Hardstyle is an

electronic dance Electronic dance music (EDM), also referred to as dance music or club music, is a broad range of percussive electronic music genres originally made for nightclubs, raves, and List of electronic dance music festivals, festivals. It is generally ...

genre that emerged in the late 1990s, with origins in the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

and

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

. Hardstyle mixes influences from

techno Techno is a genre of electronic dance music (EDM) which is generally produced for use in a continuous DJ set, with tempos being in the range from 120 to 150 beats per minute (bpm). The central rhythm is typically in common time ( ) and often ...

new beat New beat is a Belgian electronic dance music genre that fuses elements of new wave, hi-NRG,Simon Reynolds: ''Generation Ecstasy: Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture.'' Routledge 1999, , p. 124. EBM and hip hop (e.g. scratching).Timor ...

and hardcore. Early hardstyle was typically written at 140 BPM (''beats per minute''); however, modern hardstyle is faster, produced around 150 BPM. It consisted of overdriven and hard-sounding kick drums, often accompanied by an offbeat bass, known as a "reverse bass". As the genre grew, the production techniques and songwriting changed to be suited to a more commercial audience. Modern hardstyle can be recognized by its use of synthesizer melodies and distorted sounds, coupled with hardstyle's signature combination of

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

and

bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Wood * Bass or basswood, the wood of the tilia americana tree Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in th ...

. The genre is particularly known for its

harmonic In physics, acoustics, and telecommunications, a harmonic is a sinusoidal wave with a frequency that is a positive integer multiple of the ''fundamental frequency'' of a periodic signal. The fundamental frequency is also called the ''1st har ...

use of kickdrums. Due to the sustained nature of a hardstyle kick, producers are able to play basslines by using only the kick itself, which becomes a distinct bass tone through a series of

distortion In signal processing, distortion is the alteration of the original shape (or other characteristic) of a signal. In communications and electronics it means the alteration of the waveform of an information-bearing signal, such as an audio signal ...

, equalization and layering (among other methods). This technique is known as "pitching" a kick. The genre gained commercial acceptance in the 2010s, with hardstyle artists performing on the biggest stages in EDM worldwide. Hardstyle influenced other styles of electronic dance music such as

big room house Big room house or simply big room is a fusion subgenre of house music (notably progressive house and electro house) that gained popularity in the early 2010s. Although the term "big room" started appearing in news articles circa 2007, the curr ...

, which began sharing similarities with hardstyle like structures, rhythms, and later, pitching kicks became popular in big room too. Hardstyle also played a large influence in

frenchcore Frenchcore is a subgenre of hardcore techno Hardcore (also known as hardcore techno) is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany in the early 1990s. It is distinguished by faster tempos (1 ...

and

happy hardcore Happy hardcore, also known as 4-beat or happycore, is a subgenre of hardcore dance music or " hard dance". It emerged both from the UK breakbeat hardcore rave scene, and Belgian, German and Dutch hardcore techno scenes in the early 1990s ...

music, which both became popular in the late 2010s with the hardstyle audience after producers started applying hardstyle production techniques and melodic styles to the genres.

History

Origins

The exact origin of hardstyle cannot be specifically defined; however, it is clear the characteristic of hardstyle originates from hard trance (notably hard trance's 'reverse bass', and artists such as German deejay Scot Project) with influence from other genres such as hardcore, this genre is what is now known as early hardstyle. As it progressed, the genre gathered characteristics from other electronic music genres and refined its own sound and identity. Over time, the BPM of hardstyle music increased, from a range of 135 to 150 to a range of 150 to 160. Some hardcore producers brought hardstyle elements back to the hardcore scene, which made modern hardstyle and hardcore very similar and often indistinguishable in some cases, only differing in BPM. The first event credited as a hardstyle event was Qlubtempo, which took place in the year 2000 in

Zaandam Zaandam () is a city in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of North Holland, Netherlands. It is the main city of the municipality of Zaanstad and received City rights in the Netherlands, city rights in 1811. It is located on the river Zaan ...

