What Is Hyperpop? Origins, Sound & How To Produce It
Nov 9, 2025
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Tero Potila
If you've scrolled through TikTok or explored alternative music playlists recently, you've probably encountered hyperpop without even realizing it. Hyperpop takes the standard pop formula and pushes it into absolute overdrive, blending electronic, hip-hop, rock, and experimental dance music elements into something entirely new.
What makes hyperpop so fascinating to me as a producer is its complete rejection of polish and perfection.
Instead of hiding the artificial aspects of music production, hyperpop cranks them up to extreme levels.
It has a futuristic yet uniquely nostalgic feel, like a remix of internet culture itself.
Hyperpop’s appeal definitely lies in its freedom. There are no rules, only creative boundaries to push and shatter.
This rule-breaking style has sparked a whole new wave of artists, and it’s almost like making music that reflects how the internet feels: fast, jumbled, and completely unapologetic.
What Is Hyperpop? Defining the Sound and Style
Signature Characteristics and Production Techniques
It’s easy to recognize hyperpop by its exaggerated approach to modern music production.
The genre trades pristine, clean sound for hyper-real textures, using brash synth melodies, excessive compression, heavy distortion, and metallic percussion to create what some describe as a cartoonish wall of noise.
Hyperpop production typically involves bright saw synths that oscillate between shimmery bubblegum pop melodies and mangled, glitch-inspired drum machines pushed beyond conventional limits.
This aggressive blending of sugary hooks with abrasive club textures is exactly what defined the bubblegum bass sound that laid the groundwork for the movement.
I’ve noticed that the most effective hyperpop tracks thrive on contrast. Producers love to stack sugary hooks against abrasive noise.
Sudden tempo shifts and unconventional sound effects keep the listener guessing.
Vocal Manipulation and Effects
The vocals in hyperpop become instruments in their own right through heavy processing.
Pitch-shifted vocals are fundamental, often pushed to chipmunk-like highs or dropped to unnatural lows using formant shifting.
Auto-tuned vocals appear throughout the genre, but not subtly. You’ll hear harsh tuning applied as an obvious effect rather than a subtle correction.
This creates synthetic, artificial vocal textures that hyperpop artists frequently use to experiment with gender presentation and androgyny.
It’s a unique sound that’s intentionally excessive yet addictively catchy.
Genre-Blending and Maximalism
One of my favorite aspects of hyperpop is how it completely rejects the idea of staying within a single genre boundary.
You’ll find it mixing emo rap, cloud rap, dubstep, trance, and nu-metal into a single track.
This maximalist philosophy means more is more: more layers, more effects, more genre switches.
Visually, the genre also matches this chaotic energy. It’s all neon, pixel art, and throwbacks to early internet aesthetics, embracing a late-capitalism-dystopia vibe that reflects our digitally saturated world.
Influential Artists, Community, and Cultural Impact
The hyperpop movement emerged from a network of innovative producers and artists who transformed experimental music into a cultural phenomenon.
The Role of PC Music and Key Producers
When tracing the roots, we have to look back to the early 2010s when a brilliant underground electronic scene first started bubbling up in the UK.
It’s worth starting with A G Cook, who founded the PC Music record label in 2013 and developed a distinctive aesthetic that combined glossy production with ironic takes on commercial pop.
PC Music artists and affiliates, such as SOPHIE, pioneered production techniques that became staples of the genre.
SOPHIE’s abrasive, groundbreaking sound design, which she brought to Charli XCX’s Vroom Vroom EP, demonstrated how experimental electronic music could merge perfectly with pop accessibility.
As a producer, I find it fascinating how these pioneers normalized extreme audio processing that would’ve seemed completely unthinkable in mainstream pop culture just a few years prior.
Breakout Artists and Iconic Tracks
Long before things fully exploded in the late 2010s, you can actually trace some of these mainstream roots back to Lady Gaga’s 2013 album ARTPOP.
I’ve always felt it was way ahead of its time for channeling that exact type of chaotic, maximalist electronic energy before hyperpop even had an official name.
It laid some serious groundwork, but acts like 100 gecs (the duo of Laura Les and Dylan Brady) and Charli XCX, arguably the biggest hyperpop artist on the planet, officially dragged the genre into the spotlight.
100 gecs’ debut album, 1000 Gecs, introduced a massive audience to the genre’s over-the-top style.
I still remember when I first heard their track “Money Machine” back in 2019; its glitchy sound and raw energy absolutely blew me away.
The industry validation came quickly, too, with New York Times pop music critic Jon Caramanica famously naming it the absolute best album of 2019, a huge nod to a sound that traditionalists were writing off as pure noise.
Charli XCX’s album How I’m Feeling Now gave the genre real music industry clout, proving that these elements could elevate pop songwriting.
Other artists like Rina Sawayama, Dorian Electra, Slayyyter, and Hannah Diamond expanded the scene’s reach, bringing their unique visual flair, experimental pop sensibilities, and gender-fluid vibes to a broader audience.
