Distingiushing between "hyperpop" and "digicore"

I make a strange and unusual distinction between the terms hyperpop and digicore. The TL;DR of that distinction is:

  • I use hyperpop to refer to the more pop and miscelaneous genre-inspired sound: PC Music, 100 gecs, Charli XCX, underscores, etc.;
  • I use digicore to refer to the SoundCloud offshoot, primarily focused on rap: osquinn, Jane Remover[1], etc.

In reality, both terms are generally taken to mean the same thing and are used interchangeably.

Hyperpop and Digicore as genres#

Ask anyone who was around at the time of hyperpop's big pandemic boom (that's me!) and they'll tell you: “Hyperpop is not a genre”. Hyperpop (and digicore by extension) is a community.

Every hyperpop or digicore artist sounds different, but there are a few tells that someone belongs: in musical style (electronic sounds, heavy autotune, blending genres, the way it's mixed and produced) and in that just by clicking around, you'll see some familiar faces in their reposts and likes.

History and etymology#

Historically speaking, PC Music came first, with the likes of A.G. Cook and Sophie. 100 gecs brought the hyperpop style to the masses, with the success of their debut album 1000 gecs.

The name hyperpop came first, which is why it ended up being used as the blanket term for all of the above artists. It later got used by Spotify for its Hyperpop playlist, which cemented its status as the “pop” label.

SoundCloud's response to the success of Spotify's Hyperpop playlist was the digicore playlist (curated by notable scene journalist Billie Bugara, co-founder of deadAir Records). According to Wikipedia (yes there is a Wikipedia article for digicore[2], no I never heard anyone calling it “draincore”), the name was coined back in 2019, before being used for the playlist in 2021. It quickly caught on in the SoundCloud community from there.

  1. ^

    Jane Remover makes so many different types of music that I think it warrants a footnote:

    • Teen Week and all the now-deleted tracks that came before it are digicore.
    • Frailty is definitionally (in my definition, anyways) hyperpop, but spiritually digicore.
    • Census Designated is a post-rock album.
    • Revengeseekerz is digicore but I wouldn't hesitate to call it hyperpop either, purely because of just how popular it got (it pretty much estabilished Jane as a staple of underground rap in general, not just the digicore/hyperpop community).
    • The ♡ EP blurs the lines between pop and hyperpop.

    Scientists and scholars have yet to decide if dariacore is hyperpop. It might as well be. (Modern leroy however is, and I'll quote their own words here, just [..] EDM 💔 (from a now-deleted tweet that stuck in my mind).)

  2. ^

    Which I wasn't aware of until midway through writing this page. I guess my hunch of calling them separate “genres” is not that weird after all… :D