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Claxton
I have been watching a couple of videos whilst busy at work ;) Da Tweekaz Defqon 1 set is one of them. It got me thinking about the similarities and differences between Hardcore and Hardstyle.
Hardstyle has been immensely successful at capturing the following of young people across mainland Europe and this has now spread the world around, with places such as the US, Australia and Eastern Asia having big followings.
There are obviously huge differences in youth culture on the continent in comparison to the UK, but the similarities between the two genres are palpable. In fact the only differences between them are 20bpm and a pitched bass drum. The music ranges from eurphoric to ravey and hard. The vocal tracks are identical as are the melodies. In the set below, track 3 is a remix of a hardcore track in Darren Styles & Recons' - Rest of Our Lives (yes, I know it was originally a house track) and the melody is exactly the same as the Hardcore version. The 6th track is a collab with Darren Styles and half of it is 170bpm. Look at the crowd reaction to it!!! Later in the set they drop a remix of Paradise's 'See The Light' which was done in Hardcore over a decade ago.
Other UK Hardcore artists such as Fracus & Darwin have done big official remixes of Hardstyle tracks. There are other ties with artists like Orbit 1 & Inverse now being big Hardstyle producers.
Hardstyle is cool. UK Hardcore/Happy Hardcore is the opposite to cool.
For me the model should be simple. Follow the Hardstyle lead. Capture the mass youth. If Hardstyle can thrive there is no reason at all why UK Hardcore can't. The European Hardcore scene has shown that BPM isn't a barrier.
Hardcore must become credible and cool, losing its long standing negative stigma.
The fact that the set below is on Youtube free of charge for all to see is a HUGE deal. UK Hardcore just doesn't have that (budget is a big deal and Blu The Roof is definitely along the right lines).
I know that there has been UK Hardcore played at Defqon 1 in Australia but wouldn't it be great to get a stage of the stuff at a big festival in the Netherlands? Even 3 or 4 sets on a stage at Defqon 1 would be massive. Surely infiltrating UK festivals would also be a big step. I know Gammer played a set at Creamfields, but we need more artists playing at these events.
This post is far too long for a Monday. What are you thoughts?
Guest
hardstyle is just a sub genre of hardcore which came out in 2002/3 when hardcore got reinvented and the mainstream jump name came into play, a few years later the world found out uk hardcore was shit so uk hardcore was forced to use the uk hardcore name worldwide
while gabba is just original hardcore from the early 90s, londoners thought they were special can kept the name when sy and vibes invented uk hardcore in 1996/7 when hardcore died
you can do more with hardcore, uk hardcore is all the same, and just boring after a hour or 2
hardstyle died and is nowhere near as big as it was in mid to late 2000s, then every track had the same melody, so hardcore got big, and rawstyle was invented to keep hardstyle alive
Claxton
quote:Originally posted by Guest:
hardstyle is just a sub genre of hardcore which came out in 2002/3 when hardcore got reinvented and the mainstream jump name came into play, a few years later the world found out uk hardcore was shit so uk hardcore was forced to use the uk hardcore name worldwide
while gabba is just original hardcore from the early 90s, londoners thought they were special can kept the name when sy and vibes invented uk hardcore in 1996/7 when hardcore died
you can do more with hardcore, uk hardcore is all the same, and just boring after a hour or 2
hardstyle died and is nowhere near as big as it was in mid to late 2000s, then every track had the same melody, so hardcore got big, and rawstyle was invented to keep hardstyle alive
What an utterly irrelevant and inaccurate post.
Guest
not irrelevant or inaccurate
its how it is and what happened, uk hardcore sells 1000, hardcore sells 300,000
you won't find gabba nowhere on the internet relating to hardcore, its extinct worldwide, and just called hardcore everywhere in every country
trippnface
To be completely honest; I think trance is making a bigger come back and grabbing the attention of the true raving youth again most pre dominantly. Some solid uplifting; and prog psy is getting huge; big enough to reach main stage. Unheard of in the USA; at least. Hardstyle is pretending to get big again; but it won't. Wasn't a dedicated enough scene in the USA when it was thriving; and still isn't. It will never have the underground crowd/support happy/uk hardcore does. Most of the happy/ uk kids are not interested. I also do not think I am biased when I say most happy/ uk hardcore fans would tend toward trance over hardstyle. I would any day. I like happy/ uk for " the feelz" ; trance gives me zero. Not to mention trance philosophy is way closer to happy/ uk hardcore philosophy than hardstyle/ gabber. Totally different crews.
