Hardstyle

Hardstyle
Stylistic origins	Hard house Nu style gabber Hard trance Acid techno Industrial
Cultural origins	Late 90s, Early 2000s
Typical instruments	DAW, Synthesizer, Sequencer, Sampler, Turntables, MCing, TTS
Mainstream popularity	Moderate-Low
Derivative forms	Early Hardstyle, Nu Hardstyle, Rawstyle
Fusion genres
Dubstyle
Regional scenes
Netherlands, Italy, Australia
Other topics
Electronic body music - Trance - Rave

Hardstyle is an electronic dance genre mixing influences from hardtechno, hard house, hard trance, and hardcore. Hardstyle typically consists of a deep, hard-sounding kick drum, intense faded or reversed basslines accompanying the beat, a synth playing a melody, and detuned and distorted sounds.^{[citation needed]} It bears some similarities to hard trance. Many hardcore artists produce hardstyle tracks as well, and many newer Hardstyle tracks are written in tuplet.

History

Hardstyle takes influence from hard trance, gabber, acid house and Hard House. The Hardstyle scene began in the Netherlands when artists like Dana, Pavo, Darkraver, Luna and The Prophet, who produced hardcore, started experimenting while playing their hardcore records. The first hardstyle events, like Qlubtempo, took place at the end of the 20th century. The first few years of Hardstyle were characterized by a tempo of around 140 BPM, a compressed kick drum sound, a short vocal sample, a screech and the use of a "reverse bass", which can be heard on the offbeat after each kick.

Around 2004-05 the genre became more melodic and uplifting, somewhat faster (usually 150 BPM), and distorted, sharp kick drum sounds were added. Many producers started to pitch-shift a distorted kick drum to create a melodic bassline that usually plays in pitch with a supersaw or a thinner Electro House synth melody. The melody often is in tuplet form, which gives the genre a pulsating rhythm, whereas older hardstyle as well as other genres such as Jumpstyle have more basic melodic structures to them. Thus, nowadays many people refer to the older style as Early Hardstyle.

Since around 2008, more terms to identify developements of hardstyle were introduced. Rawstyle is a type of hardstyle influenced from Dutch hardcore or Older Hardstyle resulting in darker melodies and deeper-sounding kick drums with more distortion. Even more recently, the term Dubstyle was introduced. Dubstyle is a fusion of elements of Hardstyle with a Dubstep rhythm, usually a 2-step or a breakbeat rhythm. Because of the non-straightened beat in dubstyle, the bass is often more dragged out and/or it doesn't follow a strict offbeat pattern that regular hardstyle incorporates, which in turn results in Dubstyle basslines bearing similarities to dubstep basslines.

Dance

There are a few notable dances performed to hardstyle. The most popular dance performed to it is the Shuffle. Shuffling is believed to have had originated in Melbourne, Australia, having now caught on in a localized manner around the world. It has now become popular throughout Malaysia, Europe and in the United Kingdom and other countries where shuffling is now an urban subculture. In the Dutch hardstyle scene the most popular dance there, seems to be various forms of Jumpstyle. Other popular forms of dance performed to Hardstyle are called Jumpstyle, which often rivals the shuffle as the primary dances of Hardstyle.

Notable related events

• Qlimax
• Defqon 1
• Black

Notable artists

• D-Block & S-te-Fan
• Deepack
• Headhunterz
• Showtek
• The Prophet
• Wildstylez
• DJ Zany
• Technoboy
• Blutonium Boy
• Wasted Penguinz
• JDX

Notable labels

• Scantraxx
• Fusion Records
• Dirty Workz