thoughts on "loudness wars" [or, "when'd net music get so loud?"]

Jun. 30, 2026 11:10 PM

Roughly* inspired by disorganised thoughts in a hosted Discord server.

A recent question posed by a friend's friend laid the basis for thoughts I'd never sat down with and tried to understand myself. Though a simple question in hindsight, it gave me cause for reconsideration on my previous writing surrounding music that I attempt tackling in a focused thinkpiece.

To summarise the question in one sentence:

Such a question is open-ended, though also paradoxically solved. Anyone who has been following developments beyond Soundcloud will be familiar with the effects of extratone, hyperpop, and other fields pushing the limits of what can be tolerated as "music" for the average listener. It may come to no surprise that such music was also once intolerable to me as well. Perhaps the critique mentality of Novalaxia eight years past bears repeating not, for better or worse.

Reminiscence aside, I think it would be interesting in chronicling a vague, piecemeal evolution of net music from my last written piece and video on J-core, as I cover elements that I was less familiar with at the time, while also establishing a timeline linking to my recent work on dariacore and hyperflip. There are fields I previously alluded to, like the influences of otoMAD and YTPMV culture, but the general progression of internet music occurring during the same time period is also relevant in understanding how such changes became normalised.

*Please note that the contents of this post are intended as a more casual reading on the matter, rather than being formulated with intent and legitimate formatting. I will miss, or avoid, some details out of brevity, lack of sourcing, or general inability to weave subjects into legible writing. Thank you for understanding.

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the otoMAD to MOGRA headliner pipeline... hey, I recognise that name

A well-written introduction to otoMAD and YTPMV by the team at Re:Sample, a group focused on detailing the history of said fields, highlights a trend one will regularly come across in Japanese net music. Many start in the space as hobbyists with varying skill to develop their ideas into something concrete, but there will be a select few who exceed the limitations of their medium, eventually conceiving original music beyond the need for episodes of Chargeman Ken sentence mixed to culturally significant P-MODEL tracks. I'm embellishing parts of this development for effect, but it's hardly uncommon for otoMAD/YTPMV creators (and Vocaloid producers, by extension) to break into wider net consciousness - you're probably familiar with beat_shobon and ksk, among others.

(Side note: many Japanese creatives who started out with otoMADs and associated subcultures often consider such works 'black history' to a degree, partly due to the often juvenile nature of these works, alongside other considerations discussed further on, like worries surrounding copyright infringement and debates on intellectual property.)

For those unfamiliar with otoMAD and YTPMV works, a pertinent quality (and regular criticism) is a tendency to be loud. This can stem from a number of factors, like poor mixing, or intentional sidechaining for comedic effect. One may be inclined to denote these videos as the genesis of 'noise = funny' that serves as the bane of most netizens everywhere, but the undeniable potential and cultural impact of otoMADs in this regard shouldn't be understated when understanding why net music gradually leaned towards louder mixing and mastering. It should be pretty obvious as to how influential the field was, considering it became a cultural export from NicoNicoDouga to Youtube, but individuals in various fields, from Sasuke Haraguchi to elwood have all expressed different inspirations originating from this microcosm of net culture. It's more encompassing than you think.

This is, of course, oversimplifying this particular avenue of history somewhat, mainly for brevity and ease of awareness. Many artists whose discographies have become tangentially culturally associated with otoMAD culture in some way, like Susumu Hirasawa (specifically 'BIG BROTHER' and 'LAB=01' here, but I digress) and many producers contributing to arcade rhythm games, did not start their career by making Gachimuchi edits. This is an important distinction that I must clarify upon here - fans of various mediums adopted these sounds partly in homage to whatever artists they liked at the time, linking that with humourous, sometimes juvenile imagery that accidently leads to innovations on video and music editing culture. Recent developments have led to more younger, talented producers and music artists directly referencing otoMADs, YTPMVs, and offshoots like Soundclown as prior inspirations for their output when interviewed. It's hard to underestimate the impact these cultures have on people who are in the same age group as us, even if the linear passage of time remains unforgiving.

However, you may have noticed something. I haven't really answered the question outlined in this post's title yet, have I? Sure, I've given you an extreme one-minute explanation of what otoMAD/YTPMV is, plus a vague detailing of their influences on net music culture in the 2010s and beyond, and yet I haven't explained what this has to do with net music getting louder. Well... not fully.

