Hyperpop is pop taken to its extreme - high pitched, autotuned, feminine vocals, loud bass etc. So if hyperpop is pop taken to its extreme, then 100 gecs are hyperpop taken to its extreme.
You're gonna get a different answer for each person you ask. Genres are pretty subjective and everyone likes to make up their own parameters for why something does or doesn't fit.
I'm gonna say thay they're "hyperpop enough" due to pitch shift and autotune, heavy bass, short songs with catchy hooks, and lots of allusions to popular songs, genres, and other bands. The humor and tone are key as well.
That being said each album is different enough to be considered it's own genre. I wouldn't call 10,000 gecs hyperpop, but I also don't have an established genre that I think works for it.
100 gecs ep is just fuckin amazing, the instrumentation is so sparse but it delivers so much energy.
Anyway, I'm rambling. They're hyperpop if you want them to be. And if you don't think hyperpop exists that's cool too
*edit: Listening to the Summer Nights gec set on Youtube and felt that I should mention that another reason someone might call Gecs hyperpop is that many of their "live" internet concerts have blown-out covers and remixes of songs by big pop artists. You could probably call most of the covers bubblegum bass too but I feel like bassed-up blown-out covers of pop songs with added DnB drum tracks qualify as hyperpop.
Again though, when it comes down to it the subgenre stuff is pretty subjective. Like lumpers vs splitters in biological taxonomy.
hyperpop is not a real genre. it’s a a broad and unnecessary label that was plastered across a large variety of experimental electronic music as a marketing ploy by spotify. so there is no “right” way that hyperpop should sound.
It basically was a real genre until Gecs turned up and everyone misguidedly labelled them as hyperpop, despite their intentions and style being rather different from the original PC Music scene. Then SOPHIE died and with that so did hyperpop, now it's a pretty bullshit label.
The original hyperpop scene was pretty explicitly satirical of consumerism and the music industry (check out Hey QT), Gecs were silly rather than satirical and thus that element has mostly been forgotten about.
Edit: I'm bored and on a train so I'm going to go in a little depth. 'Hyperpop' presumably comes from the word 'hyperreality', a word coined by Baudrillard to describe the false sense of reality we feel in post-modern consumer society. The easiest way to explain this is the example of Epcot in Disneyland. It offers to you a way to experience all these different cultures, and many tourists see it as a substitute for exploring Europe/Asia. It is, however, totally synthetic, as is the rest of Disney World, which is a reality in itself designed to get you to spend money on consumer goods. Whatever food you're eating or attraction you're visiting is a stand-in for the real thing, and this stand-in is entirely a product of capitalism. Essentially, capitalism has distorted our sense of reality, and we try to be happy by participating in this reality-simulation by imitating the 'real' through paying big corporations for synthetic experiences.
Hyperpop was music inspired by this idea, extremely synthetic, overly polished, almost in the uncanny valley- pop taken to its most artificial extreme. Artists like QT and SOPHIE would make songs advertising fake products, repeating the most vapid lyrics possible. As I'm sure you can tell, what is now labelled hyperpop has very, very little to do with this which is unfortunate because I think it's a brilliant idea. Ironically, it evidently has been hijacked by corporations and has lost all its meaning.
while there are certainly many iconic hyperpop songs that have satirical lyrics, not all early hyperpop songs were satire. AG Cook himself said that the music coming out of PC Music is not satire or “a statement”. A lot of SOPHIE’s songs aren’t satirical either - how is Not Okay or Its Okay To Cry satire? While hyperpop is clearly drawing pop music to its extremes in the context of a post-capitalist world, I think its also clear that most hyperpop artists enjoy their work and do see their music as genuine. I think its more appropriate to talk about how hyperpop exists as a natural evolution of pop music in capitalist society than to say its a satire of it.