For example; Dreamstate socal is going to be a ****ing epic massive with 3 trance stages; one uplifting; one classic; and one prog psy... PROG PSY!!! sold out quick last year; people are ridiculously hyped up. Know tons of hardcore ravers going for the lovey euphoria feels. Hardstyle can't do that; and won't ;) .
I guess my point is I don't personally think hardstyle and hardcore are that alike; at all.
Especially when it comes down to the fanbase.
This gets me going way closer to hardcore than hardstlye ( even the fkn video; come on! ) even sounds freeformy at points!
I used to dig hardstyle when it had more of a hard trance/hard house feel circa late 90's to mid 2000's. I know there is all these different sub genres now like "rawstyle" "subground" but this "rawstyle" stuff sounds to me like newstyle hardcore from the late 90's/early 2000's just revamped. I'm not sure if this is the type of sound you are talking about or just hardstyle as whole because there seems to be like factions within in it lol kind of like what is hardcore? do you mean spanish? or dutch or italian etc etc like that sort of jazz.
Frenchcore these days is basically UK hardcore on speed. I think if lots of UK hardcore listeners heard some good frenchtek/frenchcore stuff like Roms aka Harry Potar etc. I think lots would dig it.
I'm not sure if UK Hardcore will ever become like big room house or something along the lines. It seems like it comes and goes in waves. I think it's been on a bit of down swing but I think it will pick itself back up again. I stopped listening to lots of hardcore/gabber for about 10 years only listening to certain stuff because virtually all the labels i knew from the past changed and was now making "newstyle". "doom", "hard house/jump" "darkcore" etc. etc. typically 140-160 bpm stuff. I mean I liked it but I didn't like it so bad that it's all I wanted to hear all night. I also am heavily into breakbeats and hardcore was very breakbeat induced when I got introduced to it, so when that died down... I pretty much backed off and did some serious digging to try to find stuff that I would like and it was pretty hard for some years but long story short in 2016 I feel Hardcore is vibrant once again with lots of styles to choose from.
I hope UK Hardcore does catch on and producers get paid and more bookings for DJ's.
djDMS
There have been attempts to model Hardcore on the success of pretty much everything over the past 15+ years, none have really worked out.
Basically, there just seems to be a built in dislike of Hardcore by most people and I don't know what can be done to change that.
Even a PR/Marketing genius would have trouble getting it out there to a much wider audience.
Guest
your gabba, proper hardcore gets life in the uk, it has everything people want, then everytime uk hardcore event kill it and start playing aload of shit nobody cares about, and don't actually get speedcore, frenchcore, uk gabba is pure ****ing shit and kills the party if you have all the folk inside with pimped cars and hunniez
and you also have aload of shit random gabba nights that start playing aload of shit, then they all disappear for years, so if anyone bothers with hardcore, they just put hardcore on the flyer and uk hardcore can have uk hardcore
Guest
so yeah, you can spot the odd 1 out
SparkzMusic
quote:Originally posted by djDMS:
There have been attempts to model Hardcore on the success of pretty much everything over the past 15+ years, none have really worked out.
Basically, there just seems to be a built in dislike of Hardcore by most people and I don't know what can be done to change that.
The scene does not work well as a whole and that is the reason.
The whole scene was dictated by big names who occasionally let their mates on board. They, after clubland took an interest realised money was to be made and pushed it as mainstream as possible depending on what was in the charts at that time (Dubstep became a popular thing, so the scene turned that way), to pay off the mortgage or give them extra pocket money.
"Happy Hardcore" was tried until the very end. It became outdated. Even though there are still a lot of people who love that sound, it sounds very old and will never be as popular as it once was. Saying that, it was never designed to be "popular".
UK Hardcore never died out fully. The scene was doing better than ever, more events, better tracks (imo), but the big names that dictate the scene to the masses went on to follow on with the commercial success not by letting the genre die off, but by evolving it too quickly to suit the mainstream sound of the modern day market (for increases in pocket money allowances).