Community, Social Media, and Mainstream Success
Hyperpop truly thrives online. In a lot of ways, it is widely considered the first genre completely defined, shaped, and distributed through internet platforms.
Discord servers and SoundCloud created DIY spaces where bedroom producers could share techniques and swap unfinished demos.
Spotify and TikTok were massive catalysts for the genre. In 2019, Spotify senior editor Lizzy Szabo launched Spotify’s Hyperpop playlist, which gave the movement its name and a centralized identity.
Suddenly, a viral TikTok moment could catapult a track from an obscure playlist directly into the mainstream.
This shift completely leveled the playing field, giving independent artists a direct line to millions of listeners without needing any major label backing.
The community embraced inclusivity, with many LGBTQ+ artists finding representation and a global stage.
That mainstream crossover is no joke, and we’re even seeing these underground techniques bleed onto the global charts today.
For her 2024 album Radical Optimism, Dua Lipa went straight to the source and brought on PC Music pioneer Danny L Harle to co-produce the record.
If you listen closely to the driving, aggressive synth production on global hits like “Houdini”, you can hear how those hyperpop club roots have been reshaped into stadium-ready pop.
How To Produce Hyperpop
The beauty of this genre is that you don’t need expensive gear or a fancy studio. Some of the biggest tracks were made on laptops with basic headphones.
What really matters is your attitude and willingness to experiment.
Check out Soundtrap’s Princess Hyperpop Sample Collection. It’s full of glitchy drums, bright leads, and processed vocals to get you started.
Soundtrap
Combine those loops with your own ideas, and you’ll have your first track faster than you think.
Here are five steps to help you nail the sound:
1. Start With A Catchy Hook
Hyperpop thrives on strong melodies. Even though the sound design can get chaotic, the core is still pop.
I always like to start with a simple, memorable melody or chord progression, something you could hum even after the distortion fades.
Try building your hook using bright synths, then loop it until it feels irresistible.
2. Push The Sound Design
Don’t be afraid to go completely over the top.
Pitch your vocals higher or lower than usual, crush your drums with distortion, or automate filters to create unpredictable textures. Hyperpop is about embracing the artificial.
You can use Soundtrap’s built-in effects like Vocal Tuner, Bitcrusher, and compressors to exaggerate your sounds in fun, creative ways.
3. Layer Contrasts
One of the genre’s hallmarks is its ability to combine extremes. Cute melodies meet aggressive beats, and soft vocals clash against distorted bass.
Try stacking a bubblegum-sweet synth lead with a heavy 808 or a metallic snare. I like to think of it as a sound collage where you contrast emotions and textures until something surprising clicks.
4. Keep The Energy Unpredictable
Arrangements in hyperpop often feel like they’re constantly mutating. Drop the drums for half a bar, double the tempo mid-chorus, or switch keys out of nowhere.
Use automation to keep listeners on their toes. Even subtle stuttered transitions can make your track feel wildly alive.
5. Play With Vocals Like An Instrument
Vocals are rarely left natural here. Record your vocals, then experiment. Cut them into pieces, run them through heavy tuning, or layer harmonies until your voice feels like it’s just another part of the synth texture.
Ongoing Evolution and Future Trends
While the initial hype cycle has evolved, hyperpop’s legacy persists.
In recent years, Its influence has splintered into distinct microgenres like digicore and rage music, showing just how far those initial internet seeds have grown.
Digicore took the bedroom-producer aesthetic of early hyperpop and leaned even heavier into rap, cloud rap, and a deeply online SoundCloud culture, spearheaded by younger artists like glaive and ericdoa.
On the flip side, rage music took the distorted synths and aggressive sound design and smashed them into mainstream hip-hop, heavily influencing the massive, wall-of-sound trap tracks you hear from artists like Playboi Carti and Yeat.
What’s really interesting is that while many of the original artists have distanced themselves from the term hyperpop to avoid being pigeonholed, the DNA of the genre has completely infected mainstream music.
Its signature production techniques, extreme pitch-shifting, aggressive sidechaining, glitchy audio textures, and digital clipping, are no longer considered mistakes or underground quirks.
They are now commonplace tools in modern pop and hip-hop production.
Conclusion
Hyperpop isn’t just a genre; it’s a creative movement powered by curiosity and digital DIY energy.
As a producer, I love how it reminds me that music doesn’t have to fit into a neat little box. It’s ok to push beyond the limits and break rules.
This kind of approach forces you to stop chasing perfection and go after raw emotion. Whether you’re chopping vocals or distorting your first beat, hyperpop gives you permission to go too far.
And that’s precisely where the magic happens, so don’t be afraid to crank up the distortion and make some beautiful noise.
About the author
Tero Potila is a professional music composer and producer. His career combining knowledge and experience from music, TV, film, ad, and game industries gives him a unique perspective that he shares through posts on teropotila.com.
