A notification went off on my phone.
I clicked on it and a screenshot of a song popped up. A text below screamed at me in all capitals: “LISTEN TO THIS RN IT’S SO GOOD!!!!”
Unconvinced by the flashy cover, I punched the song into my music app and hit play. That was the day I fell in love.
Hyperpop is a rising sub genre of music that is an amalgam of dubstep, hip-hop, dance and pop music. It’s largely recognized by its sped-up repetition and brightly-colored, exaggerated album covers.
Hyperpop is a relatively new genre of music. It started in 2010 with Kesha, consisting of broken-up vocals like those in her songs “Blah Blah Blah featuring 3OH!3” and “Blow,” acquiring over 119 million and 189 million listens respectively on Spotify, as of October.
The genre is especially entertaining because it’s uncommon and norm-breaking, making it something people usually haven’t heard before. After hearing the same styles of music for 17 years, something brand new is refreshing. Hyperpop combines the creativeness of hip-hop and rap with the background music of electronic pop and dubstep: the best of all worlds.
A great beginner artist to listen to get into the genre is 6arelyhuman. They’re most famous for their songs “Faster n Harder,” “Hands Up!” and “DANCE! Till we die.”
Odetari, on the other hand, makes almost all hyperpop-focused music. A great beginner album to listen to from him would be “XIII SORROWS,” filled with classic elements of the genre.
When diving deeper into hyperpop as a genre, the catchiest artist is D3R. He’s made everything — from original songs like “no escape featuring Asteria” to covers of classic hits like “Toxic” by Brittany Spears.
Lumi Athena is another artist who creates a type of music called “krushclub” — essentially a chiller denomination of hyperpop that has bitcrushed electrodance beats in the background. My favorite hits by him include “LET ME SEE YA MOVE!,” “NALGOTICA!” and “SMOKE IT OFF!”
We live in an era where there’s a lack of chaos, a lack of norm-breaking and a lack of fun in music. It doesn’t kill people to live a little.
