Rotterdam Records was a Dutch

record label "Big Three" music labels A record label or record company is a brand or trademark of Sound recording and reproduction, music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a Music publisher, ...

founded by Paul Elstak in 1992. It released hardcore and

gabber Gabber ( ; ) is a style of electronic dance music and a subgenre of Hardcore (electronic dance music genre), hardcore, as well as the surrounding subculture. The music is more commonly referred to as hardcore, and is characterised by fast beats ...

music. It stopped in 2012 and restarted again in 2018 with MP3 releases.

History

The label was set up by Paul Elstak who around 2000 quit to start his own label Offensive Records at Rige Entertainment. DJ Neophyte and

DJ Panic A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at nightclubs or music festivals), mobile ...

took control of the label and three other labels (Forze Records, Neophyte Records and Terror Traxx). The label stopped in 2012 when Mid-Town Records went bankrupt. Alongside Mokum Records in Amsterdam and Lenny Dee's New York based Industrial Strength Records, Rotterdam Records was an influential label in the early 1990s

scene.

Releases

Founded in 1992, the label brought out over one hundred vinyl hardcore and

releases as well as CDs, DVDs and other merchandise. Sublabels included Forze Records, Rotterdam Records Classics, Rotterdam Records Special, Rotterdam Tekno and Terror Traxx. An early release was "Poing" by Rotterdam Termination Source (Maurice Steenbergen and Danny Scholte) which went to number 2 in the

Dutch Top 40 The Dutch Top 40 () is a weekly music chart compiled by ''Stichting Nederlandse Top 40''. It started as a radio program titled "Veronica Top 40", on the offshore radio, offshore station Radio Veronica in 1965. It remained "The Veronica Top 40" ...

and became world famous. It also released tracks by the Euromasters such as "Amsterdam waar lech dat dan?" (Amsterdam? Where's that?) which stoked rivalry with Amsterdam. As Elstak moved towards releasing happy hardcore and softer music in the mid to late 1990s (for example "Rainbow in the Sky"), the original fans voiced their anger. Nasenbluten released the diss track "Rotterdam Takes It Up The Ass".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rotterdam Records Dutch record labels Electronic music record labels Record labels established in 1992 Record labels disestablished in 2012 Re-established companies