I previously mentioned that one notable quality of otoMADs and YTPMVs is how audio can get pretty messy. Part of this can be explained by Youtube's audio compression being less than desirable. You therefore get videos like this - while everything surrounding it appears remarkable, from the visuals to word splices, there's a certain kind of unintended charm with Youtube aggressively compressing audio that somewhat muddies the whole sound. One could argue that listening to videos like these in 2011 with shitty Sony MDR-ZX110s blurs the mixing process to where you can't exactly distinguish much of anything, which definitely has a big impact on impressionable teenage bedroom producers. There's no direct ties here, but you can see a chronology of sorts between this section of the internet, and fans of net producers like 100 gecs. I suppose the internet truly is a series of tubes, or something like that.

You'll hear DJs playing anime remix songs and nerdcore tracks with copious amounts of anime sampling at sets all the time - the inspiration for the very title of this heading directly references the track 'HEAVEN'S RAVE' by kz, which has become something of a staple for MOGRA sets (flashing lights warning) in recent memory. Remixes and mashups featuring this song, if not mashups in general, have become a tradition of anirave culture - I wager, perhaps incorrectly, that the growing developments in club scenes like these, have perpetuated further interest in net music generally becoming louder to suit the environments they're played at. I'll talk more about specific music fields in the next section, but this lines up with developments in hyperflip I referenced in my video covering the scene's historiography and broader history:

"Dariacore developed in the midst of COVID-19's impact, where 'bedroom music' produced and consumed at home was popular at the time. Early dariacore tracks by leroy in the original 'dariacore' were very short, but tracks in 'dariacore 2' were longer and became more club-oriented.

Dariacore developed in Japan as COVID-19 subsided.
Clubs became more active as they started seeing more people.
It'd be strange not to connect the two factors."

This doesn't explain the whole picture, but there's probably some merit here. Net music got louder as it catered towards being played in clubs. Makes a bit of sense. Let's now think a bit more about net music in a broader sense, rather than connecting it so closely to meme culture as we've done so now.

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the part where I talk about hyperpop and dariacore (yet again)

I must preface this next section with a disclaimer that my exposure to hyperpop is extremely limited in a very roundabout (maybe very Novalaxia-appropriate) way. My first contact with the field stems from elwood showing me 100 gecs before the phase that led him towards dariacore, though beyond that, I have very little knowledge beyond maybe the occasional reference/tribute to SOPHIE.

On the mention of 100 gecs specifically, I already mentioned a link between the ironic, often bombastic nature of YTPMV culture and the sounds you hear in works like 'money machine' and the like. It's laden with all sorts of ironic and surrealist elements that would characterise the post-Covid era of the internet, like the nonsense statement about 'big game for someone with such a small truck'. This is coupled with heavily processed, often extremely loud mastering, with overuse of compressors, leading to clipping and other post-processing oddities becoming hallmarks of the sound. One can view these developments, and its succession with dariacore and hyperflip, as respect to YTPMV and otoMAD culture that inspired these artists in some way. I can't tell you if 100 gecs was typical, or atypical, of post-2019 hyperpop as a whole. What I can probably tell you is that some traces of the aforementioned net video influence bled through into those more directly inspired by their immediate work, in some way or another.

The influences that codified dariacore's initial sound are documented, a statement I wish held true for much of the scene's historiography. Aside from Soundclown, Jane Remover credits Vektroid's work as musical foundations for dariacore, namely the track 'Sick & Panic' and other contemporary song production livestreams from around the same time. One can trace part of dariacore's ironic, often self-deprecative naming structure to previous internet music fields like vaporwave, often skewing the lines between serious introspection on music consumption and the incomprehensible surrealism Tate Modern has to offer. Comparative to vaporwave and chillwave, dariacore was often perceived by listeners in a similar way, believing such trends wouldn't catch on. Like much of dariacore, I can only provide you with "look at the comments of Youtube uploads" as tangible evidence for this point, but typical coverage of the field, even if positive, leaves much to the imagination on its perception during its opening year.

Briefly returning to hyperpop's influence on dariacore in this wider discussion on internet music, there's more substance than just 'ironic theming' and 'loud as fuck' music. The sound design you hear in early dariacore tracks is often similar to hyperpop, like the... interesting (in a "I didn't know that was a sound" way) choice of snares, along with drop structure. Listening to '1235' right after 'hand crushed by a mallet' gives you a sense of progression that elaborates on why both hyperpop and early dariacore were conflated with one another during the latter's formative year and sudden rise in popularity. At bare minimum, elwood's contemporary interest in 100 gecs, and his subsequent influence upon formative dariacore during the album release, explains this area of progression. I remember him showing me 'money machine' in like 2019 after we played SDVX at the arcade, so hearing the earliest works he produced suggests a degree of inspiration that makes considerably more sense thinking about very early dariacore in hindsight.

