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Pixel

United States · 2010s
HappyDancingSentimentalDreamyChill

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Description

Pixel is an internet-born microgenre that blends chiptune’s 8‑ and 16‑bit timbres with glossy, high‑energy electropop and hyperpop production.

You’ll hear pulse‑width‑modulated square leads, triangle basses, noise‑channel snares, rapid arpeggios that imply chords, and lots of game‑console sound design (NES/SNES/Genesis palettes). Melodies are bright and hooky, arrangements are tightly quantized and often very fast, and sound design leans “cute,” cartoonish, and ultra‑synthetic. Producers frequently add modern touches—side‑chain pumping, OTT compression, hard clip/bit‑crush distortion, and pitched/Auto‑Tuned vocals—so the result feels at once retro and contemporary.

Aesthetically it signals retro‑gaming and net culture: UI bleeps, item‑pickup stingers, and level‑up flourishes sit alongside maximal, sugary pop writing. Typical tempos range from 120–170 BPM, with common detours into double‑time or halftime drops.


Sources: Spotify, Wikipedia, Discogs, Rate Your Music, MusicBrainz, and other online sources

History

Roots (1980s–2000s)

Pixel’s DNA comes from early game‑console sound chips and the demoscene/tracker culture that turned those chips into instruments. As homebrew and chipscene artists pushed beyond strict hardware limits, a pop‑leaning offshoot—bitpop—established the idea that game timbres could drive catchy, vocal‑forward songs.

Streaming‑era formation (2010s)

During the 2010s, platform metadata and community playlists began grouping a wave of chiptune‑meets‑electropop tracks under a shared “pixel” aesthetic. Producers borrowed hyperpop’s blown‑out, ultra‑digital sheen while keeping chiptune’s bright scalar hooks and sprite‑like sonic palette. The tag coalesced in online circles (SoundCloud/Discord/Twitter), creator communities, and indie‑game scenes, where the sound’s instant nostalgia resonated with net‑native audiences.

Diffusion and crossover (2020s)

In the 2020s, pixel’s vocabulary—PWM leads, tracker‑style arpeggios, UI one‑shots, and bit‑crushed drums—spread into kawaii‑EDM and creator‑friendly lo‑fi VGM edits. It became common in YouTube/Twitch ecosystems and in indie titles seeking upbeat retro futurism, while remaining a flexible toolkit for pop‑adjacent producers.

How to make a track in this genre

Sound palette
•   Build your core from classic chip waveforms: pulse/square (with PWM for movement), triangle (bass), and noise (percussion). Layer with modern soft synths for body and width. •   Use rapid 1/16–1/24 arpeggios to imply triads/sevenths the way trackers did—this keeps the harmony ‘pixelated’ while remaining pop‑friendly.
Harmony & melody
•   Favor diatonic, major‑key hooks; sprinkle modal mixture (♭VI/♭VII) for boss‑level lift. Short, memorable motifs that can loop like a level theme work best. •   Write call‑and‑response lead lines, then double at the octave for a sprite‑like sparkle.
Rhythm & form
•   Tempos: 120–170 BPM; common grids are 4/4 with occasional halftime or double‑time drops. •   Drum kit: kick + clap/snare with noise bursts, crisp hi‑hats (often 1/32 rolls), and coin/GUI one‑shots as fills. •   Arrange like pop: intro → A (verse) → B (hook) → drop/bridge → final hook. Use stingers, risers, and game‑FX fills between sections.
Production
•   Mix clean and bright; carve space with tight envelopes and transient shaping. Add side‑chain pumping, bit‑crush/decimator, and light chorus on leads. •   If using vocals, try pitch‑ups, formant shifts, and heavy Auto‑Tune for a cutesy, synthetic character; ad‑libs can be UI bleeps.
Tools & workflow
•   Trackers (e.g., Famitracker/Deflemask) or modern DAWs with chip emulations; sample classic consoles for one‑shots. Build a small SFX library (coin, jump, pause) to punctuate grooves.

Best playlists

The Sound of Pixel
The Sound of Pixel
Every Noise at Once
Pixel
Pixel
Chosic
Best of Pixel
Best of Pixel
volt.fm
Best user-generated playlists
Best user-generated playlists

