Hypnagogic pop, also called h-pop, is a style of music that mixes pop and psychedelic sounds. It reminds listeners of entertainment from the past, especially the 1980s and early 1990s. This genre began in the 2000s when young American artists used home recording equipment to create music. These artists borrowed sounds from their childhood, such as radio, soft rock, new wave, video game music, synth-pop, R&B, film soundtracks, and early Internet styles. Their recordings often used old analog tools and experimental techniques. These songs were shared on cassettes and CD-Rs, mainly through websites on the Internet.
The term "hypnagogic pop" was created by journalist David Keenan in 2009. He named it after a comment by musician James Ferraro, who said that sounds from the 1980s had influenced musicians while they were young and sleeping. Keenan described the genre as "pop music filtered through memories of the past." The term was sometimes used with "chillwave" or "glo-fi." Artists like Ariel Pink and James Ferraro helped the genre gain attention. Some people compared it to updated psychedelic music, a way of reusing ideas from old media culture, or a style similar to British hauntology.
After Keenan’s article, The Wire magazine received many negative letters criticizing hypnagogic pop. Some artists who were labeled with the term disagreed, saying the style was not clearly defined. During the 2010s, the genre’s focus on revisiting the past became part of new youth trends. It influenced the rise of bedroom pop, and some of its ideas later developed into a style called vaporwave.
Etymology
In August 2009, journalist David Keenan, who was known for writing about noise, freak folk, and drone music scenes, introduced the term "hypnagogic pop" in issue 306 of the British music magazine The Wire. His article was titled Childhood's End. Keenan used the term to describe a growing trend in 2000s music that combined lo-fi and post-noise styles with themes like cultural nostalgia, childhood memories, and older recording equipment. The idea was inspired by comments from James Ferraro and Spencer Clark of the band Skaters, as well as a concept discussed by Russian writer P.D. Ouspensky. Keenan explained that "hypnagogic" refers to the mental state between waking and sleeping, a time when people might hear things incorrectly or experience hallucinations that influence dreams. The term is believed to have come from a comment by James Ferraro, who suggested that sounds from the 1980s had become part of modern musicians' unconscious memories, possibly because they heard music while falling asleep as children.
Artists mentioned in Keenan's article included Ariel Pink, Daniel Lopatin, the Skaters, the Savage Young Taterbug, Gary War, Zola Jesus, Ducktails, Emeralds, and Pocahaunted. Keenan noted that these artists used memories of the 1980s and early 1990s from their youth, but they removed these memories from their original historical settings and focused instead on the futuristic ideas of that time. He described hypnagogic pop as "pop music filtered through memories of the past" and as "1980s-inspired psychedelic music" that connects with leftover parts of the past related to capitalism to imagine the future. In a later article, Keenan highlighted Lopatin, Ferraro, Clark, and former Test Icicles member Sam Mehran as the most creative artists in the hypnagogic pop movement.
Characteristics
Hypnagogic pop is a type of music that uses sounds and styles from the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s. It often focuses on old technology, like analog equipment, and creates loud, exaggerated versions of sounds from those times. The music is influenced by both shared memories and personal experiences of the people who make it. Because memories are not always clear, the music does not exactly copy the sounds of the past. This makes it different from music that tries to copy older styles exactly. As authors Maël Guesdon and Philippe Le Guern explain, the genre is "revisionist nostalgia," meaning it tries to honor old memories in a way that feels true to an idea or feeling, not necessarily to the exact details of the past.
Examples of sounds in hypnagogic pop include blurry, low-quality pop music, 1970s-style rock with spacey synthesizers, and unusual music with tribal rhythms. In 2011, writer Morgan Poyau described the genre as mixing experimental music fans with fans of unusual pop styles. He noted that songs often have long, echo-filled tracks with distorted guitars and broken-sounding synthesizers. Critic Adam Trainer said the genre is not defined by a single sound but by artists who share similar creative methods and cultural influences. Their music draws from the shared experiences of late 1980s and early 1990s culture and uses styles from experimental music, such as noise, repetition, and improvisation.
Common influences include 1980s music styles like radio rock, new wave pop, MTV songs that became popular for a short time, New Age music, movie soundtracks with synthesizers, lounge music, easy-listening music, background office music, and video game music. Recordings often sound intentionally old, using analog equipment and showing signs of old recordings, like background tape noise. The music uses sounds that were once seen as futuristic in the 1980s, which now seem strange or psychedelic when heard today. Artists also use outdated technology, like VHS tapes, cassette tapes, and early Internet designs, to create their music and visuals.
