Porter Robinson Has Made Peace with Being the Hopecore Flagbearer

I honestly couldn't stand electronic dance music as a medium of solitary enjoyment before I stumbled upon the transformative music of Porter Robinson, which was smack dab in the middle of the global pandemic in mid-2021. My gateway into the profound aural worlds that are distinctly his was the track "Get Your Wish" and eventually "Trying to Feel Alive" from his critically acclaimed album Nurture (2021). To say this record is a special album would be underselling the appropriately soul-cleansing nature of Nurture, with many listeners basically anointing it as therapy in a bottle because of how profound Robinson gets in his songwriting and even his production.

Being able to sit down with Robinson for a couple of odd hours was a very personal endeavor for me since this specific project possessed an invaluable "break glass in case of fire" quality to me. I could just plug myself into the safe haven that he has crafted for many others during times of distress and as the anxiety-ridden walls cave in on most twenty-something-year-olds.

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Once you get into Porter Robinson's music, you can't really close the floodgates that compel you to obsess over the hopeful sonic architecture and universal truths such as imposter syndrome, depression, and grappling with finding genuine fulfillment in whatever you set out to do.

Tunes like "Something Comforting," "Shelter," "Mother," and "Russian Roulette" have gotten me through slumps, humps, being down in the dumps, and everything in between. I've seen much heavier stories of people getting through cancer battles and grief with the help of Robinson's intricately arranged beeps and boops within Worlds (2014), Nurture, and even the cheeky synth-pop stylings in Smile! (2024).

His beloved collaboration with fellow melodic EDM savant Madeon, "Shelter," still conjures involuntary tears from me much like a Pavlovian impulse from when I first watched its accompanying anime music video (if you haven't seen it yet, go do it).

Robinson's now-legendary livestreamed Secret Sky DJ set in 2020 was also my introduction to his eclectic taste that involves a mix that ranges from The 1975, Clairo, Hikaru Utada, and even Lil B.

So what goes on in the mind of one of the electronic music scene's most original and imaginative minds?

Esquire Philippines went through Porter-coded playlists with the music iconoclast the afternoon before his headlining DJ set for day 1 of the &Friends Manila festival at The Cove in Okada Manila.

It wouldn't be farfetched to say that the shared experience of living through a critical juncture in history such as the coronavirus pandemic fundamentally changed the way we yearned for avenues for us to cope with the seemingly insurmountable isolation and digital exhaustion.

That's why me and many other guys gravitated towards masterpieces like Bo Burnham's Inside as it transcended conventional forms of stand-up comedy that wouldn't cut it for the times we were living in.

Nurture was one of those poignant outlets for many people who sought a kindred spirit to reassure them that it was okay to feel like you were succumbing to existential dread and an impending claustrophobia.

Cuts like "Something Comforting" and "Mirror" echo these apprehensions to a tee, and many have endearingly dubbed his music at this time as the genesis for the "Hopecore" and "Botanica" genres.

How does it feel to have to bear that weight of effectively changing the way people process and make peace with these emotions and how they relate to life? Think of the album as free therapy.

"Yeah, well, I'm proud of that actually. It does feel like a big responsibility," Robinson told Esquire Philippines, commenting on how this duty of emotional resonance sits with him.

He reflected that the album came at a time in the world when a lot of people were in desperate need of hope.

"I accept it, sure, yeah," was his response when asked if he was okay with being patient zero or flagbearer for this "Hopecore" aesthetic. "I don't think it defines me, but I think that it's not a bad descriptor for nurture, yeah."

The musician recounted when he found himself consistently cloud-gazing and looking up at the sky a lot, which was an instrumental habit that allowed him to sincerely express himself through his work.

Different albums also meant immersing himself in a kaleidoscope of hues and an amalgamation of feelings that translated into distinctly separate worlds.

"So I hope that through sincere expression and by saying what's really on my heart, I can make music that helps people see the world in a way that's helpful to them. I think it's a really good thing," according to the genre-bending artist.

It may sound like a lot of fun being a producer and a recording artist, but it does require a certain level of obsession and devotion to the craft to make something compelling.

Taking on this role has been democratized with the endless plug-ins, virtual instruments, and digital audio workspaces to choose from. It's really up to the artist to arrange those random beeps and boops into a statement people want to listen to.

