Okay, I'm gonna be a bit particular, but when it comes to Nightcore, I personally cannot consider it Nightcore unless you specifically remix the song after it has been sped up. There's definitely some good songs that I'd have to find since it's been a while since I last listened, but non-remixed sped up music is basically the "I have a zero second attention span" of music in my opinion.

I know what she's talking about because I have a niece. My youth culture awareness is hanging by a thread though.

"Nightcore = sped up normal version" was always a bit of a derogatory term towards the genre as it started to pick up steam and people got more lazier with it

As far as my experience goes, This was Nightcore proper. Admittedly not much has changed from the original, but it's still more than moving up the BPM slider

I mean the thing is at the end but the video is fire, so just watch the whole thing, but do what you want ig idc.

Monster
How should I feel?
Creatures lie here
looking through the window

Show 'er what for, Nighcore girl.

This is an ironclad rule

Did people start to use awful-sounding timestretch with pitch intact algorithms for "nightcore"? Unfortunately, a lot of "vaporwave" (slowed down and reverbed) stuff are like that nowadays.