In August 2020, a seventeen-year-old Canadian boy named Elliott Platt finished a one-minute-twenty-second song in his bedroom. The world had ground to a halt due to the pandemic, yet no one could have predicted that this brief hyperpop track would spark over five million TikTok videos and become the fourth most-liked TikTok in history.
The Beat That Started When the World Stopped
ElyOtto—the stage name for Elliott Platt—created the instrumental for SugarCrash! within the first few days of the pandemic. Initially, it sounded orchestral and had little resemblance to hyperpop. Months later, he revisited the abandoned project file and completely reimagined it. In about a day, he improvised lyrics and vocals on the spot, layering distorted bass and pitch-shifted vocals inspired by 100 gecs. The result was a 1 minute 20 second track in F major at 98 BPM, uploaded to SoundCloud on August 25, 2020.
At first, nothing happened. He considered it a fun experiment. Then, in February 2021, a TikTok user added a CapCut video effect to the song and things exploded. TikToker kaylavoid's lip-sync video racked up 92.4 million views and 10.1 million likes in just three weeks. When thenickluciano reacted, the video reached 158 million views, making SugarCrash! the fourth most-liked TikTok of all time.
One Minute and Twenty Seconds That Introduced Hyperpop to the World
What makes SugarCrash! more than just a viral hit is its genre-defining significance. This song exposed hyperpop—a genre previously confined to experimental music circles—to hundreds of millions of casual listeners. Overprocessed vocals, experimental digital sounds, and a punishingly short runtime: SugarCrash! embodied all these traits while remaining immediately catchy and accessible.
Music critics called it "the mainstreaming of hyperpop." The experimental subgenre pioneered by 100 gecs, SOPHIE, and Charli XCX had found its pop-accessible gateway through ElyOtto's bedroom production. Over five million videos on TikTok alone used the song as background music.
"It didn't really hit me that this song was a worldwide phenomenon until almost a year later, when it just kicked up again, stronger than ever."— ElyOtto
The song hit number one on Spotify's U.S. Viral 50 chart and peaked at number 10 on Billboard's Hot Rock & Alternative Songs. It also charted at 59 on the UK Singles Chart and surpassed 100 million streams on Spotify.
From Bedroom to RCA Records
SugarCrash!'s success completely transformed the seventeen-year-old's life. Seven labels expressed simultaneous interest, and he had to quickly hire a manager and lawyer. He ultimately signed with RCA Records. In April 2021, a remix featuring Kim Petras and Curtis Waters was released. This one-minute-twenty-second song born in pandemic isolation became an emotional landmark for an era—sweet, chaotic, and slightly surreal, much like the COVID years themselves.
