Hardstyle is an electronic dance genre, more specifically a member of the hard dance music family, which mixes 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. Most early tracks were very similar to hard trance.
Development
The exact origin of hardstyle can't be defined, as it didn't simply appear, but was the result of an evolution. At first, it sounded much like hard trance but with small changes; nowadays we call this early hardstyle. As it progressed, it gathered characteristics from other genres such as hardcore and hard house and developed the unique reverse bass and was played in the 135-140 BPM range.
Around 2005 hardstyle was already defined as a genre of its own and not simply a mix of other styles. It started to gain more euphoric and uplifting melodies and was played at what today we consider the "default BPM" for this genre, 150.
It also helped the development of the happier jumpstyle, which some believe to be the direct rival to hardstyle, others a genre that developed from hardstyle and some others think it is a sub-genre of hardstyle. Nonetheless, it is another member of the hard dance family.
As it progressed, we can notice it started splitting in two different styles, or sub-genres: rawstyle, inspired by early hardstyle and euphoric hardstyle, the melodic counterpart which is also known as nustyle or nu-hardstyle. This split is believed to have happened in 2008.[1]
More recently, producers started experimenting and fusing hardstyle with other genres, such as dubstep, creating dubstyle, for the joy of some fans and the anger of others.
Sub-genres
As noted before, hardstyle can be split in different styles, depending on the mood, tempo and other characteristics of the track.
- Early hardstyle, also known as oldschool hardstyle. Known for its usage of mostly screeches and reverse bass.
- Euphoric hardstyle
- Nustyle - this is the name given to the euphoric tracks with mainstream touch added to them, such as "cheesy" lyrics and use of melodies typical of modern house tracks. If an euphoric hardstyle track doesn't have these traits, then they aren't nustyle, also called nu-hardstyle.
- Rawstyle' - the modern counterpart of early, which emphases on the usage of raw sounds and kicks.
Fusion genres
A fusion genre is basically a mix between two or more genres, typically bringing the main traits of each one of them and put up together.
- Dubstyle - as the name implies, it is hardstyle and dubstep, with the groove and tempo of the latter with the kick of the first.
- Tekstyle - hardstyle and tek music, with influences from jumpstyle.
Related genres
- Hardcore - a faster and harder genre, is one of hardstyle's biggest influences and nowadays it is considered to be the 'evil twin'.
- Hard trance - basically the father of hardstyle, as the earliest hardstyle tracks were still heavily based on hard trance and if we follow hardstyle until about 2005, when it became a genre of its own, you can see it lost hard trance traits on the way but also kept some.
- Jumpstyle
- Hard house - and, looking in the timeline of electronic mouse, regular house music is related too.
References
<references> [1] <references>
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Hardstyle split article at Fear.FM.