The scene has been left in a mess. What is the hardcore scene? Is it the tracks the big names are putting out? Or is it the "UK Hardcore" sound many bedroom producers are making?
Let's face it though, who would someone rather go out to an event to see? Some bedroom producer doing a set of their "UK Hardcore" tracks or a very big name who is doing a completely different set of their dub step style tracks? My money is on the big name.
Imo the scene will be dead entirely when the bignames quit or pass away because the majority of listeners only know the scene as Darren styles or any of the other names up there. Which is sad really because it's the same 6 or 7 names getting worshipped who are reeling in the cash and dominating the scene.
Producers can either try to join them by making stuff similar to what they make, or do their own thing to be cast in the shadows.
ViolonC
UK Hardcore has massively adapted the Hardstyle sound design in the last two years. It's kinda late to the party as Bigroom House already was there - maybe this was the real incentive to go there. Reverse Bass hardstyle has much in common with UK Hardcore, not surprising, and Powerstomp had been devised still a little earlier to be a bridge between them.
Hardstyle has reached a dead end and there has been little to no progress music wise - that's why revers bass has come back. Everybody threw little trap on their projects but that is just a cheap fix to have some variety and won't foster the genre. The success we see is the "mainstream" fan base that has established a little earlier and won't let go of the genre. And with Deep Tropical Future House all over there is desperate need for some harder music.
Happy Hardcore needs to find it's own place. To become successful in mainland Europe it will need to gain some traction in Germany. And i'm not seeing much effort there. Jumping on Hardstyle will mean jumping on a ship that sails nowhere. Regarding audience there might still be something to gain. Regarding music there needs to be a new direction. I guess we will be having dubcore again for about a year. Curious what will come next.
Guest
students and youth are still 2 different things entirely, europe already has hardcore and rawstyle
all uk hardcore can do is have its gabba room without all the frenchcore/speedcore/all teh ******** core, and just have 12 hours of your "mainstream" and get all the russians/italians/dutch in the doors
Elliott
UK hardcore already sold its soul in the pursuit of commercial success a long time ago so why not?
Samination
Powerstomp isn't really new. DJ Kurt has made "Powerbounce" for the better better half of 2010, if not already since 2006
Sulphurik
I understand what you're saying about Hardstyle Claxton. Yeah it's been a genre that's been very successful in recent years as you've said in mainland Europe. It's not a genre I've been that keen on. There are some tracks I've been a fan off but there are parts of the genre that just don't do it for me.
I suppose there are some similarities between the two genres as you've mentioned. I don't really think UK hardcore needs to follow the hardstyle lead. I suppose I don't mind some hardstyle influences in UK Hardcore but not a full on hardstyle track.
I think UK hardcore just needs to do what it's done best in the past from the 90s and 2000s.
Some great sounding new tracks with some superb new remixes of old hardcore tracks from the 90s.
It's easy for me to say this as I've been into hardcore for 20 years now so this is the style I enjoy the most.
Not every track on this mix is what I'm into - my style is uplifting tracks with/without vocals. I'm not much of a fan of the newer electro and power stomp style.
Some tracks I'm really liking in this mix include I Rave You, Start the magic, Sugar & Spice remix, Run to me remix, Kickin Hard remix, Rock that body remix, Turn Around, Blue Eyes remix, Noisemaker is back. Wherever you go sounds great - the hardstyle part works well.
Some great sounding new tracks with some superb new remixes of old hardcore tracks from the 90s.
Some nice tracks in that mix, how modern Hardcore should be, keeping the balance of old and new styles, thanks for the heads up.
I heard snippets of my fav scott song in there! Thanks!
Claxton
When I suggested Hardcore modelling Hardstyle I wasn't referring to the sound of the music. I meant more the way the genre is marketed, its image and its target audience etc.
I only compared the similarities in the music to show why Hardcore's sound needn't be a limitation.
Elliott
quote:Originally posted by Bring Me Round To Love:
Some great sounding new tracks with some superb new remixes of old hardcore tracks from the 90s.
Some nice tracks in that mix, how modern Hardcore should be, keeping the balance of old and new styles, thanks for the heads up.
Fooook. This sounds heavy, lads!
Now this is music that I want to take drugs to. Just listen to them supersaws! Even enjoying the ravey stabs.