Background
In the 2000s, many musicians who used home recording equipment began creating music inspired by older styles. This music became popular in underground indie scenes. One group, Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, helped bring attention to the idea of "hauntology," a term used by writers like Simon Reynolds and Mark Fisher to describe music that feels connected to the past. Later, "hauntology" was called a British term for a style of music known as "hypnagogic pop," while "hypnagogic pop" was described as an American version of the same style.
Todd Ledford, who runs the music label Olde English Spelling Bee (OESB), said the rise of hypnagogic pop music was linked to the growth of YouTube. Simon Reynolds believed the style started in Southern California. Another writer, Trainer, disagreed and said the music likely developed from many different scenes where artists used a type of music called "post-noise psychedelia." Marc Masters from Pitchfork suggested the style might have started more by chance than as a planned movement. At first, this music was shared through limited-edition cassettes or vinyl records, and later became more widely known through blogs and YouTube videos.
The Skaters were a noise music duo made up of James Ferraro and Spencer Clark. They were based in California, like Ariel Pink. In the mid-2000s, they released many recordings of psychedelic drone music on CD-Rs and cassettes. Later, Ferraro and Clark worked on their own music. They were considered part of the "post-noise psychedelia" movement. From 2009 to 2010, Ferraro's music became more rhythmic and melodic, with sounds that reminded some listeners of early video game music and 1980s cartoons.
Ariel Pink became known in the mid-2000s through a series of self-produced albums. His music mixed sounds from the 1970s and 1980s, as if heard through a broken radio. Simon Reynolds called him and The Skaters the "godparents of hypnagogic" music. He said a comment by Ferraro inspired the use of the term "hypnagogic." Reynolds also called Pink the central figure of the "Altered Zones Generation," a term he used for a group of lo-fi, retro-inspired indie artists who often appeared on Altered Zones, a site connected to Pitchfork. Jordan Redmond from Tiny Mix Tapes said Pink's early collaborator, John Maus, was also important to the development of hypnagogic pop.
Earlier artists who influenced this style included R. Stevie Moore, Gary Wilson, and Martin Newell's band the Cleaners from Venus. Matthew Ingram of The Wire said Moore's work helped shape the sound of hypnagogic pop. Another early influence was Nick Nicely's 1982 song "Hilly Fields (1892)." J.R. Moore from Red Bull Music wrote that Nicely's music, which mixed old psychedelic pop with a DIY style, created the foundation for hypnagogic pop decades before it became popular. Other early influences included Robert Truman's song "Way Down" (1987).
Joe Price from Complex magazine said the hypnagogic pop movement began with Ferraro and a musician named 18 Carat Affair from Missouri. Simon Reynolds mentioned other artists from the original California scene, such as Sun Araw, LA Vampires, and Puro Instinct. He also said artists like Matrix Metals and Rangers, though not from California, shared the same spirit as the California scene. In a 2009 interview, Daniel Lopatin from Oneohtrix Point Never said Salvador Dalí and Danny Wolfers were the "godfathers of hpop." He also listed other early influences, including DJ Screw, "retro kids," Joe Wenderoth, Autre Ne Veut, Church In Moon, and DJ Dog Dick.
History
In 2009, David Keenan created the term "hypnagogic pop," which led to many music blogs discussing the trend. By 2010, albums by Ariel Pink and Neon Indian were praised by publications like Pitchfork and The Wire. Terms such as "hypnagogic pop," "chillwave," and "glo-fi" were used to describe the changing styles of these artists, many of whom had songs that became popular in independent music circles. Pink was often called the "godfather" of h-pop, chillwave, or glo-fi because other artists who were connected to him (through style, location, or work) gained attention from critics. Some artists, like Ferraro, Clark, and War, did not achieve the same level of mainstream success. When asked about this in a 2013 interview, Clark said Pink was "an ambassador of California, like the Beach Boys."
In 2010, Pitchfork started a project called Altered Zones, which acted as an online newsletter for hypnagogic pop artists. Beginning in July of that year, Altered Zones collected content from a group of leading blogs focused on the movement. By the end of 2010, OESB, now known for featuring hypnagogic acts like Ferraro and Mehran, had become one of the most well-known underground indie labels. In January 2011, Keenan said OESB was "the imprint most associated with H-pop" and "in many ways … the label of 2010." He noted that the label’s audience had changed from an early underground/Noise group to being accepted by parts of indie and dance culture, helped by groups like Forest Swords, who blended H-pop with dubstep.
