umru’s four-person B2B2B2B sets and yelling “FUCK THE PSAT!” with a crowd of sweaty teens at glaive’s first NYC show. Even if hyperpop is approaching peak sterility, we still have a bounty of memories and musical genius to look back on.

A Deeply Incomplete Canon of Hyperpop-Digicore (Beyond Ones Already Mentioned)

Dolly’s earliest and most exhilarating songs smack like the titles—a crumpled rush of words and confessions, the sound of uploading your brain to the cloud and drowning your worries in bass thuds.

An extract of 100% pure pop, an Ariana Grande arena soundtrack for Uncanny Valley Stadium, the national anthem of a yassified autocracy where the rain is pink and everyone’s Barbie.

Piss babies, shamefully small trucks, a beat so delectably deranged it’s like Skrillex producing for a Ringley Bros. clown carnival: This is 100 gecs at peak freak.

An all-star posse of quirked-up it-girls assembled to make hyperpop’s most addictive karaoke song.

A depression anthem so goddamn hard it makes 52 glum Mondays sound like the greatest thing ever, fuck Prozac.

ericdoa’s meta goodbye to his bitcrushed alter ego dante red nearly made me tear up. Switching between inflections, he raps against himself, interrogating why he’s selling out and going industry. He promises they’ll meet again someday. We’re still waiting for the moment.

Unlike the jittery newness of so much hyperpop, the Auto-Tune fever of “Perfect” feels beamed in from a frayed bootleg edition of Dance Dance Revolution circa 2004.

Digicore Avengers: Age of Auto-Tune.

True to its title, “Oasis” conjures up visions of a cybernetic treescape, with impossibly fresh vines and lapis-blue creeks sparkling in the sun. If there were a “7 Wonders of the SoundCloud Underworld,” this would qualify.

Maybe the most hyperdigital “digicore” of all time, a mad brainjection of surreal stutters, 8-bit twitches, and lyrics blending Mario, Pokemon, and Roblox with threats about gunning people down.

Click for angelus’ venomous trills and fortuneswan’s laser-shiny beat; stay for the goofy video of angelus’ bed.

A hyper-ballad so pretty it makes Rae’s exhausted sighs and earnest requests for better treatment sound joyous.

More heady than hyper, this sweet swoon of a tune from two scene O.G.s sounds like a bedtime lullaby for forest fairies.

The Welsh artist erupts into so many giddy stutters it’s like they’re roleplaying K.K. Slider from Animal Crossing.

This was the point in the scene when I thought, “Is it just becoming alt-rock?” Wait until the planet-shuddering final half-minute.

The way quannnic crests from sedate slowcore to 5,000-lumen-bulb drop feels like climbing over the top of a hill and seeing a horizon full of comets glinting in the night.

Floating eyes, paranoid spiraling, operatic wails: Tropes’ high-octane hate-letter is as electrifying as it is agitated.

Funny monkey, monkey GIF. Funny monkey, monkey GIF. Funny monkey, monkey GIF. Look at the monkey. It’s a monkey. Look at the monkey, at the monkey.

Hyperpop at its most idyllic, the kind of tune that makes you want to drop whatever you’re doing and spin gleefully in your bedroom, helplessly fantasizing about everything possible in the world.

Dorian Electra pushes hyperpop to its most garish and grotesque extremes here, a gnarly blast of (un)happy hard-gore. Imagine a UFO of Hot Topic–wearing alien-punks descending to destroy Earth.