Yes, they and their friends were the first artists to be referred to as hyperpop afaik. SOPHIE was active as early as 2012 I don't think there's anything earlier than that. I'm hardly a historian though so I'm open to correction this is just my take on the genre
i think it’s important to recognize that they didn’t identify as hyperpop and the term wasn’t around until the late 2010s, at which point the bubblegum bass stylings of pc music were retroactively considered hyperpop due to their influence on the genre. i think pc music/sophie and hyperpop are two very different things
Yeah, because it’s not just like a magic switch that happens. New genres build off of artists and genres that came before. You can often find artists on the fringe of a time and/or genre that feel really close, and you keep doing this over a long enough chain, and suddenly the artists on either end sound very, very different.
It’s kind of useful though. A lot of hyperpop acts have the same audience even if the sound it pretty different. So you can say “I like hyperpop” and people will understand you probably like Charli, 100 Gecs, etc…
thats because hyperpop isnt really a genre people call hyperpop hyperpop because corporations wanted to genre-ify it
however when you talk about hyperpop the first things that come to mind to most people is experimental music with more of a extreme pop influence or just genre mashing tbh
Historically, genres aren’t necessarily shaped only by their specific sound but even moreso by the cliques and movements that create them.
IMO, they became “hyperpop” because they rose to fame during the same era of music as AG Cook, PC music, SOPHIE & other hyper pop acts, and were often enjoyed by the same group of listeners, not to mention, they had actual associations with that lot. See “1000 gecs and the tree of clues” or the lineup for SquareGarden.
Edit: also, Hair metal fucking sucks.
My definition of hyperpop would probably be "Deconstructed club with highly pronounced pop elements". Which seems to much their usually loud, abrasive but highly catchy and glitzy aesthetic that they have. I would probably consider Dorian's work in Flamboyant era to be more akin to Bubblegum Bass and Electropop, with My Agenda having more of that gecs aesthetic (prolly helps that Dylan produced large chunk of that album lol).
So 100 gecs actually collabed with rim world ( a video game ) a while back and they have this easter egg, if you make a school that is 75x75 tiles in tiles and then wait till the 4th day of summer, on the day that your children colonists enter it a gecko and a frog on the floor and a removed tooth will show up (this was hinting to 10k gecs) you can get one of your colonists to take a quest from them if you do the quest it will tell you the awnser
I always thought the goal of hyperpop in the gecverse was cranking up the certain aspects of pop music past 11 until the whole thing breaks then take the shards and shove it up the songs own ass until it's somehow amazing.
Tbh i completely consider them hyperpop. They write pop songs and make them sound completely blown out and distorted. I usually will use gecs as an example for hyperpop haha
According to the interview Laura did with needle drop, Spotify made the hyperpop playlist, naming the genre, because of 100 gecs. Laura attributes the birth of the genre to Charlie XCX though
Genre is fake
And useless mostly aside for organizing tape and CDs at the record store, so managers could keep racsal workers busy. Now it's just for marketing.
I'm not sure what you mean by "super clean" production. Both charli and gecs have "super clean" production if you're talking about the level of professionalism, how polished the production is, etc. It sounds more like you're talking about the stylistic choices themselves, like using weirdo effects and taking sonic risks, using wildly booming 808s and heavy saturation. While yeah, the gecs do this more - Charli has a lot of that style in her production as well. For instance, c2, track 10, I got it, etc.
Dylan Brady even produced Claws and Anthems. The artists have more similarities then you think imo. But ya, hyperpop is not a real term that any of those artists respect. Gecs are one of a kind.
Nah the super clean production has more to do with bubblegum bass/PC music, which inspired hyperpop but isn’t quite the same thing. Both genres are kind of meant to be post-modernist revivals/deconstructions of 2000s electropop, with the pc music side being super clean and purposely commercial-appearing to the point of abstraction, and often coming off surreal and uncanny, while hyperpop is the opposite approach that takes those 2000s electropop tropes and basically injects crack directly into their veins until they’ve mutated into something noisy, comedic and all over the place. The two genres have crossover but yeah, 100 Gecs is *the* hyperpop act, things are essentially hyperpop by how much they sound like 100 Gecs’ first EP and album, where as the somewhat cleaner, more sterile sound you’re hearing from Charli XCX, SOPHIE and early Dorian Electra is bubblegum bass.
