Promo Use Only: We tried to convince flann. he’s a “post-hyperpop” artist
But really, he’s so much more than that.
“I’ve given it a fair bit of thought.
Everything was my fault.
It’s haunting me always.
I’m avoiding hallways
so I don’t see your ghost.”
Haunting.
A couple of years ago, one of my Spotify Wrapped genres was hyperpop. I think I saw 100 gecs on somebody’s New Music Friday list, and I looked them up because I had no idea who they were, and before long, I was working my way down all the hyperpop playlists I could find. I wasn’t really sure how to describe the music I was listening to, I just knew I liked it.
Fast forward to 2023, and one of the first accounts I noticed when I started using Threads was a hyperpop adjacent artist by the name of flann. He was interacting with other musicians, sharing memes and jokes, and genuinely engaging with folks. I don’t even remember how we first interacted with each other, but after I listened to his song, YOu’re M1serable, I knew I wanted him to be my next interview because there was something captivating about his music and online personality.
Introduce yourself, please:
Hello, I’m Dylan Flannery aka flann.
On your Spotify page, you say you draw inspiration from “internet music” and several genres including indie-electro, pop punk, emo, and trap rap. On Threads, your pinned intro says you “make hyperpop adjacent indie electronica music with a lot of emo and some alt hip-hop influence”.
1. Soooo, are you technically a “post-hyperpop” artist?
2. How important is it to you to be able to identify your music by a genre?
3. Does genre really matter these days?
Oh no, are we going to be adding another genre? “Post-hyperpop” does go really hard honestly. I would call my music heavily influenced by the PC music movement and 100 gecs and the underground SoundCloud hyperpop scene, but I didn’t hear much of it until the pandemic occurred and I was able to really delve into alternate genres. I tried to take the “over the top” nature of those genres and make them my own. Hyperpop really feels more like a production style than a genre, and more and more we are just hearing hybrids of that production style and what music they themselves listen to. I really like hip-hop and rap as I grew up listening to it and was involved in the Kentucky hip hop scene back in 2011 (shout outs Pinky, Bump, Godflow, KYMBO, DJ Always, DJ Warrenpeace, Nemo Achida) but I also was distinctly a part of the emo/post-hardcore music scene of Lexington, KY too. I grew up listening to Chiodos and Emarosa and all those groups and went to their shows a lot. flann. is sort of a culmination of all those influences with the hyperpop production style because I think hyperpop really allows for all those different genres to live and thrive together comfortably. I think identification isn’t my major worry with these descriptions I’m using, more of establishment of a listener base. I know my music is similar to hyperpop with the heavy use of autotune, the fast bpm, the synths, the ridiculously bassey 808 use, but I’m not trying to be incredibly “true to the genre” as I think the genre is constantly changing. A lot of people hear my stuff and it reminds them of Owl City or HelloGoodbye which is cool, because I listened to those groups in high school. I’m glad I can be nostalgic and bring those styles back and sort of expound on them. I think genre is getting less and less important every year. Quadeca is my favorite artist out right now, and he’s sort of rap music, but that would be selling him so short. His music is art pop, post-folk, rap and so many other genres just slammed into this big blender and poured out into gorgeous production over artistic and effect drenched vocals. I think we are in a creative renaissance with the ability for anyone to just like… download a DAW and create. Genre is important to the listeners, so I’m trying to find out what I am, but it’s not important to me, and I think there is a large movement of people who agree with that. On December 18th Real Love will be dropping, and that’s just a house song for real. But it might get called “Hyper house” or something because of my vocals over it hahaha. Who knows? I love it when listeners tell me what genre I make, because it helps me understand what they’re hearing in my music.
Flann.
You said you wrote the song “Haunting” after your ex moved out of your house.
How easy or hard is it for you to share your emotions and inner thoughts, not only in your songs, but on social media for all to see?
I’m an open person. I think it’s important to discuss the stories on art creation, and people seem to respond to it well. It lets them hear a dimension they didn’t hear previously in the song. I don’t want to go too into detail over them out of respect for anyone involved with the stories, but I don’t mind presenting my side of the story, especially if it’s involved in the art creation. I grew up a Myspace kid, and became a Tumblr teenager and we just sort of did that on those social medias. Besides, we are deep in a post-privacy world. At this point all the major companies we give our information to know all of our stories if they wanted to. It seems rather silly to let the proletariat be in the dark when any tech company could find out my life story if they really wanted. Why not just let it out there?
The “Haunting” video was pretty dope. Did you do your own acting?
Hahaha yeah that’s me in the ghost sheet. I made it myself and everything. Originally it was supposed to just be a visualizer, but I really liked the end product. My friend in Alaska, Josh Crump, is a wildlife photographer (Instagram: @_jtc_media_, check it out great bald eagle pictures on the daily). I was working with him at the time and saw some of his footage and was blown away. So I told him the idea I had for the Haunting video and he said he was down as he is a musician himself and a fan of being creative. So we went out and did it in the Alaskan winter. I’m glad you like it! I think he did an AMAZING job and it was way higher quality than I initially thought it’d be.