In July 2022, while on one of my frequent late-night YouTube doomscrolls, one video caught my eye: a cover of “positions” by Ariana Grande, performed by Dorian Electra. I clicked play out of boredom. After an excruciatingly confusing and painful two minutes and 45 seconds of ear-piercing vocals, I sent it to a group chat with my friends and asked a simple question: “What the hell has music come to?”

This passing glance was not my first glimpse of hyperpop, quite the opposite. As far back as 2019, some of my friends kept trying to get me to listen to artists like 100 gecs and A.G. Cook, and I always brushed their suggestions off with that same response: “This isn’t music, it’s garbage.” I hated hyperpop, and couldn’t understand why anybody would willingly submit themselves to listening to chaos on repeat.

Not even one year later, in March 2023, Dorian Electra became one of my top artists on Spotify, and tracks from 100 gecs’ latest album “10,000 gecs” lined the various playlists I held dearly. In car rides with my friends, I’d make them listen to tracks like “Ram It Down” and “757” by Electra and 100 gecs respectively, and rather than sending my friends their songs in confusion, I became a sort of evangelist for the genre. 

The moment that marked my shift in opinion on the genre was exactly what drew me to Dorian Electra in the first place: boredom and curiosity. I had become tired of my music taste, and, to satisfy my hunger, I dove into Electra’s discography and finally understood hyperpop through their album “My Agenda.”

Electra’s sophomore album, “My Agenda,” is a landmark hyperpop record, and for good reason. It contains all of the titular hyperpop trademarks: aggressive and overproduced instrumentals, gaudy, screeching vocals and tongue-in-cheek lyricism. Hidden in this chaos, the album reveals a level of lyrical intelligence that is, in a way, unique to its digital nature.

“My Agenda” is a project focused on satirizing and exploring the limits of internet incel culture, homophobia and hypermasculinity through the lens of a queer artist, and it leans into this by utilizing on-the-nose internet references only the digital generation could understand. It is this very boundary-pushing exploration of societal issues that made me realize that there is more to the genre of hyperpop than just blaring music. 

Hyperpop is unafraid, allowing it to express an almost visceral range of emotions in a way that few other genres can match. Not many songs could protest against homophobia and societal gender constructions, all while blending nu-metal and industrial hardstyle in one track, but “Ram It Down” accomplishes just that. 

Up until September 2023, my knowledge of hyperpop was limited to that of Dorian Electra and 100 gecs, with a handful of other tracks in the mix. That month, however, a recent release seemed to take by storm the small music reviewer section of TikTok I had recently been on: “Wallsocket” by underscores. 

“Wallsocket” was a very different type of album from the hyperpop I had been used to, trading out 24/7 in-your-face chaos with more nuanced — and at points haunting — production, which makes its more blaring moments all the more impactful. 

Outside of its sound, “Wallsocket” is a richly written concept album laden with themes of religious trauma, issues of class resentment and criticism of gun violence and war. underscores’ intelligent writing scratched the itch that made me love hyperpop in the first place, and the catchy beats of even the most dark songs, like in “Johnny johnny johnny,” placed the album in my heavy rotation.

My love for “Wallsocket” and underscores helped me discover even more incredible music within the hyperpop genre, including “fishmonger,” underscores’ first album, and the music of six impala, a band underscores herself is a part of. 

Outside of the witty lyricism, I began to yearn for the more absurd and outright insane parts of hyperpop, an aspect six impala’s “LOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVE” and “HATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATE” satisfied greatly. 

It is impossible to talk about hyperpop without discussing the definitive work of SOPHIE, whose tracks “It’s Okay To Cry” and “Immaterial” entered my rotation around this time. In fear of sounding pretentious, the dichotomy I feel between these two songs is the closest I will ever get to understanding the depth of human nature, where “It’s Okay To Cry” represents pure vulnerability and “Immaterial” represents the feeling of transcending it.

When I first started truly listening to hyperpop, I thought that, like all of my musical interests, it would soon pass and I wouldn’t enjoy it in a year. However, that assumption could not have been further from the truth, as I continue to search for the limit to this form of digital musical expression, and I have not found it yet. 

At its core, hyperpop feels like the most brutally honest form of expression that I have found in music, and it has changed how I listen to music for the better. To me, computer music is forever.

“Jam Journal” is a rotating column featuring a new Daily Trojan editor in each installment commenting on the music most important to them. Noah Pinales is the digital managing editor at the Daily Trojan.