Cyberrock Rate (100 gecs vs. Underscores vs. Yeule vs. Porter Robinson)
Cyberrock.
Something…strange has been happening on the internet. From the ashes of the hyperpop and EDM landscape came the new indie rockstars. I hear they’re selling their Ableton licenses and picking up guitars. They come from a generation where genre labels no longer apply, where every instrument and sound is available from the comfort of your bedroom, where synths and electronics are just a part of the musical vocabulary they live and breathe.
But they’re not just regurgitating the sounds of the past - they’re reinventing rockstardom from a new lens. Digitally native feelings, experiences, the sound of growing up online. It’s not quite rock, but it’s not quite hyperpop either. It’s loud, exuberant, DIY, and often proudly queer. It’s a synthesis of an omnivorous diet of musical influences: nu-metal, shoegaze, pop punk and emo melted into massive pop hooks and futuristic production. And notably, this trend has produced some of the most important, innovative albums for Gen Z of recent years - you know, the ones your online friend won’t shut up about.
Call it post-hyperpop, “hyperrock”, nu-gaze - whatever it is, it’s here to stay. Welcome to the new wave of the future: this is cyberrock.
Alright, so what’s a rate?
If you have never participated in a rate, there are two videos available (one short and one long) to explain the game. A r/popheads rate is a group activity wherein we choose to rate a set of thematically linked songs or albums (in this case, hyperpop/electronic artists making pivots towards rock music) against each other. You will assign each song a score on a scale of 1-10 (with the option to give exactly one song a 0 and exactly one song an 11). Over the course of the next month or so, we hosts will compile all your scores and reveal them countdown style, lowest to highest, over the course of a weekend based on their average scores. If this is your first time doing a rate then we strongly encourage you to read the rate rules towards the bottom of this post.
How do I participate?
If you wish to participate, just grab a ballot from the link below and then send the ballot to us hosts (u/modulum83 or u/TakeOnMeByA-ha)!
SUBMIT HERE | BACKUP PASTEBIN
SPOTIFY | APPLE MUSIC | YOUTUBE
100 gecs - 10,000 gecs
If you think I'm stupid now, you should see me when I'm high
And I'm smarter than I look, I'm the dumbest girl alive
After becoming the new face of hyperpop with the instant internet phenomenon that was their 2019 debut, all eyes were on Dylan Brady and Laura Les for the follow-up. But after a remix album, an EP, four years of silence, and rumors of ballooning label budgets and development hell, many people were asking the question - could the gecs meet the expectations of their legendary status, or had the hyperpop moment already passed them by? Hitting play on the album and hearing the fucking THX sound that kicks off “Dumbest Girl Alive” should dispel all doubts, though - they’re back and ready to retake the crown.
Three words that sum up this album best: "major label debut." 10,000 gecs beams with a slickness and a sheer, demented confidence that comes from embracing their status and their impossible follow-up expectations; people know their tricks, trying to replicate the shock value of the debut would just lead to diminishing returns - so instead, even the gimmick songs like "Frog on the Floor" or "One Million Dollars" are instead razor-sharp refinements of the formula into a radio-ready sound. It's a taunt: we can take our “hyperpop garbage” and sell it to the masses. They're ready to be the biggest thing in the world. Atlantic Records couldn't be more thrilled.
Instead of 1000 gecs's collages of teenage messiness, 10,000 gecs is a celebration of the most maligned genres in 90s alt rock radio, genres like nu-metal and rap rock and pop punk all thrown in a blender in an explosive showcase of brilliant pop instincts. How else could we get tracks like "757" that with its murderously precise barrage of deep-fried vocal hooks feels like the definitive digicore track to put all of their disciples to shame, or the gloriously ill-advised yet perfectly executed trashrock experiments of "Doritos & Fritos" and "Billy Knows Jamie"? 100 gecs met the moment by seeing all the warning signs of selling out and barreling at full speed not at it or away from it, but right past it into something entirely new. - u/modulum83
- Dumbest Girl Alive
- 757
- Hollywood Baby
- Frog On The Floor
- Doritos & Fritos
- Billy Knows Jamie
- One Million Dollars
- The Most Wanted Person In The United States
- I Got My Tooth Removed
- mememe
Underscores - Wallsocket (Director’s Cut)
Good Luck!