The term "chillwave" was used to describe a similar trend and was created one month before Keenan’s 2009 article. It was used interchangeably with "hypnagogic pop." Both styles share similarities in that they evoke 1980s–90s imagery, but chillwave has a more commercial sound with a focus on catchy hooks and reverb effects. A review by Marc Hogan for Neon Indian’s Psychic Chasms (2009) listed terms like "dream-beat," "chillwave," "glo-fi," "hypnagogic pop," and "hipster-gogic pop" as synonyms for "psychedelic music that is generally one or all of the following: synth-based, homemade-sounding, 80s-referencing, cassette-oriented, sun-baked, laid-back, warped, hazy, emotionally distant, slightly out of focus."
The experimental styles of hypnagogic pop artists like Pink and Ferraro were later expanded by the Internet-based genre called "vaporwave." Though the name shares the "-wave" ending, it is only loosely connected to chillwave. Sam Mehran was one of the first hypnagogic artists to predict vaporwave, with his project Matrix Metals and the 2009 album Flamingo Breeze, which used synthesizer loops. In the same year, Lopatin uploaded a collection of plunderphonics loops to YouTube under the name sunsetcorp. These clips were later used in the album Chuck Person's Eccojams Vol. 1 (2010). Stereogum’s Miles Bowe described vaporwave as a mix of "the chopped and screwed plunderphonics of Dan Lopatin … with the nihilistic easy-listening of James Ferraro’s Muzak-hellscapes on [the 2011 album] Far Side Virtual."
Writers, fans, and artists struggled to tell the difference between hypnagogic pop, chillwave, and vaporwave. The term "vaporwave" is usually linked to a blog post from October 2011 that discussed the hypnagogic album Surfs Pure Hearts by Girlhood. Adam Harper suggested the author used "vaporwave" instead of "hypnagogic pop" because they were unfamiliar with the latter term. He joked that trying to separate the three genres is like "a back room where Satan forever explains the differences between death metal, black metal, and doom metal."
According to Harper, vaporwave and hypnagogic pop both enjoy "trash music," are "dreamy" and "chirpy," and both change their material to make it feel unfamiliar, such as slowing it down or lowering the pitch, making it "screwed." Differences include vaporwave’s focus on the early 1990s rather than the 1970s and 1980s, and its stronger connection to chillwave through its sampling of slowed-down synth funk.
Keenan’s original Wire article caused many people to send him angry letters, criticizing the "hypnagogic pop" label as the "worst genre created by a journalist." As the movement grew, the lo-fi style of Pink and Ferraro was copied by other groups with names like Tape Deck Mountain and Memory Tapes, turning it into a cliché. Both chillwave and vaporwave were created as humorous responses to these trends. Writer Emilie Friedlander said the debate about Keenan’s article began on the message board "Terminal Boredom."
Keenan became unhappy with artists who simplified their sound, and "chillwave" later became a term used to criticize such acts. In the 2010 Rewind issue of The Wire, Keenan said h-pop had "migrated from a process designed to liberate desire from marketing formulas to a carrot in the mouth of a corpse that has proved irresistible to underground musicians looking for an easy route to mainstream acceptance." He called chillwave "one of the more meaningless sobriquets applied to the new future pop visions" and "a much more appropriate description of the mindless, depoliticised embracing of mainstream values that H-pop has come to be associated with."
Some artists, like Neon Indian and Toro y Moi, refused to accept the h-pop label or denied that a unified style existed. The Guardian’s Dorian Lynskey called the hypnagogic tag "pretentious," while New York Times writer Jon Pareles criticized the style as "annoyingly noncommittal music." He described a showcase of such bands at the 2010 South by Southwest festival as "a hedged, hipster imitation of the pop they're not
Related terms
Crimson Wave is a music genre and scene connected to female artists in a specific music scene, including groups and individuals such as U.S. Girls, Zola Jesus, LA Vampires, and Cro Magnon. In 2008, the compilation album XXperiments559 by Die Stasi included several female musicians, such as Buckets Of Bile, Cro Magnon, and their individual projects Bird and Circuit Des Yeux, Luxury Prevention, U.S. Girls, Wolf Eyes-related projects, and Zola Jesus. These artists became part of a brief music genre called "Crimson Wave."