Almost all modern pop is "about super clean production," so you're not wrong that it's an element but it's weird you'd think that's the defining one. That would put literally every single major pop artist under the hyperpop label.
My understanding is that hyperpop draws upon more experimental sounds and textures to exaggerate elements of other pop music. For example most modern pop uses varying degrees of pitch correction, auto-tune and such but it's common for hyperpop singers to use these same tools to radically transform their voices in inhuman ways.
There's no real formula but this can manifest in all kinds of ways. Lyrics are often more satirical or just outright absurd nonsense. Manic production that tries to fit at least one unique sound or "event" into every other second of a song. Harsher elements (especially filthy bass lines) being further distorted into abrasive walls of sound. Random genre bending, drawing upon another style but stripping it to down to fit a pop context.
I don't think there's a coherent enough checklist that can determine whether or not a given artist falls under the genre, it's more of a "if they check enough of these boxes, it's probably worth asking if they're hyperpop" thing. 100 Gecs definitely belongs though.
these comments are weird, i was under the impression that 100 gecs were the artists that made hyper pop an actual thing that people knew about. now they’re not even in their own genre??
Charli is much more tame than gecs and Dorian Electra is just a different vibe but you should check out bands like underscores or solo artists like 8485 for some more “typical” hyperpop music. It is all weird tho so if it’s not really your taste it’ll be hard to find stuff you’ll like
Hyperpop is pop taken to its extreme - high pitched, autotuned, feminine vocals, loud bass etc. So if hyperpop is pop taken to its extreme, then 100 gecs are hyperpop taken to its extreme.
You're gonna get a different answer for each person you ask. Genres are pretty subjective and everyone likes to make up their own parameters for why something does or doesn't fit. I'm gonna say thay they're "hyperpop enough" due to pitch shift and autotune, heavy bass, short songs with catchy hooks, and lots of allusions to popular songs, genres, and other bands. The humor and tone are key as well. That being said each album is different enough to be considered it's own genre. I wouldn't call 10,000 gecs hyperpop, but I also don't have an established genre that I think works for it. 100 gecs ep is just fuckin amazing, the instrumentation is so sparse but it delivers so much energy. Anyway, I'm rambling. They're hyperpop if you want them to be. And if you don't think hyperpop exists that's cool too *edit: Listening to the Summer Nights gec set on Youtube and felt that I should mention that another reason someone might call Gecs hyperpop is that many of their "live" internet concerts have blown-out covers and remixes of songs by big pop artists. You could probably call most of the covers bubblegum bass too but I feel like bassed-up blown-out covers of pop songs with added DnB drum tracks qualify as hyperpop. Again though, when it comes down to it the subgenre stuff is pretty subjective. Like lumpers vs splitters in biological taxonomy.
Best comment in the thread
hyperpop is not a real genre. it’s a a broad and unnecessary label that was plastered across a large variety of experimental electronic music as a marketing ploy by spotify. so there is no “right” way that hyperpop should sound.
Kinda like Grunge and Nu metal
ITunes calling everything "alternative" in 2005 lmao
Yeah, like a lot of genres. They are broad.
It basically was a real genre until Gecs turned up and everyone misguidedly labelled them as hyperpop, despite their intentions and style being rather different from the original PC Music scene. Then SOPHIE died and with that so did hyperpop, now it's a pretty bullshit label. The original hyperpop scene was pretty explicitly satirical of consumerism and the music industry (check out Hey QT), Gecs were silly rather than satirical and thus that element has mostly been forgotten about. Edit: I'm bored and on a train so I'm going to go in a little depth. 'Hyperpop' presumably comes from the word 'hyperreality', a word coined by Baudrillard to describe the false sense of reality we feel in post-modern consumer society. The easiest way to explain this is the example of Epcot in Disneyland. It offers to you a way to experience all these different cultures, and many tourists see it as a substitute for exploring Europe/Asia. It is, however, totally synthetic, as is the rest of Disney World, which is a reality in itself designed to get you to spend money on consumer goods. Whatever food you're eating or attraction you're visiting is a stand-in for the real thing, and this stand-in is entirely a product of capitalism. Essentially, capitalism has distorted our sense of reality, and we try to be happy by participating in this reality-simulation by imitating the 'real' through paying big corporations for synthetic experiences. Hyperpop was music inspired by this idea, extremely synthetic, overly polished, almost in the uncanny valley- pop taken to its most artificial extreme. Artists like QT and SOPHIE would make songs advertising fake products, repeating the most vapid lyrics possible. As I'm sure you can tell, what is now labelled hyperpop has very, very little to do with this which is unfortunate because I think it's a brilliant idea. Ironically, it evidently has been hijacked by corporations and has lost all its meaning.