Robinson, who undeniably has the Midas touch with a MIDI controller, said he makes do with a bunch of random noises until it taps into his innate nostalgic quality as a human being.

"You start to get diminishing returns working on music," he said. "At first, every change is making a big difference. And the longer you go on, each change starts to make a smaller and smaller difference, and I really feel the song in a lot."

We had briefly spoken with Charlie Puth (whom Robinson rates very highly), and the perfect-pitched maestro confessed to "letting God into a mix" or the intangible quality of song to know if your work in the studio is done.

This directly leads to why he told me that he would never make direct sequels to what people widely deem his magnum opus, Worlds (2014), even to the uproar of the wider music-listening community.

"Something like Worlds or Nurture—the reason those albums are so good is not because of the style. It's because of all of the emotions and feelings that were put into that. And those were specific to who I was at that point in my life," the artist said.

If you were to train AI to recreate or attempt to reconstruct Worlds or Nurture, it could sonically get in the ballpark of the aesthetic but never recapture the essence of the original albums, Robinson noted.

He has repeatedly expressed his nostalgic nature in tracks like "Unfold" (a personal anthem of mine), and that applies to the way he remembers his albums.

"Sometimes you go back to a place from your childhood, and it doesn't look the way you remembered," according to Robinson. "It was almost better in your memory. Sometimes it's disrespectful to overexpose something when it's better in your memory."

Well, there's your answer, internet.

Robinson's broader philosophy on getting excited about making music starts with his love for the zeitgeists of yesteryear, whether it be the 80s', 90s', or the 2000s.

"What I like about music from the past is that people were unconsciously making decisions about their music that are different than the decisions that get made today. I really like to try to pull out some of those pieces," he reflected.

On the contemporary side, he's been unsurprisingly jamming out to a lot of burgeoning electronic music artists such as Jane Remover and Underscores, along with his collaborators Ninajiraichi and Frost Children.

"I don't want to like lump anybody into a movement, but I think that what's happening there is really exciting because I think that they're making music with their whole hearts, and they're doing it for the right reasons—from where I'm standing," Robinson added.

An elated Robinson also revealed his Mount Rushmore of albums based on pure enjoyment and dopamine inducement instead of pure critical merit.

1. Discovery by Daft Punk

2. 22 A Million by Bon Iver,

3. A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships by The 1975

4. Graduation by Kanye West

5. Adventure by Madeon

6. Cross by Justice.

7. The Fifth Mix to Dance Dance Revolution

The thirty-three-year-old robot pop sound merchant just played his third headlining Manila show at the &Friends festival last weekend, with a setlist that included tasteful remixes of "Language" x "Clarity" (which he co-produced with Zedd) and reimaginings of tracks and megahits like "Sad Machine," his unreleased track with the aforementioned Ninajirachi, "Wannacry," among many other bangers for a crowd split between his fans and general EDM ravers.

His last show was back in late 2024 when he was touring his Smile! , a show that almost never happened due to customs issues that almost didn't clear crew's equipment. He was already mentally preparing himself to make do with a DJ set and was dreading telling fans that his full band concert wasn't happening.

Expectations to play in front of a Manila crowd almost always include the, at this point, cliché reputation of Filipinos outsinging the artist both in volume and in pitch. Robinson seemed to agree.

"Obviously there's the thing that every artist has when they come to the Philippines, which is just the vocals. The vocals go crazy."

"I got nervous because I knew I was going to get out-sung, and I did, but it's okay. It's just a very, very, very, very enjoyable place to be, like the kindest people in the world."

Robinson has lived many lifetimes and created many worlds since he was just a thirteen-year-old who loved DDR, dubstep, video games, and anime. Now, he just has his own DDR machine at home, a song that has immortalized him and his wife Rika in League of Legends, and a growing tally of people he's saved through sounds he made with his laptop.

Story and Production: JV Ordoñez

Editor-in-Chief: Paul John Caña

Concept and Creative Direction: Igi Talao

Photography: Kieffer Carrascal

Videography: Jino Del Mundo

Makeup and Hair: Lillian Yeung

Location: Conrad Manila

Special thanks: Lunari Global, Conrad Manila, &Friends Manila, Grace Lomboy

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