Renee Paxson

Debra Blouch

English 1201

21 March 2021

What Draws Genderqueer Artists to Hyperpop? Literature Review

Pop music is a widely popular music genre, and a style called hyperpop is a new booming

subgenre. Despite being shunned by the music industry for decades, transgender and other

genderqueer artists are at the front of this new wave of music and are making a huge splash.

A big part of why transgender and non-binary artists are drawn to the hyperpop genre is

the use of voice modulators. Part of the core of the genre is heavy electronic sounds and pitched

vocals. The synthesized voice has been related to synthetic hormones by some artists. Laura Les,

for example, is the transgender second half of the bombastic duo 100 Gecs, and she has said that

the voice pitching both sounds cooler to her and helps relieve her gender dysphoria (Marsh;

Enis).

One of the founders of the hyperpop genre is the late transformational artist named

SOPHIE. SOPHIE produced for headlining acts such as Charli XCX, Vince Staples, Kendrick

Lamar, and Madonna before she released her debut album OIL OF EVERY PEARL’S UN-

INSIDES in 2018. SOPHIE was a trans hyperpop icon – she was one of the first musicians to

propel the genre to where it is today (Moran).

Sophie died in January of 2021 after falling off of a roof in Greece trying to look at the

moon. She has been mourned across the industry. Vince Staples, a rapper who went on tour with

her a few years back and worked on a two tracks with her off his album “Big Fish Theory”,

commemorates her memory, calling her “fearless” and “one of a kind” (Vozick-Levinson).
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Gender queerness has existed in other cultures for centuries. In Hindu India, for example,

there is a religiously and officially recognized third gender. While there are a couple different

communities of third gender people, the most common members are hijras. Hijras are typically

born male and dress in a feminine way. Their role in Hindu households is to bless Hindu births

and weddings, and if they are disrespected, they can also curse Hindu families (Moore).

Influential artists of history such as Big Mama Thornton, Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Lucille

Bogan, Little Richard, Prince, and so many more have carved the path that leads to hyperpop

today. Most importantly is Wendy Carlos, a transgender composer who has worked on such

projects as A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, and 1982’s Tron. Carlos is the first person to use

a vocoder to modulate her voice, one of the defining sounds of hyperpop today. (Geffen)

I have the privilege to have contact with a very talented up and coming artist right now –

Mae, or Phixel. Phixel gained most of her present-day success from her stunning third album

Shapes and Colors, where she tackles dark personal issues regarding relationships and abuse,

masked by a seemingly light and positive sound. On the track Blender, she talks about having a

hard time fitting in. Instead of having trouble fitting in with society at large, however, she’s more

concerned with fitting in with her fellow hyperpop producers. Mae is still very young, and she

said that being raised on the internet made it more possible for her to become comfortable

enough in her gender identity that she worries more about how she compares to her queer peers

than society at large (Paxson).

In conclusion, trans and genderqueer artists have found themselves in hyperpop. The

genre is as revolutionary as transgender people are considered in society, and it allows these

artists to push the boundaries of pop music and carve out a new path for themselves where their

talents were not previously celebrated.

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Works Cited

“Big Mama Thornton (circa 1950s).” Alabama Music Hall of Fame, PHOTOFEST, 1950,

www.alamhof.org/news-1/2020/2/9/black-history-month-spotlight-willie-mae-big-mama-

thornton.

Carter, Paul. “Charli XCX and Sophie.” Red Bull Content Pool, 11 Nov. 2016,

www.redbullcontentpool.com/international/CP-P-132486.

DeLessio, Leonard M. “Wendy Carlos.” Getty Images, New York City, 9 Oct. 1979,

www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/composer-and-electronic-musician-wendy-

carlos-at-work-in-news-photo/524432758?adppopup=true.

Enis, Eli. “This Is Hyperpop: A Genre Tag for Genre-Less Music.” VICE, 27 Oct. 2020,

www.vice.com/en/article/bvx85v/this-is-hyperpop-a-genre-tag-for-genre-less-music.

Geffen, Sasha. Glitter up the Dark: How Pop Music Broke the Binary. University of Texas Press,

2020. 

Marsh, Ty. “Trans Roots in the Hyperpop Music Genre.” ORANGE Magazine, 3 Nov. 2020,

orangemag.co/orangeblog/2020/10/15/exploring-the-trans-roots-of-hyperpop.

Moore, Diane L. “The Third Gender and Hijras.” Religion and Public Life at Harvard Divinity

School, 2018, rpl.hds.harvard.edu/religion-context/case-studies/gender/third-gender-and-

hijras.

Moran, Justin. “SOPHIE's Whole New World.” PAPER, PAPER Magazine, 18 June 2018,

www.papermag.com/sophie-pride-2579165152.html?rebelltitem=24#rebelltitem24.

Paxson, Renee, and Mae. “Phixel and Hyperpop.” 1 May 2021.

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Vozick-Levinson, Simon. “Vince Staples Remembers Sophie: 'She Was Never Afraid'.” Rolling

Stone, Rolling Stone, 3 Feb. 2021, www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/vince-

staples-sophie-tribute-1122824/.