There are few up-and-coming voices in pop more exciting than that of April Harper Grey, better known by her solo project alias Underscores. Growing up on a mix of Skrillex, the White Stripes, and Minecraft, Underscores began releasing dubstep EPs when she was only 13 years old and slowly gained a cult following, but her true breakthrough into hyperpop superstardom would come with the release of her 2021 debut album Fishmonger, the result of an experiment during the COVID-19 pandemic where she challenged herself to play guitar on every track of the album. That blend of indie rock attitude with glitchy electropop production quickly caught the attention of many, most importantly that of fellow cyberrock artist Porter Robinson's label Mom + Pop Music, who gave April full creative control and budget to create her sophomore album. And while Fishmonger may have been a test run for building her niche and establishing a sonic identity, Wallsocket stands not just as a declaration of who Underscores, the musician, is, but also as the definitive statement of the entire Cyberrock moment.
ARGs, intensive lore and cinematic world-building set the scene for Wallsocket, a concept album that follows the coming of age of three girls in the fictional town of Wallsocket, Michigan, as they navigate adulthood and grapple with religious trauma, gender identity, mental health, and, worst of all, each other. Throughout the album's 12 main tracks (and four "Director's Cut" bonus songs), Underscores makes Wallsocket feel like a living and breathing town with residents you come to know on a deeply personal level, all the while taking you on an eclectic rock opera journey that travels through glitchy indie rock bangers (“Cops and robbers”, “Shoot to kill, kill your darlings”, “Geez louise”), stripped back singer-songwriter ballads (“You don’t even know who I am”, “Horror movie soundtrack”), and straight up electropop euphoria (“Locals”, “Old money bitch”, “Stupid”) without ever feeling disjointed or losing its thematic core. Entirely self-produced and uncompromised in its artistic vision, it’s an album that sticks with you long after the final chords ring out and character arcs arrive to their final destination, just begging you to go back and relisten until you can pick out every minute detail in its production and can sing the whole thing in your sleep. But don’t just take my word for it: listen to Danny Brown gush to Pitchfork about the album’s storytelling and how it helped him fall back in love with music after exiting rehab and recovering from addiction.
What’s next for Underscores? If her recent output is anything to go by, world domination. Following an opening spot on Porter Robinson’s SMILE! :D tour and highly acclaimed collaborations with Oklou and Danny Brown, she’s already well underway on releasing her third studio album, an unabashed love letter to pop music in all its glossy, maximalist glory. From internet-era dance floor anthem “Music” to 2nd gen K-Pop tribute “Do It”, it feels exhilarating to watch in real time Underscores’ evolution into a Main Pop Girl, to see someone so fully in charge of their own craft and vision and executing every step of her journey to the top flawlessly. The new wave of the future is coming — better get a head start now so you’ll be able to brag to your friends later on that you liked her before it was cool. - u/TakeOnMeByA-ha
- Cops and robbers
- Locals (Girls like us) [with gabby start]
- Duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
- You don't even know who I am
- Johnny johnny johnny
- Shoot to kill, kill your darlings
- Horror movie soundtrack
- Old money bitch
- Geez louise (with henhouse!)