Main artists

Related labels

The Game Kitchen
The Game Kitchen
New Horizons Records
New Horizons Records

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Influenced by
Bitpop
Bitpop is a pop-oriented offshoot of the chiptune/chipmusic scene that marries hook-driven songwriting with the timbres of vintage 8‑bit and 16‑bit game hardware. Typical sound sources include the pulse, triangle, and noise generators of consoles like the Nintendo Game Boy, NES/Famicom, and Commodore 64 SID, sequenced in trackers and layered with modern drums, bass, guitars, and vocals. The style favors bright, catchy melodies, ultra-quantized rhythms, rapid arpeggios (to imply chords on limited sound chips), and bitcrushed or downsampled textures. Songs usually follow contemporary pop structures (verse–chorus–bridge), aim for danceable tempos, and evoke playful, nostalgic "video‑game" aesthetics while maintaining the polish of modern pop production.
Hyperpop
Hyperpop is an internet-native pop movement known for its maximalist sound design, pitch-shifted vocals, and frenetic genre collisions. It exaggerates pop tropes—ultra-bright synths, hard-clipping drums, sugary hooks—then smashes them together with elements of club music, trap, and experimental electronica. The style favors hyper-synthetic timbres, extreme processing (auto‑tune, formant shifting, heavy sidechaining, distortion), and abrupt structural left turns. Lyrically, it swings between irreverent internet humor and disarmingly sincere confessions, often reflecting online identity, queerness, and hyper-modern life. Although diverse, the common thread is a playful, self-aware push of pop to surreal, high-saturation extremes.
Chiptune
Chiptune (also called chip music or 8-bit music) is a style of electronic music created with, or emulating, the programmable sound generator (PSG) and FM chips found in vintage game consoles and home computers such as the NES/Famicom, Game Boy, Commodore 64 (SID), Amiga, Atari ST, and others. The sound palette is defined by simple waveforms (square/pulse, triangle, saw, noise), rapid arpeggios that imply chords on limited channels, pitch bends, duty-cycle modulation, and crunchy noise percussion. These constraints lend chiptune its bright, percussive, and highly melodic character, often evoking early video-game aesthetics. While originally utilitarian—music for games and computer demos—the approach evolved into a standalone art form. Contemporary chiptune spans pure hardware-authentic tracks and hybrid productions that blend chip timbres with modern synthesis, drums, vocals, and mixing techniques.
Electropop
Electropop is a branch of pop music that foregrounds electronic instruments—especially synthesizers, drum machines, and sequencers—to deliver catchy, hook-driven songs. It preserves the verse–pre-chorus–chorus architecture and melodic immediacy of pop while replacing most traditional band instrumentation with programmed rhythms, synthetic bass lines, and glossy textures. The style emphasizes earworm toplines, precise rhythmic grids, and tightly produced arrangements that often highlight contrast between minimal, punchy verses and expansive, anthemic choruses. Timbres range from warm analog pads and arpeggiators reminiscent of the late 1970s/early 1980s to ultra-modern, hyper-detailed sound design, making electropop both retro-leaning and future-facing depending on the artist.
Has influenced
Lo-Fi Vgm
Lo‑fi VGM (lo‑fi video game music) is a crossover style that blends the relaxed, tape‑warmed aesthetics of lo‑fi hip hop with melodies and atmospheres from classic and contemporary video game scores. Producers typically re‑harmonize or gently reharmonize well‑known themes, slow the tempos into the 60–90 BPM range, add vinyl crackle, tape hiss, dusty drums, soft keys/guitar, and cozy ambience, and retain the nostalgic contours of the original cues. The result is music suited for studying, streaming, or unwinding, while evoking game‑world nostalgia. Netlabels and collectives—most visibly GameChops and Curaga Records—helped codify the sound with licensed, album‑length reinterpretations of major franchises.
Kawaii Future Bass
Kawaii future bass is a Japanese-born microgenre that blends the sidechained, chord-heavy drops of future bass with the cheery melodies, cute sound design, and pop sensibilities of J-pop, anime music, and game-inspired chiptune. It typically features bright supersaw stacks, bell and mallet plucks, high-pitched vocal chops (often from Vocaloid or J-pop/utaite sources), and sugary melodies in major or Lydian modes. Drums follow a half-time trap groove with crisp snares on beat three, while heavy sidechain compression creates a buoyant, bouncy feel. The aesthetic emphasizes “kawaii” (cute) culture—pastel tones, playful samples, and whimsical ear-candy—resulting in upbeat, feel-good tracks that are as much about personality and texture as they are about harmony and rhythm.
Gamecore
Gamecore is an internet-native electronic microgenre that fuses the timbres, melodies, and narrative tropes of classic and modern video game music with contemporary EDM songcraft. Its palette leans heavily on chiptune waveforms (square, triangle, noise), retro console/arcade sound effects, and leitmotif-style hooks, but frames them within club-forward rhythms and sound design drawn from electro house, future bass, glitch hop, dubstep, and drum & bass. The result is a bright, kinetic, and often nostalgic sound that feels like a “boss battle” drop or a euphoric level clear. Scenes and labels tied to VGM remix culture, doujin circles, and demoscene aesthetics helped codify the style, while streamers, esports content, and indie game culture amplified its reach.
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