A little bit of ‘XS’: How hyperpop became the soundtrack of y2k fashion
OMG. Okay, so these are my OBSESSION CONFESSIONS. I know, maybe it’s a little embarrassing, but come on… Surely I can’t be the only one? This series is about all the things that we can’t take our eyes off, the latest viral TikTok trends, the secret infatuations with certain former boyband members…okay I’m only going to say this one more time, surely I can’t be the only one?
Remember when you’d set different ringtones for every friend, colleague and lover in your contacts? Back when having a camera phone was the height of chic in a world dominated by Nokia bricks and you still needed dial-up to get on the internet? (Please say you remember. I’m not that old, I swear). Thankfully, 100 GECS do. They have a whole song about it. A quirky chiptune about the joy of hearing that special someone’s ringtone that takes us back to the start of the millennium. It’s sweet, it’s nostalgic, it’s hyperpop. And it’s the music that’s become the soundtrack for our love of the early 2000s and defined this decade’s obsession with all things y2k.
You can’t talk about hyperpop without talking about CHARLI XCX who, in an essential need-to-know tweet last year, asked: “What is hyperpop?” The British singer herself has become the darling of the genre and is at the pinnacle of its relationship with this generation’s y2k fashion resurgence. It’s a glitchy, distorted, maximalist sound, filled to the brim with ironic auto-tune and self-referential lyrics. From her collaborations with SOPHIE for Vroom Vroom and eponymous album Charli, to last year’s lockdown labour of love, How I’m Feeling Now, XCX’s entire aesthetic has come to embody the genre and its conventions, turning out looks as equally satisfying as the music that precedes them. It’s an assortment of baggy streetwear, crop-tops and bubble gum pink bras against a green-screen backdrop of early internet gifs and animated clips.
y2k fashion in itself is all things pop and commercialism, making fast fashion appear designer. It’s about looks and statements, and largely inspired by the pop-culture icons of the time. The same can be said for hyperpop: taking the commercial and experimenting with it until it assumes a new identity. Just imagine Britney, Lindsay and Paris squeezing into a car and all jamming to ringtone or Guyliner. It’s loud, gaudy and covered in labels. Dip-dyed fringes and kitschy accessories to accentuate it all. As our OG number one says, “that’s hot.”
While the likes of 100 GECS, DORIAN ELECTRA, PC MUSIC and SOPHIE were pioneers of the genre, building their entire image around the phenomenon, they’re not alone. Incorporating hyperpop’s personality and style into their lyrics and aesthetic, artists including KIM PETRAS, GRIMES, KERO KERO BONITO, SHYGIRL and SLAYYYTER have also dabbled in this.
Perhaps the best example of this is through one of the biggest breakouts of last year: RINA SAWAYAMA. Her eponymous debut made a sizeable mark on the charts and amongst critics (the album even went on to change the eligibility requirements for British music awards after being told she was “not British enough” to enter the Brits and the Mercury Prize). In a video for lead single, XS, that would give QVC a run for its money, Sawayama presents a scathing critique of the world’s commercialist attitudes packed up into a hyperpop beat mixed with elements of early rock and nu-metal. It’s an explosion of sound, sight, satire and style.
As hyperpop has taken on its own identity as a genre made for fun and experimentation, it has simultaneously resurrected the fashion and style that was around at the turn of the millennium: a period that was alive with unadulterated sass, sex appeal and an unwavering self-confidence (self-obsession, some might call it). For a fashion once considered fashion-less, it is only appropriate that a genre considered genre-less is leading its revival.