Dear all, I would like to forward our CFP for the special issue entitled "hyperpop's hyperlinks" to be published in 2027 at the Popular Music <https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/popular-music>journal. (With apologies for cross-posting.) ‘what is hyperpop?’, asked Charli XCX back in 2020 on Twitter. This special of Popular Music will contemplate this question while investigating how and to whom the genre matters. Hyperpop’s roots are often traced back to the UK-based PC Music label in the mid-2010s, but equally important are the online communities active on platforms such as Discord, Twitter, and Soundcloud which were later recognised and amplified by Spotify’s ‘Hyperpop’ playlist, started in 2019 (Dandridge-Lemco 2020). In crude terms, hyperpop is a complex phenomenon that demands renewed attention to both longstanding and ‘trending’ issues in popular music studies. Because hyperpop is defined by web-based entanglement and multiplicity, the phenomenon necessitates a wide range of critical approaches, theoretical frameworks, and empirical methodologies. With this special issue we aim to explore the sonic, visual, sociocultural, and political dimensions of a phenomenon that has already left a distinctive imprint on both young fans and mainstream popular culture as a whole. Arguably, hyperpop has been one of the most significant developments in the history of popular music since the turn of the millennium, and we invite a broad range of submissions from early career researchers, independent scholars, and established professors, either in traditional feature article format or as written-out roundtable discussions on a specific theme. Potential topics may include (but are not limited to): – Hyperpop-centred interventions in longstanding debates about popular music and its theorisation. – Reflections on the strengths and limitations of genre theory in music studies from an internet studies perspective, or critical perspectives on the role of streaming services such as Spotify in the consolidation of hyperpop. – Critical perspectives on the political economy of hyperpop and its monetization in the age of platform capitalism. – Interdisciplinary perspectives on hyperpop’s playful audiovisual aesthetics and/or (post-)irony. – (Hyper)links with earlier moments in popular music history, including echoes from prog, glam, punk, New Romantic synth pop, pop punk, early rave music, and so on; archival and/or institutional histories of the PC Music label; the posthumous legacy of SOPHIE; 1990s / 2000s nostalgia, anemoia, and post-internet retrofuturism. – Emic and etic perspectives on: hyperpop as a musical coping mechanism among ‘born digital’ members of Gen-Z; on the idea of hyperpop as the sonification of queerness and/or nonbinary gender identity. – Intersectional analysis of hyperpop, race, queerness, and techno-orientalism. Please submit your paper proposal (c.300 words) by email to hyperpopspecialissue@gmail.com <http:/?> by 15 June 2026. Following review, selected articles will be commissioned in July 2026. We hope to have full articles submitted in December 2026, with final materials uploaded to ScholarOne in April 2027. If you require more information, please email the co-editors directly: Karina Moritzen (Universidade Federal Fluminense & Universität Oldenburg) karina.moritzen@uni-oldenburg.de <http:/?> Michiel Kamp (Universiteit Utrecht) M.Kamp1@uu.nl <http:/?> Ed Katrak Spencer (Universiteit Utrecht) e.c.k.spencer@uu.nl <http:/?> Chananja Clement (Universiteit Utrecht) chananjaclement@hotmail.com <http:/?> -- Karina Moritzen (ela/dela) Mestra em Estudos da Mídia (PPGEM/UFRN) Doutoranda em Comunicação (PPGCOM/UFF) Doutoranda em Musicologia (Gestalten der Zukunft/Carl-von-Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg)