Hardstyle
Hardstyle is a genre of heavy dance music emerged in the early 2000s from the combination of hard trance, hard house, techno, and Holland hardcore. The main characteristic features of this style include hardstyle bass, melodic experimental, modified motive, the abstractness of samples or whistles and bells sounds.
Birth: 2001 Bloom: 2012
Somewhere in the mid-90s the wave of hardcore decreased that caused the emergence of hard house, and by the end of the 90s all European music had become much slower. The development of hard house scene has influenced hardstyle, so in the early 00s hardstyle was called German hard house. The style was based on the heavy `90s hard trance and influenced by Techno that was popular at that time in Italy.
In 2001 Holland has been captured by a new style. Q-dance began to throw hardstyle parties. These parties were the reason to release the first compilation «Qlimax» mixed by DJ Dana. At that time hardstyle`s tempo was about 135-145 BPM. Many Holland and Italian hardcore artists started producing hardstyle music. The Prophet established the Scantraxx label.
Meanwhile, folk Belgian hardcore has been gaining popularity as Jump, Jumper or Jumpstyle. Later, the line between them became so blurred that some people considered Jumpstyle as a sub genre of hardstyle. But it was wrong. Actually both styles shared attributes with each other equally.
In 2003 hardstyle sparkled with dozens of crazy releases and parties. The kick`s power highly increased as well as a number of fans. Music became more aggressive. The Qlimax show was held on the Gelredome stadium for the first time. Meanwhile hardstyle was gripped between jumping jumpstyle and nustyle hardcore.
The style underwent a significant change with the new release of Donkey Rollers characterized by quite unusual music arrangement: a kick in the middle of a track simultaneously becomes distorted like in hardstyle, but also jumping like in jumpstyle. After that performance new tracks with pitched-kick became extremely popular.
Compositions with a new kick were called Nustyle Hardstyle, later the term Early Hardstyle became to be used for the definition of the old style. By 2006 hardstyle had become faster basing on a tempo 140-150 BPM, the usage of triplet melodies got to be an essential part of the style making groove anthemic alike jumpstyle.
In 2007 Jumpstyle together with Hardstyle spread out over Europe and became extremely popular. Showtek was the first hardstyle producer and DJ who got in the top-100 DJMAG. Scooter with their album «Jumping All Over The Wall», where stolen pieces of hardstyle tracks can be found, gave the popularity to hardstyle. But by 2009 jumpstyle`s commercial success had faded, so its influence on hardstyle has decreased. Meanwhile hardstyle producers got interested in the mainstream hardcore sound. So in the same year the Defqon.1 Australia festival was held for the first time. The A² Records label turned out to be a part of Scantraxx that says about the emergence of heavier hardstyle as a subgenre.
In 2000 Technoboy released his new track Undersound based on a slow tempo that was associated with the attempt to revive Lento Violento. It`s worth noting that in Italy the fan community of the new Lento wave has been developing actively, but the name Lento was replaced by the English term — slowstyle.
By 2013 hardstyle had grown more than just popular: Headhunterz got into 11 place in the top-100 DJMAG. But the whole top-100 chart contained hardstyle projects for 12%. Nowadays, a hardstyle tempo is about 145-155 BPM, but sometimes it can be even 165. The style is going ahead as one of the most popular styles of electronic music.
Umbrellate style: Hardcore
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