Who is popular today?

Bubblegum sweet, razor sharp and deliriously chaotic, the genre – if it even is one – is responsible for some of the most vibrant, strange pop in the country
The music of the moment is not Billie Eilish’s dark, whispered polemics; nor is it Justin Bieber’s beatific R&B, or Tones & I’s helium-voiced hollering. The sound that defines the pandemic era is bubblegum sweet and razor sharp; deliriously loud and disorientatingly nonlinear. It’s a chaotic vortex of pre-existing sounds ratcheted up to the extreme, and moulded into something that reflects our industrial, internety present and future.
It’s hyperpop: a booming, blossoming microgenre that’s fast establishing itself as the nucleus of 2020s pop in Australia and beyond. Continue reading...