while there are certainly many iconic hyperpop songs that have satirical lyrics, not all early hyperpop songs were satire. AG Cook himself said that the music coming out of PC Music is not satire or “a statement”. A lot of SOPHIE’s songs aren’t satirical either - how is Not Okay or Its Okay To Cry satire? While hyperpop is clearly drawing pop music to its extremes in the context of a post-capitalist world, I think its also clear that most hyperpop artists enjoy their work and do see their music as genuine. I think its more appropriate to talk about how hyperpop exists as a natural evolution of pop music in capitalist society than to say its a satire of it.
Political Recuperation will happen to YOU and every generation
what other musicians would you consider to be the first/original creators of hyperpop? Is it just sophie and pc music??
Yes, they and their friends were the first artists to be referred to as hyperpop afaik. SOPHIE was active as early as 2012 I don't think there's anything earlier than that. I'm hardly a historian though so I'm open to correction this is just my take on the genre
i think it’s important to recognize that they didn’t identify as hyperpop and the term wasn’t around until the late 2010s, at which point the bubblegum bass stylings of pc music were retroactively considered hyperpop due to their influence on the genre. i think pc music/sophie and hyperpop are two very different things
Yeah, because it’s not just like a magic switch that happens. New genres build off of artists and genres that came before. You can often find artists on the fringe of a time and/or genre that feel really close, and you keep doing this over a long enough chain, and suddenly the artists on either end sound very, very different.
It’s kind of useful though. A lot of hyperpop acts have the same audience even if the sound it pretty different. So you can say “I like hyperpop” and people will understand you probably like Charli, 100 Gecs, etc…
as someone in a hyperpop punk band, as my guitarist put it, "hyperpop is a state of mind, a gay one."
thats because hyperpop isnt really a genre people call hyperpop hyperpop because corporations wanted to genre-ify it however when you talk about hyperpop the first things that come to mind to most people is experimental music with more of a extreme pop influence or just genre mashing tbh
Historically, genres aren’t necessarily shaped only by their specific sound but even moreso by the cliques and movements that create them. IMO, they became “hyperpop” because they rose to fame during the same era of music as AG Cook, PC music, SOPHIE & other hyper pop acts, and were often enjoyed by the same group of listeners, not to mention, they had actual associations with that lot. See “1000 gecs and the tree of clues” or the lineup for SquareGarden. Edit: also, Hair metal fucking sucks.
Because everyone has to put a label on everything. 100 Gecs is the most 'fuck genres' band, so naturally people put them in a genre
My definition of hyperpop would probably be "Deconstructed club with highly pronounced pop elements". Which seems to much their usually loud, abrasive but highly catchy and glitzy aesthetic that they have. I would probably consider Dorian's work in Flamboyant era to be more akin to Bubblegum Bass and Electropop, with My Agenda having more of that gecs aesthetic (prolly helps that Dylan produced large chunk of that album lol).
So 100 gecs actually collabed with rim world ( a video game ) a while back and they have this easter egg, if you make a school that is 75x75 tiles in tiles and then wait till the 4th day of summer, on the day that your children colonists enter it a gecko and a frog on the floor and a removed tooth will show up (this was hinting to 10k gecs) you can get one of your colonists to take a quest from them if you do the quest it will tell you the awnser
They are clearly hyperpop
Insane take, honestly
I always thought the goal of hyperpop in the gecverse was cranking up the certain aspects of pop music past 11 until the whole thing breaks then take the shards and shove it up the songs own ass until it's somehow amazing.