. Qlubtempo was the first event produced by

Q-dance Q-dance is a Dutch company that organizes events and festivals that focuses on the harder styles of dance music – mainly hardstyle, Hardcore techno, hardcore, and hard trance. Popular events and festivals organized by Q-dance are Defqon.1 Fest ...

, a Dutch event company which would later go on to produce hardstyle festivals in other countries in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

and

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

. In 2001, Q-dance produced the first edition of

Qlimax Qlimax was an annual hardstyle and hard dance event in the Netherlands. It was a major attraction held by Q-dance, and considered to be one of the leading hardstyle events, attracting nearly 30,000 people annually. It contains some of the most sop ...

. Q-dance trademarked the term "hardstyle" on the 4th of July, 2002, after both Qlimax and Qlubtempo proved to be successful. Since its inception, Q-dance has guided the evolution of hardstyle music with its events and is often involved with hardstyle artists on a creative level. In 2003, Q-dance hosted the first edition of Defqon.1. The first few years of hardstyle were characterized by a tempo of around 140–150 BPM, a distorted kick drum sound, vocal samples, dissonant synth sounds known as "screetches" and the use of a "reverse bass", a hard kick distorted offbeat bass within the same beat. Around 2002, more hardstyle labels emerged. Fusion Records (with DJ Zany and others) and Scantraxx (founded by Dov Elkabas) were the two largest Dutch Hardstyle labels in that period. At this point in time, hardstyle artists were primarily from either the

Subgenres

Early hardstyle

Early hardstyle is a modern name for what was at the time called "hardstyle", the genre is focused mostly on reverse bass kicks, which can still be found in songs today as a pre-drop.

Nustyle

Euphoric hardstyle

From roughly 2010 onwards, the move towards a more melodic emphasis from older hardstyle evolved into the subgenre "euphoric hardstyle", characterized by highly emotional melodies and heavy pitch-shifting of kicks.

Trapstyle

The Trapstyle is a sub-genre of the hardstyle scene linked to trap which appeared in the mid- 2010s. It was pioneered by Pittsburgh DJ, Black Daddy, CEO and Founder of Hardstyle Family.

Dubstyle

In early 2010, a variation in hardstyle, named dubstyle was introduced. Dubstyle is the name given to the genre fusion of hardstyle and

dubstep Dubstep is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in South London in the early 2000s. The style emerged as a UK garage offshoot that blended 2-step rhythms and sparse dub production, as well as incorporating elements of broken ...

. Dubstyle tends to have reversed wobble basslines and takes the kick styling of hardstyle tracks, while combining them with the rhythm, groove and dubstep tempo and effects a fusion of elements of hardstyle with a dubstep rhythm, usually a 2-step or a

breakstep Breakstep, or breakbeat garage, is a genre of music that evolved from the UK garage scene and influenced the emergence of dubstep. History Breakstep evolved from the 2-step garage sound. Moving away from the more soulful elements of garage, it ...

rhythm.

Notable related events

* Defqon.1 * Mysteryland *

* Reverze * Sensation Black * The Qontinent * Decibel Outdoor * Intents Festival * Rebirth Festival * Knockout Outdoor * Basscon Wasteland *

Electric Daisy Carnival Electric Daisy Carnival, commonly known as EDC, is an electronic dance music festival organized by promoter and distributor Insomniac. The annual flagship event, EDC Las Vegas, is held in May at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and is the largest e ...

(Basscon Stage) *

Tomorrowland Tomorrowland may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Tomorrowland (Disney Parks), a theme land at a number of Disney theme parks around the world * Tomorrowland (festival), an annual electronic dance music festival in Boom, Belgium * ''Tom ...

* Shockerz

Notable labels

* Dirty Workz *

Fusion Records Fusion Records is a Dutch record label, sub-label of Freaky Music which, at first, released hard trance and hard house records, and kept growing by releasing hardstyle. After the end of Superplastik (another sub-label of Freaky Music), the artists ...

* Scantraxx

References

{{Hardcore dance music-footer 20th-century music genres 21st-century music genres Electronic dance music genres 2010s in music 2020s in music