- Seventyseven dog years
- Uncanny long arms (with Jane Remover)
- Good luck final girl
- My guy (Corporate shuffle)
- Northwest zombie girl
- CCTV
- Stupid (Can't run from the urge)
Yeule - Softscars
Soft scars on my skin, silicone, porcelain
I'm not one of them, love you till the end
Nat Ćmiel is 27 years old. They like music, dancing ballet, crushing up rocks and snorting them, and genderless people. They are also better known as Yeule, the Singaporean indie pop artist who has been making waves ever since their widely acclaimed 2019 debut album Serotonin II made them one of the internet's must-watch-out-for artists. Finding comfort in isolation and the electronic, Yeule is as much a musical project as it is an extension of Nat’s entire identity, a vessel for escaping the daily struggles of human life and embracing a cybernetic alternate self. Yet despite Yeule’s robotic aesthetics and abandoned sounding, synthetic soundscapes, there’s something unmistakably raw and human cutting through that digital haze. Following the self-loathing and depression that consumed the majority of their 2022 ambient pop project Glitch Princess, Yeule decided to take things in a more healing direction on their next album: rather than continuing to dwell on their current trauma, they wanted to instead reflect on their scars from the past and how they have healed over time. Their softscars, if you will.
From the cathartic wails of shoegaze opener “x w x” to the wispy pleas for love and affection in glitchy folk closer “aphex twin flame”, Softscars grips you from its opening chords and doesn’t let you go until it purifies you with its unflinching vulnerability and diaristic confessions. In contrast from the minimalist synths that accompanied their prior records, Yeule takes inspiration from artists they grew up idolizing like Radiohead and My Chemical Romance to create a hazy, alt-rock odyssey that sounds like it could have been plucked straight out of the late 90’s, unearthing a long forgotten record from a band lost to time. Tracks like “sulky baby” and “ghosts” sound appropriately haunted in their delicate, dream-like atmosphere surrounded in reverb and feedback, while standout bangers “dazies” and “cyber meat” are true cyberrock productions in every sense of the word, grungy industrial and emo pop-rock setting the landscape for the post-apocalyptic virtual world that Yeule has crafted and calls home.
Envisioned as an album where each track signifies a scar from Yeule’s past, every song on Softscars feels like a personal memento, a snapshot of the past and the journey of growth, pain, self-acceptance, and healing through generational trauma. From learning to love and forgive their younger self, to coping with heartbreak and abuse, to years of experiencing body dysmorphia and discovering themselves in adulthood, it's the definitive album for every queer person out there going through the angsty trials and tribulations of coming into their own and figuring out how to navigate a society that feels increasingly hostile to their existence. It’s a space for us to mourn, to heal, to reclaim the ugly and foreign parts of ourselves and comfort each other in our commonly shared scars. The glitch princess has never been more human. - u/TakeOnMeByA-ha
- x w x
- sulky baby
- softscars
- 4ui12
- ghosts
- dazies
- fish in the pool
- software update
- inferno
- bloodbunny
- cyber meat
- aphex twin flame
Porter Robinson - SMILE! :D
If you saw me, a stranger in the streets, could you tell me you love me?
Maybe we should both make real friends
Just like the title, SMILE! :D is an album that hides something darker and messier beneath the surface. In the aftermath of his widely beloved ode to healing and touching grass Nurture - an album that casts a long shadow in online spaces to this day - Porter Robinson wanted to switch it up with a “nonstop party” album, a sugar-coated injection of irony, absurdity and fun that could allow him to shed the weight of its predecessor. And if you heard the lead single “Cheerleader,” you might be forgiven for thinking that’s exactly what you’re getting - a full on main pop girl pivot with one of the most killer hooks you’ve ever heard. But start listening closer and things start to get more complicated.
Concerns of fandom and parasociality are scattered across all of SMILE! :D, as Porter goes from reckoning with his own creativity to the effect it has on his own health - and other people’s. The optimism of Nurture begins to deconstruct and unravel as he seriously questions whether his persona, his music, and his fame is truly real or just a facade for something shallower and uglier. On “Year of the Cup,” he samples an interview clip of Lil Wayne discussing addiction; on the digicore-inspired “Kitsune Maison Freestyle,” between flexes about plastic surgery and designer clothes, he states the big idea of the album plainly - “everyone’s just trying to look good, trying not to feel bad.” Being famous and terminally online is a double-edged sword, insanely fun but dangerously self-destructive - so then the question is, what can pull you back from the edge?