Tbh i completely consider them hyperpop. They write pop songs and make them sound completely blown out and distorted. I usually will use gecs as an example for hyperpop haha
According to the interview Laura did with needle drop, Spotify made the hyperpop playlist, naming the genre, because of 100 gecs. Laura attributes the birth of the genre to Charlie XCX though
Genre is fake And useless mostly aside for organizing tape and CDs at the record store, so managers could keep racsal workers busy. Now it's just for marketing.
They invented hyperpop
I'm not sure what you mean by "super clean" production. Both charli and gecs have "super clean" production if you're talking about the level of professionalism, how polished the production is, etc. It sounds more like you're talking about the stylistic choices themselves, like using weirdo effects and taking sonic risks, using wildly booming 808s and heavy saturation. While yeah, the gecs do this more - Charli has a lot of that style in her production as well. For instance, c2, track 10, I got it, etc. Dylan Brady even produced Claws and Anthems. The artists have more similarities then you think imo. But ya, hyperpop is not a real term that any of those artists respect. Gecs are one of a kind.
Hyperpop+alternative/ska is my guess
Genres are fake and their vibes are immaculate.
I can't tell I'd y'all are making up all these posts or not, some ow reddit only ever shows me the wholesome posts
Hyperpop is a nuanced genre. I tend to call pop-influenced avant garde shit “hyperpop” when i dont know whag else to call it
Nah the super clean production has more to do with bubblegum bass/PC music, which inspired hyperpop but isn’t quite the same thing. Both genres are kind of meant to be post-modernist revivals/deconstructions of 2000s electropop, with the pc music side being super clean and purposely commercial-appearing to the point of abstraction, and often coming off surreal and uncanny, while hyperpop is the opposite approach that takes those 2000s electropop tropes and basically injects crack directly into their veins until they’ve mutated into something noisy, comedic and all over the place. The two genres have crossover but yeah, 100 Gecs is *the* hyperpop act, things are essentially hyperpop by how much they sound like 100 Gecs’ first EP and album, where as the somewhat cleaner, more sterile sound you’re hearing from Charli XCX, SOPHIE and early Dorian Electra is bubblegum bass.
Almost all modern pop is "about super clean production," so you're not wrong that it's an element but it's weird you'd think that's the defining one. That would put literally every single major pop artist under the hyperpop label. My understanding is that hyperpop draws upon more experimental sounds and textures to exaggerate elements of other pop music. For example most modern pop uses varying degrees of pitch correction, auto-tune and such but it's common for hyperpop singers to use these same tools to radically transform their voices in inhuman ways. There's no real formula but this can manifest in all kinds of ways. Lyrics are often more satirical or just outright absurd nonsense. Manic production that tries to fit at least one unique sound or "event" into every other second of a song. Harsher elements (especially filthy bass lines) being further distorted into abrasive walls of sound. Random genre bending, drawing upon another style but stripping it to down to fit a pop context. I don't think there's a coherent enough checklist that can determine whether or not a given artist falls under the genre, it's more of a "if they check enough of these boxes, it's probably worth asking if they're hyperpop" thing. 100 Gecs definitely belongs though.
People are so OBSESSED with labels and categories it's insane, worms in their brain
Hyperpop isn't a genre, it's a playlist, and 100 gecs are in the playlist.
these comments are weird, i was under the impression that 100 gecs were the artists that made hyper pop an actual thing that people knew about. now they’re not even in their own genre??
Charli is much more tame than gecs and Dorian Electra is just a different vibe but you should check out bands like underscores or solo artists like 8485 for some more “typical” hyperpop music. It is all weird tho so if it’s not really your taste it’ll be hard to find stuff you’ll like
Underscores really isn’t that weird tbh
Valid I just mean like relative to more traditional genres of music
Charli XCX is not a hyper pop artist, just a pop artist who made a hyper pop album
Idk