By Brooke Lynch
I don’t think I was ready for how catchy “800 db cloud” by 100 gecs was gonna be. As an 18-year-old, I was all about the distorted guitars and supposed rawness of punk and grunge, so an experimental electronic album was of no interest to me. But once I heard it, I couldn’t put it down. “800 db cloud” and the album it appeared on, “1000 gecs”, was the only thing I was listening to for a few weeks following my discovery of it. Then, to my surprise I found out that one of the members of 100 gecs, Laura Les, was a trans woman. This completely shifted my perspective on the music, it was no longer pop music I enjoyed, but pop music from a perspective I could relate to.
In a recent interview, trans hyperpop star Dorian Electra said that “To play with expectations about what a ‘pop star’ is supposed to look like, sound like, etc. I think is one of my favorite things to do.” This quote points out what seems to be a common idea between the hyperpop stars putting out music today, to push beyond what we’ve seen in pop music before and create a new space for weirdness and innovation, a common idea that could also apply to the trans community. While, like the hyperpop community, there is no one big consensus on what the goals of the trans community should be, there is a definite push to create a space for people to explore their gender in a way that pushes past what we’ve known before and make a space for people to be who they really are.
Hyperpop creates a space where trans people can explore what music means to them. With more and more people learning about trans identities, more and more people are exploring their gender and finding new ways to connect or disconnect with gender. And as more people connect with their gender, they will want to find or make music to express those feelings.
A great example of this is hyperpop pioneer, SOPHIE’s song “Faceshopping”. In the song, SOPHIE sings, “I’m real when I [photo]shop my face” and “Without my legs or my hair, without my genes or my blood, with no name and with no type of story, where do I live? Tell me, where do I exist?” This song allows SOPHIE to discuss her gender while making music that speaks to her emotions. And in this way, hyperpop does feel truly like outsider music for outsider people.
Many genres such as punk or metal have claimed to be music for people on the outside of society, but that claim has always rung hollow to me. While I’m sure if you asked people who only listen to the most popular music being played, they wouldn’t list any punk or metal bands as one of their favorite artists, these are genres where cisgender heterosexual white men have always dominated. Genres where, to find women or queer people making music, you must venture to subgenres such as riot grrl or queercore. Hyperpop isn’t like that, in fact, I cannot even think of a cishet white male hyperpop artist off the top of my head. It is a genre of music that has both embraced and been embraced by the trans community.
When asked why they thought trans people were attracted to the genre, Hexcode, a nonbinary hyperpop artist said, “There’s something very freeing about expressing gender in the purposely flamboyant and over-the-top way that pop idols embody, so to take that to a further extreme is even better.” To them, there’s a freedom in the gender expression that hyperpop allows which empowers them. The often pitched up vocals of hyperpop is a great example of this. The very high-pitched vocals of some hyperpop artists add an exaggerated aspect to the music, an almost parody of pop vocals, but it also helps alleviate dysphoria for Laura Les of 100 gecs, who finds the higher voice easier to listen to than her non pitched voice. In this way, hyperpop leans into Laura’s transness and Laura’s identity leans into the music.
Hyperpop is a genre that’s just getting started. While it has been around for a few years, I think that its popularity and the popularity of its artists is only going to go up for a while. With artists like 100 gecs, Ellyotto, and Rico Nasty on the rise, it seems like the upward momentum of these bands is continuing to climb. And as mainstream pop artists like Charli XCX move towards the direction of hyperpop we could see the genre moving more and more into the mainstream. It goes without saying that not every hyperpop artist is trans and not every trans person loves hyperpop, but the genre’s open embrace of trans people says something about the genre, and that shouldn’t be ignored.
