Closer Look: Hyperpop 2020

Enjoy and subscribe to the latest Closer Look above! Scroll down for the individual tracks selected from the Hyper Pop of 2021.

In 2019, Vice named 1000 gecs, the debut record from Hyperpop duo 100 gecs, album of the year. In hindsight, their write up on the album is both fascinating and hilarious; they had no idea how to describe what we now know to be Hyperpop. All they could define was the sheer calamity of the music, the fact that it sounds like a million sounds at once, the pure chaos of it all. The opening words of their mini review read “There are few things that 1000 Gecs—the full-length debut from Laura Les and Dylan Brady—doesn’t sound like.” If your first exposure to Hyperpop came in 2019 from 100 gecs, you can surely relate to this loss for words. I personally remember thinking to myself, “what the fuck is this?” feeling both confused and amazed.

Today, as society has gained a better grasp on the genre, Hyperpop has become defined by a few key sonic elements. There are the pitched up voices, the rapid electronic beats, seemingly random instrumental switches, and heaps of auto tune. Publications can see it in the wild and identify it properly. Icons like CharliXCX have brought it to the mainstream and served as a gateway to the more abrasive deep cuts. It’s even made it’s way to popular hip hop through artists like Rico Nasty. But what’s grown to make the genre such an enigma is the meta aspect; it functions as an homage to modern music history as well as a parody of it. Hyperpop often seems to make creative decisions not to advance the craft, but simply because it can. No other genre will feature ska, drum and bass, and bling era hip hop on the same song, and that’s because it’s not necessarily a good idea. But by design, Hyperpop does not seek to please the masses or fit into any kind of box. It exists in the whiplash, the unhinged, the “holy fucking shit.” If you don’t like what you’re hearing, you can just skip to the next track, it too will sound like nothing you have ever heard before.