How the art of PC Music revolutionised a visual world for pop music and beyond

So often is the phrase “cultural reset” touted today that we regularly lose sight of the genuine moments which ruptured the zeitgeist. I’m talking about moments of rupture powerful enough to release tremors felt by the culture years after first breaking ground. One such cultural reset belongs to the record label and art collective PC Music. Starting in 2013 by musician and composer Alex “A. G.” Cook, the “DIY” label came onto the scene with a play on the visual language of 2000s minisites, and the glossy CGI-laden stock photos of popular advertising. The reappropriation of glossy hi-fidelity imagery was already being seen in the contemporary art world at the time (most noticeably by the collective DIS), but A. G.’s desire to take these aesthetic queues further into the virtual realm set it apart from the rest. “I was born in 1990, so I’ve got distinct memories of custom-coded GeoCities and Angelfire sites and elaborate Neopets guilds, as well as point-and-click games like The Longest Journey and The Neverhood,” A. G. tells me when we sit down to talk about the label’s early days. “By the 2010s, virtual space became much more defined by apps and social media, and I remember feeling nostalgic for that previous version of computer games and the internet, one that was a bit more unpredictable and DIY.”

Ever since the 2013 debut, so much about PC Music has already been said, discussed, and dissected across the internet that it’s hard to know where to even begin. In Dazed’s 2019 retrospective of the label, the magazine heralded PC Music as “the most exhilarating record label of the 2010s.” Whilst undeniably true, it summarises a more acute problem with the discourse over PC Music since its conception. It is, of course, the most exhilarating record label of the 2010s – but perhaps just as importantly, it is the most exhilarating visual art collective of that same decade.

Looking back from 2022, it’s easy to see Hannah was actually one of the individuals crafting pop aesthetics that is commonplace today. But, Hannah’s visual journey began much more quietly. She was originally in fashion communication, looking to the forgone ad campaigns of clothing brand Miss Sixty for artist inspiration. “Being a visual artist was the main thing I was doing before music so for me music was another exciting way that I could channel more of creating an entire visual world,” she adds. The more we talk, the more I notice Hannah ease into a gentle confidence, remaining humble yet concise and clear about her artistic intentions from the beginning. “My music with PC started developing in tandem with me developing my artistic style as a visual artist,” she says.

Hannah met A. G. shortly after he graduated from studying music, and describes him fondly as a “kindred spirit” who immediately understood her visual perspective. “I was fascinated by big budget pop music videos like Nicki Minaj’s Super Bass and Britney’s Hold It Against Me, which felt otherworldly but almost within reach,” A. G. says. “With all sorts of software becoming more accessible, I really became interested in how ambiguous something with high production value could be.” Together, they were both fascinated by the celebrity aesthetic and, namely, its crossover into advertising. “A. G. was looking at making pop songs for friends and thinking about friends as a celebrity kind of idea. And when we met, I was doing the same thing but with photos. I was taking pictures of my friends and making perfume campaigns with them.”

The websites Kim and Hannah originally worked on are indicative of the large fandom PC Music has generated by way of its visual output. Longtime PC Music collaborator and multimedia artist Aaron Chan agrees as such. He explains to me that “PC-related visuals are usually tailored in a way for people that didn’t know they wanted it, but they actually really want it,” which is why the endless generation of content is so key to the label’s graphic landscape. But, to understand why the specific aesthetics of PC resonate so well with its target audience – and why they always have – I approach graphic design juggernaut Timothy Luke. Immensely talented, and often imitated, Timothy first started doing graphics for PC Music when A. G. asked him to help come up with ideas for his work with Charli XCX on her “soft reboot” as an artist in 2016 with EP Number 1 Angel. “I think people appreciate pop being interrogated non-cynically,” Timothy explains to me. “More broadly and vaguely, I think people enjoy pop things which are made well in some universal sense, and I think PC has always been about that end.”

Timothy’s portfolio for PC is considerably vast, and his exciting, innovative, and fresh eye for graphic design has been a welcome addition to PC Music since it entered its second era. “Rather than being prescriptive with a specific brief, I think we've always been quite over the top in looking at and thinking about all lots of reference points at once, and generally sharing an interest in really extreme and formal visual ideas,” he tells me. “Coming in I really resonated with the visual language and sensibilities of the PC project, the celebration and manipulation of extreme pop ideas and aesthetics, and the various modulations of reference points from things we shared growing up.”

Talking to Timothy is quite exciting, but that may be my bias – he’s one of my favourite graphic designers working today. Asking him about the technical approaches he brought to PC illuminates how the label (namely A. G.) was operating with visuals back in 2016. “What I felt like I could bring to the table was my systems orientation and interest in clear and effective graphic devices and imagery,” he says. “PC quickly became for me an avenue to explore possibilities in visual identity, structure, and output.” One of his favourite projects to date is from one of PC Music’s founding artists, Danny L Harle, and his 1UL EP in 2017. “There are a few devices in there that manifest certain interests of mine in a clear way – in particular the meandering laser lines that function both as a visualisation of each track’s melodic movement as well sigil-like icons,” he explains. “I enjoy that kind of puzzle logic and extreme formality.”

When I finally broach the topic of PC Music visuals being disseminated and appropriated by every mainstream artist today with Hannah, she takes a long pause. Then, in her always-positive demeanour, she offers a refreshing take on her part in the legacy. “It’s definitely cool to be a catalyst in some way, and maybe some of us were the first people that were starting to think in those terms,” she says. “But there must have been other people thinking like that too at the time, you know?” For Hannah, it’s always been a sign that people enjoyed the energy and excitement within pop music that PC Music was bringing to the front of its visuals, especially online. “Ultimately, the further it travels the more open people will be to receiving the things that we make and we do,” she adds, referring to the current mass of discourse surrounding the hyperpop genre. The irony discourse has once again surged, this time encompassing Charli XCX, Sophie, and 100 gecs, although less heavy on the visuals. “At the start, it was quite a small niche group of people that were really into what we did. Now, it’s blown up. It’s exciting.”

So, what exactly seems to be the constant push-and-pull factor of these visuals? It’s still hard to tell, but A. G. believes it lies squarely in the label’s original intentions: juxtaposition. “I always wanted something universal and easy to understand, but also idiosyncratic and obsessive,” he explains. “I really think those connections are there, and it’s in some ways the driving force behind a lot of my musical and visual output.” When I press for more, A. G. doesn’t disappoint. In his usual deeply genuine and unpretentious candour, he leaves me with a line I’ll be thinking about for days to come: “Everything shares the same flat space and can be dragged over or instantly replaced with something else. In the end, a lot of meaning comes from juxtaposition, the tension between real and fake, hard and soft, loud and quiet, and so on.”