How Hank Hill Inspired Hyperpop’s Biggest Hit
Although Hank Hill may prefer the musical stylings of Willie Nelson and Jethro Tull, he has emerged as an unsung hero of a campy pop subgenre, his now-iconic outburst at a Cigarenders meeting serving as the inspiration for hyperpop duo 100 gecs’ single, “money machine,” now at 110 million listens on Spotify and counting.
Hank’s road to hyperpop stardom was born at roughly the same time as many of the genre’s Gen Z fans — in 1997. Attending a stop-smoking support group alongside his wife Peggy and his son Bobby during Season One’s “Keeping Up with Our Joneses,” a cranky, nicotine-deprived Hank didn’t mince words when the meeting’s host dared to question his willpower.
Don't Miss
“You’re callin’ me weak?” he snapped. “Look at your little birdy arms, they’re no thicker than a cigarette! I could smoke them little arms!”
If this refrain sounds familiar, you’re not huffing charcoal — or too many off-brand Strawberry Ice Elf Bars.
Back in 2020, 100 gecs frontwoman Laura Les ventured where Randy Travis had never gone before, crediting Hank’s withdrawal-fueled rant with helping her write “money machine” — the band’s most-streamed work — after a particularly tough day at her “shitty job.”
“I had been watching a lot of King of the Hill, and I constructed in my head a sort of Hank Hill, asshole character to just absolutely break down,” Les explained of the single’s famously angry lyrics during an appearance on the Song Exploder podcast. “I was needing to just absolutely decimate this man in my head, so I recorded the intro of the song, just thinking of this emotion of ‘fuck you, I’m flexing.’”
“Aw, look at those arms, your arms look so fucking cute, they look like lil’ cigarettes,” a highly-autotuned Les sings over screeching synths. “I bet I could smoke you, I could roast you, and then you’d love it and you’d text me, ‘I love you’ And then I’d fucking ghost you.”
We’d like to think Hank would appreciate the honor of serving as the first gentleman of hyperpop, but we’re not sure he’d jive with 100 gecs’ highly-distorted, nightcore-inspired sound. Or in his parlance, “Mother of God, it’s all toilet sounds!”