Although early dariacore's loudness can be rationalised as extensions of hyperpop production, it doesn't answer one important question in this entire story.

How the fuck did it get louder?

Let's be clear. The original dariacore was loud. Clipping was effectively part of the broader musical style, rather than a happy coincidence. dariacore 2: enter here, hell to the left was a refinement of the existing formula in many respects... including everything clipping. I previously noted in my research (pp. 3-4) that later producers used dariacore 2 as considerable stylistic basis for what came afterwards, enough so that paying respect to at least one song is almost a rite of passage for any producer. See the number of '...during pride month?' flips out there as good points of reference. This era of dariacore is now often the codifier for most listeners' first impression. I think the popularity of dariacore henceforth stems from the significant impact of this second leroy release, with its continual significance on underground club music culture opening the door for how much the field could take inspiration from. Along with how much louder it could get.

I won't dwell much longer on a more detailed historiography from a general perspective, as somebody has already done so in a Youtube video I have linked at the start of this... essay? Not sure if I can describe it as such. Regardless, the cultural impact of dariacore, both in regards to the series of releases and the sound it cultivated, somewhat acts as a barometer for how net music progressively became much louder over time. I'll talk about music that is just literal noise in following sections, but dariacore (and founding figure Jane Remover) becoming global icons over time is one area of net music that's hard to neglect in conversation on 'net music loudness'. The in-fighting and constant disagreements that caused a schism in the original scene after Dariacore 3 makes it difficult to personally assess the field's mark on net sound design in English-speaking spheres, but the influences felt elsewhere are much better documented by comparison. Namely because you can find them outside of Discord archives.

Japanese publications and coverage of dariacore's overall progression leading up to its 'dissolution' (not sure how to describe it) forms some outlines regarding how the sound took on its recognisable shape. I refer people to a piece in AVYSS magazine by namahoge that covers matters very succinctly, whilst doubly serving as a brief contemporary thinkpiece for how dariacore could further evolve. While the article's timing precedes notable events that would happen less than a month later, like the "leroy & dltzk Memorial Service" that served to retire both aliases (at the time), it's a reliable source in understanding how far these conversations on the line between 'loud ironic net music' and 'pushing the limits of sound design' ended up travelling beyond unarchived walled gardens.

Let's actually talk about Japan and dariacore now. Long have you waited.

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okay let's talk about hyperflip in text form now

okay I think a discussion on anything related to loud net music feels devoid without discussing Japanese dariacore & hyperflip at least a little bit

I will briefly preface this by linking to a Note post (in Japanese, no translation provided) by producer Ableman Live as reference/additional reading on dariacore and hyperflip. This post comprised part of my own research on the topic, per recommendation from elwood - I share it for anyone interested in a contemporary account of the Japanese scenes up to its publication in early May of 2024.

When compared to dariacore as most people know it, Japanese accounts conversely offer more details of their respective scene(s) than other coverage. The bulk of my secondary research was comprised of various writings from Japanese sources, ironically because many involved with dariacore throughout its various eras had either left the scene, or left no tangible record on file. You're probably wondering as to how any of this is relevant in answering how the sound got louder, but I wanted to outline that a lot of my information on (Japanese) dariacore that wasn't firsthand accounts came from the Japanese scenes, who shared an interest towards questions like these in some form.

My awareness of Japanese dariacore's initial developments come from interviews with those on the ground floor. hirihiri discovered the sound a month after dariacore 2 released, while momone states "everyone was trying to imitate leroy’s sound at the time" in reference to contemporary influences that Japanese producers were drawing from. These interviews further credit the links between hyperpop and dariacore, while also highlighting that part of why the music is produced and mixed this way stems from the scene's ironic nature. Producers like dj twinturbo, momone, and nice are credited by figures like Lost Frog Productions (and each other) as the first wave bringing attention to dariacore in Japan. You hear a lot of the heavy sampling and peaking that's standard of contemporary dariacore in their earliest works, but Japanese input towards aforementioned cultural precursors like otoMADs and hyperpop outlined a new dimension to what seemed possible for the sound's direction. Despite needing another year for codification, the groundwork for what became hyperflip established itself through Japanese artists directing their own spin on a turbulent music scene.

