Probably my favorite thing to come out of this "post hyperpop" movement.
Oh, what was that? you don't want me to call this "post-hyperpop"? you're right, how about "indie sleaze blog house revival shartification?" is that better? I saw a tedtalk from that tiktok linguist where he discusses how our language is being shaped by LLMs in small but real ways. He likens it to hyperpop, which, rym or genre or not, IS a Spotify playlist based on an IDEA of sprawling pop sounds beyond normal conventions, and as the playlist gained popularity, more people made sounds inspired by it, which led to the Spotify playlist featuring them, which ended up leading to a homogenization as well as a bandwagon that, in my opinion, led to the style falling out of grace.
I think that whatever you want to call this (and what I WILL call it: Post-hyperpop) is the next extension in the building of a sonic and somewhat nostalgic idea that draws from specific sounds (here, the electronic indie scenes of the mid 2000s) and expands them with more modernized technology, topics, cultures and niches. Who was the first to do this? probably brat. Brat brought this idea into the culture, It pulls out all these stops, she works with other people who are on the forefront of the idea (mainly The Dare), but there is something different. Brat is incredibly earnest, which I think is the main selling point of the album. There are a million electropop albums, but how many of them are both hedonistic while also being reflective in the pitfalls of insecurity and fame?
At the forefront of hyperpop, you obviously have 1000 gecs (album), who I believe gave the sound any sort of meaning and relevance. The reason that 1000 gecs does it better than anyone else is because beyond the sounds and what many perceive as irony is a deep earnestness towards making music, listening to music, and being apart of a counterculture. being an emo and getting made fun of in high school, listening to nightcore even though it isn't cool. The same bastardization (cruel verbiage, maybe) of language that comes from the increase in use of "delve" can be seen in the increase of hyperpop albums that sound okay (all music is good), but clearly do not understand that the thing that made early hyperpop sound special was the fact that they were on the fringes of popular culture, and the idea was that this is not an ironic detachment of dubstep and nightcore, this is a deep love of it. Of course, in that quarantine they blew up because of hyperpop playlist spotify, they had a mixed reaction on tiktok, a lot of people who were too stupid to get it (that is too mean, but I mean come on. Really guys? The things I saw during that two week span was beyond comprehension). And after it falls into obscurity, it still exists in small bursts, but you have people like Ely Otto which make you realize that the sample packs and the references were not what made it interesting, but it was the genuine emotion and fearlessness that brought it to new heights.
Anyways, Charli XCX makes Brat, right? It's really good, and then 9 months later you get Rebecca Black's Salvation, which is the Post-hyperpop equivalent to this trend hopping. The soundscapes are there, the breakbeats and hip hop influences are there, but what is missing? The earnestness, none of these lyrics mean aything, they lean more into empty hedonism than a reflection of the slippery slope of the hedonism at play. Kim Petras is the worst offender of this, she is to electronic pop music what Toby Keith is to country: A trend hopper, someone who flips from soulful trad country to post 9/11 Muslim hate to bro-country party songs (I would like to say for the record that I do love "Red Solo Cup").
Slayyyter has been here the entire time. her debut mixtape was on the fringes of hyperpop while being more related to well produced hedonism. She always balanced it with more traditional pop songs, until she got to here. This is post-hyperpop in the same way that rebecca black is, except slayyyter really does not give a fuck (which, in turn, leads to it feeling more earnest). Rebecca black cares about what she is and what she sounds like and how she is perceived, slayyyter made the hardest beat of the last couple of years interspersed with her giving a strange man head in an elevator. I love slayyyter. Lets keep watching the post-hyperpop ship crash and burn, and wait for Kim Petras to make a Fiona Apple copycat record when that style becomes the third derivation of this sound.