Hyperpop

around 2013 · London (PC Music) and the online underground

Pop reconstructed through a maximalist, internet-native lens: hyperpop started in 2013 with A.G. Cook and SOPHIE at PC Music and went global by 2019 via 100 gecs, exaggerating pop's sweetness into distorted, hyper-digital extremes (Pitchfork, The Fader).

The sound

Maximalist, internet-native pop: zero-retune pitch correction, extreme formant-shifted vocals, clipping and distorted synths, blown-out 808s, and songs under three minutes that pivot genre without warning. Tempos swing from 80 BPM half-time trap to 160 BPM-plus glitchcore.

Listen for: How everything is pushed past the red. Vocals pitched into candy or into chipmunk, synths clipping on purpose, sweetness and abrasion fighting in the same three-minute pop song.

Things to know

  1. Hyperpop traces to 2013, when A.G. Cook founded the PC Music label in London and, with SOPHIE, built a maximalist, ironic take on pop that treated bubblegum sweetness as raw material to distort.

  2. Hyperpop's signature vocal sound comes from pushing pitch correction and formant shifting to extremes, so voices land as candy-sweet, chipmunked, or robotic rather than natural.

  3. Hyperpop broke wide in 2019 when 100 gecs released 1000 gecs, and a namesake Spotify playlist in 2020 turned the loose scene into a recognized genre, culminating in Charli XCX's Grammy-winning 2024 album Brat.

Key tracks

Family tree

  • Deconstructed Club: SOPHIE and Arca are the bridge between the two worlds. Both scenes lean on extreme digital distortion, metallic percussion, and pitch-shifted vocals; artists like Sega Bodega and Shygirl openly blend hyperpop's hooks with deconstructed club's broken, bass-heavy rhythms.
  • Grime: Hyperpop pulls grime's abrasive, sub-heavy energy into a pop frame. The PC Music circle grew up on UK bass and grime, and you can hear it in the blown out 808s and clipping low end sitting under candy-sweet, pitched-up vocal hooks.

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