The arguable watershed moment that put Japanese dariacore on the map was the release of 'worldwidesuperstar' by Curren. It's hard to say that lightly, but the playcount almost speaks volumes for me. 1.1 million plays at time of writing. Though debatable, I argue that the gradual impact of this track thrust Curren, and by extension, Japanese dariacore, into the wider Japanese consciousness.** Dariacore was already being played at headliner events like Bouryokuteki ni Kawaii in 2021, and Lost Frog would release several compilation albums over the next two years. These albums were devised to raise the visibility of Japanese dariacore, eventually becoming hyperflip, for a domestic audience. Like dariacore, this initiative exploded in attention, leading to increased attention on the scene that couldn't have been predicted. Are you familiar with the FASTFUSION promotional T-shirts? Did you know someone was featured on NHK News wearing one? Now you do. Hyperflip had become a niche of club fashion by this point. Saying that its musical imprint hadn't been noticed is a misnomer at best.

Returning to Curren, 'worldwidesuperstar' became emblematic of their overall style, perhaps becoming rather influential towards hyperflip's forwardness. Much of their discography peaks a lot, sometimes eclipsing the limits of what one'd hear in dariacore 2 and various iterations. The comment by Ableman Live on hyperflip being synonymous with club environments via necessity to be loud makes a lot of sense here, as you don't have to worry so much about volume balancing at events when everything is already redlining LIKE CRAZY. On two related notes, 'worldwidesuperstar' was played at a Boiler Room set less than three months after the release of FASTFUSION, which only bolstered attention towards Curren and hyperflip even further. The scene now established itself on the formula of music that peaked like Mount Everest, but there was a methodical rationale that seemed willing to adopt more sincere mannerisms to sampling, rather than being entirely imbued with homage to Dadaist satire.

I must stress that, contrary to how this segment is written, Curren was not the impetus for hyperflip's increasing sound volume. However, their sound tends to peak a little bit more than the average, so much that it finally convinced me to utilise ReplayGain in foobar2000 to avoid destroying every piece of audio equipment I own in the house. Crown of Cuteness is a particularly good example, with many tracks peaking much harder than other Curren works. I want to say that FASTFUSION codified this louder sound, and its subsequent popularity consolidated such mixing within hyperflip for a time, but I would conversely argue that such ideas aren't consistently followed. For every Curren and X TAMAMO X out there, many hyperflip-adjacent producers opt for production methods that don't go all the way in terms of loudness (though it's not always a bad thing.)

There is much that I have likely missed, or simply haven't mentioned here. Hyperflip continues to evolve in numerous ways since my previous coverage on the scene at large, with too many developments occurring at the same time for me to keep track of. Producers are experimenting with different ideas, with garage and jersey club (among other genres) forming notable deviations on the hyperflip sound. On the other hand, you've got a sizeable group of producers named after Umamusume characters (a field I've covered a bit) innovating on the broader sound, alongside taking cues from other genres and producing bootlegs/flips of various uma (and non-uma) tracks. Though hyperflip answers part of why net music got loud, there is some irony knowing that its sound has managed to craft something properly melodic in all the chaos and memes.

Without retreading too much ground, I encourage any interested readers to look further, using any of the resources provided in this section. As many in underground circles will advise, the best way to discover new music is to dig. Hopefully, I have encouraged the urge to excavate.

** 'worldwidesuperstar' has since taken on a life of its own, with several figures paying tribute in their own separate ways. Perhaps it has become the anthem of hyperflip, much like the 'willow snare' quickly became indispensible to dariacore.

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let's briefly talk about noise (and then some)

Noise is a very subjective descriptor for music, especially when it comes to separating actual manipulation of sine waves from anything with a melody one doesn't really like. It's very likely that for many readers, you can scarcely differentiate between these categories. No harm in this, of course.

I am ill-equipped to narrate a concise and comprehensive chronology of noise in net music. My experience with such only goes so far as the very rare themed doujin compilation where producers see how far they can force literal tones to express a melody of some kind. I will, however, outline some examples of music in this space that comes to mind.