SMILE! :D might say that the answer is to simply embrace the cringe of it all. The album doesn’t stick to high-energy bangers like “Cheerleader” and “Knock Yourself Out XD” but slows down and dips into kinds of bargain bin 2000s pop genres, from banjo-led adult contemporary to “Hands Up” eurotrance to pop punk to post-britpop ballads. It’s a more fractured, less straightforward album than you might expect but no less addictive and full of life and joy. It embodies its own awkward messiness and lack of easy answers, poking at the materialistic facade of pop, self-harming with the temptation of nihilistic irony before pulling back and realizing what’s really important: the vulnerability you can share with other people, even if mediated by stage or screen. In failing to write a shallow party album for a world that rejects context, Porter Robinson ended up making the most honest and life-saving music of his career. - u/modulum83
- Knock Yourself Out XD
- Cheerleader
- Russian Roulette
- Perfect Pinterest Garden
- Year of the Cup
- Kitsune Maison Freestyle
- Easier to Love You
- Mona Lisa (feat. Frost Children)
- Is There Really No Happiness?
- Everything To Me
BONUS RATE
Cyberrock is a wide umbrella that encompasses a diverse array of styles in the modern underground - so for this bonus rate, we’re giving you a selection of more notable examples of crossover between rock and electronic music happening in online spaces. Many of these are artists we at one point considered for the main rate. Some are already well-known and popular, and some are the pet khias of either u/TakeOnMeByA-ha or me. Whatever the case, we hope you enjoy this brief survey into the furthest edges of Cyberrock.
This bonus rate is completely optional, and you do not have to score every song. You also cannot use an 11 or 0.
- 8485 - southview
- acloudyskye - Surface
- Bring Me the Horizon - LosT
- Frost Children - Lethal
- Jane Remover - Magic I Want U
- Madeon - Hi!
- Parannoul - Polaris
- saoirse dream - down in flames
- Vylet Pony - PLAY DEAD! PLAY DEAD!
RULES
- You must listen to and assign a score to EVERY song in the main rate, no exceptions. If your ballot is missing any scores, we will not accept it until you fix it.
- You may assign songs a score between 1 and 10, 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest. You can also use decimal places if you wish, but only up to one point (ex. a 8.5 or a 6.9 is ok, but a 3.14 is not).
- You may give ONE song an 11 and ONE song a 0. Use these on your favorite and least favorite tracks, respectively, although you do not have to give out one or both if you do not feel like it. You may not give your 0 or 11 to the bonus tracks.
- DO NOT SABOTAGE! Obviously you can like some albums more than others, but purposefully giving albums incredibly low overall averages without justification may warrant your ballot getting rejected unless you explain your scores with comments. Speaking of...
- You are highly encouraged (though not required) to leave comments alongside your scores! To leave a comment, simply put a space after the score of a song and type to your heart’s content, like so:
Death & Romance: 10 wait a second imaginal disk isn’t even in this rate
- You can also attach an album comment by typing a colon after the album name and writing your comment after it. For example:
Album: 10,000 gecs: do i need to listen to the first 9,999 gecs albums before this one?
- Your scores and comments should NOT be considered confidential. Please feel free to discuss them in the rates Discord channels, the daily discussion, or in the rate post itself.
- You can change your scores at any time! Feel free to PM any of the hosts (either u/modulum83 or u/TakeOnMeByA-ha) about it.
- Please use the prepared link below to send in your scores. You must use the correct format.
If you have any other additional questions, feel free to ask in the comments below or in the #rates channel on the popheads discord, there are plenty of raters who are willing to help you out!
That’s all from us for now! Once again here are all the necessary links you’ll need:
SUBMIT HERE | BACKUP PASTEBIN
SPOTIFY | APPLE MUSIC | YOUTUBE
DUE DATE: January 18th
REVEAL WEEKEND: January 23rd-25th
And don’t forget to do the other currently open rates!
Flannelcore (Due December 7th)
2020’s Remix Albums (Due December 12th)
Modern Funk
Posted Dec 2, 2025, 6:30 PM UTC