One particular field of music that is explored frequently enough to warrant discussion is extratone. For a very simple description aimed towards prospective readers whose heads find the Needy Girl Overdose adaptation too complex, extratone is a genre of music that starts out at 1000BPM. Yup. The basic idea is that kicks at this tempo become very hard for the ear to differentiate, allowing producers to mess around with rhythms to affect the 'tone' of what's being output. I am immensely oversimplifying here, so, like always, I am linking an article that explains this concept better than me. To most listeners, it's about the closest one will get to sticking a vibrator in their ears. And that's COOL.

Underground Japanese hardcore has always been no stranger to incorporating different sounds into the mix. You hear this in the sheer variety of releases during the 2000s, from DJ SHARPNEL, to the various projects of HARDCORE TANO*C and ALiCE'S EMOTiON, plus fringe circles demonstrating a range of ideas, like the awesomely-named Druggy's Acid RacK. With the growing popularity of doujin hardcore music, and J-core, starting from the 2010s, a variety of labels such as FREAKIN WORKS and Psycho Filth Records start playing around more with the aggressive sides of hardcore. Producers also test how loud they can go. Japanese speedcore is already decently known for being quite loud, using tracks from these labels as examples here, but there are more cases that I can't immediately recall. In essence, Japanese hardcore has always been loud to some degree - it depends on how inclined a producer feels towards adopting contemporary trends, whatever music styles work with higher gain and compression, or whether there's an interest in simply producing a new take on existing sound design.

Kobaryo is probably the most notable underground producer in recent memory I've seen playing around with extratone and other noise-based fields of music. 'USB 50,176.0t' and 'Web 33,260.8' showcase an early interest in such ideas from a melodic perspective, forming more of a beat that opposes any traditional expectations of extratone as sine waves violently cramped together. He's not produced anything extratone-related after this, with the sole exception of 'Singularity at 2.64e+6 BPM' - I think the combination of title and output is enough to strike the fear of God into pretty much anyone. It's hardly loud in the conventional sense, leaning more on technical aspects of sound theory for the desired effect, but it pulls off something similar enough to be mistaken.

I can't think of more examples than this from a personal recollection, so I will leave you with DJ Myosuke and 'Joe Fight' for your curious listening pleasure. (legitimate volume warning, YT upload audio normalised to -15.8dB)

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attempting to somehow conclude this ramble

I feel as if I have grossly underestimated the scope of this endeavour with every sentence I manage to complete. The more I think about it, directly pinpointing how and where net music 'got loud' feels like a fruitless task, especially considering I've missed out however many details somewhere down the line.

Answering the question at hand seems much harder than I realise, knowing that so many offshoots of music have grown beyond the scope of even the original producers. I do not think any otoMAD creator, hyperpop producer, or bedroom producer, can fathom how much their little passion project made in 14 total hours because they were bored will somehow change the rules of production forever in some way. Jane Remover is (presumably) fully aware of how dariacore has become that Disneyland park queue monster that people will sacrifice each other for as tributes in Japan. I don't know if anyone's asked. Do some of the people behind well-known otoMADs know they accidently inspired some random 16-year old's music career in 2012 with Touhou music synced to awful video memes? IDK.

Regardless of how much I will (or won't) know about the full backstory of all these different scenes, mapping a chronology of ideas to see how they can inspire each other in various ways is always fun. I think part of what makes art so captivating, even if something like 'how loud can we make music before it's enough' is rather conceptually abstract for casual listeners to grasp on first reference. This isn't meant with the intention of belittling anyone - I started off the same way, and it's normal for others to wrap their head around these kinds of terms and genres that just don't mean anything sometimes. like what the fuck is sextrance anyway.

This was a fun thought exercise, all the same. Music has quickly become one of my favourite pastimes, both in writing and recreation, so I will occasionally question my entire knowledge on the subject by throwing myself headfirst into the Socratic mind palace as I reflect on how little I truly know. Part of me had some thoughts on how the net music I listen to slowly raised the volume level as years pass, especially as I become much better at using specific terminology, rather than wildly gesturing at vague concepts so that I hope readers 'get' it.

Going through all of this is a good time to doubly reflect on my own writing style. Readers tell me that they like how I write. I am not sure of what that entails for me, when translating such kind words into feedback. Knowing that someone reads this is gratifying by itself. Thanks.

For a proper conclusion to the question of "when did net music get so loud" - uh, it depends, I guess. You can say it started in the 2000s? One can argue that Japan started it, to a degree? Everything here loops back around to irony?

Let's just blame Gachimuchi for everything. As usual.