Thanks, Sulphurik, for restoring my faith in hardcore a little tiny bit. If Al Storm is going to use 24/7 to promote this kind of sound then maybe we're still in business.
Edit: It's getting slightly less impressive now.
Edit 2: OH FFS. I just got to Gammer's Surrender remix. It's just the original ****ing tune with some generic big room kick on it and the same whiny weak shit lead he uses on everything these days. It's funny that Gammer's tracks all sound far more similar now than they did in the supposedly "identicore" '00s.
Elliott
quote:Originally posted by Claxton:
When I suggested Hardcore modelling Hardstyle I wasn't referring to the sound of the music. I meant more the way the genre is marketed, its image and its target audience etc.
I only compared the similarities in the music to show why Hardcore's sound needn't be a limitation.
My opinion is that hardstyle earlier this decade took a lot of inspiration from UK hardcore last decade. Some of the leads are just UK hardcore leads at 140bpm with a distorted kick underneath. For that reason, I found myself loving a lot of hardstyle in ~2012.
If they can succeed, why not us? I agree with you on this point.
All that happened is that hardstyle reached critical mass and then the snowball effect kicked in. We had a similar thing on a smaller scale in the mid '00s with CXH. I haven't heard UK hardcore at a house party since 2009 but amongst my age group (secondary/college) it was huge from about 2004 to about 2008. I have particularly great memories of 2008 where we had 2 huge house-wrecking parties playing nothing but hardcore all night. And every single person was getting down to it. Hardcore is nothing here anymore. On the few occasions we revive it while driving around at night or whatever, we're still bumping CXH 4. Ironically, I don't think anyone in my area even realises that hardcore is still being made. I have no idea what they'd make of the modern sound but it's kind of amusing to me that everyone keeps banging on about hardcore is finally achieving mainstream recognition/awareness/popularity/whatever when, in my experience, the complete opposite is true.
ViolonC
quote:Originally posted by Elliott:
My opinion is that hardstyle earlier this decade took a lot of inspiration from UK hardcore last decade.
Nothing against your opinion but that is pretty far fetched.
The main difference between Hardstyle and UK hardcore is that the first developed on continental Europe, the later on this one Island above that doesn't even wanna play with the rest. It always strikes me how much of a bubble the UK must be music wise when reading through the posts here. If one wanna take any step Hardstyle did (repeating myself) you will have to get UK/Happy Hardcore over to the mainland.
Hard2Get
quote:Originally posted by djDMS:
There have been attempts to model Hardcore on the success of pretty much everything over the past 15+ years, none have really worked out.
Basically, there just seems to be a built in dislike of Hardcore by most people and I don't know what can be done to change that.
Even a PR/Marketing genius would have trouble getting it out there to a much wider audience.
This is accurate. Although i don't see why there is a need to change it. There is nothing to gain from more people liking the genre to a more average degree. The very thing that makes Hardcore what it is is that it is not average, not too many people like it but those that do like it a lot. The only way to make more people like it is to make it more average and watered down, thus becoming something different (much like it already has).
Hardstyle is indeed very successful. But look at how awful it had to sound to become that way. And that's the thing that matters is it not? The music.
oxis
It is worth mentioning that hardstyle wasn't always what it is now, generally the fartkick is associated with hardstyle but a lot of it used to be pretty similar to other hardcore related genres with the angry reverse bass and hard undistorted kick, and similar to gabber when it comes to synths and general "tone" (I know they still have dark hardstyle tracks but i find them a lot more uncommon, atleast from what i have heard). Instead of trying to directly take inspiration from current hardstyle, it could be a better option to see what they changed from old to new hardstyle and apply some of the principles to happy hardcore. Just speculation on my part, but that way you might end up with something that works and isn't a blatant hardstyle ripoff.
quote:Originally posted by djDMS:
There have been attempts to model Hardcore on the success of pretty much everything over the past 15+ years, none have really worked out.
Basically, there just seems to be a built in dislike of Hardcore by most people and I don't know what can be done to change that.
Even a PR/Marketing genius would have trouble getting it out there to a much wider audience.
In this case, the common denominator is at fault, the BPM. It's just way too fast I guess :( Usually there are tons of people that complain that hardcore is not the same anymore, it sounds like house music now, etc. Personally the only untouchable variable in hardcore for me is the BPM, it only stops being hardcore once you change that (assuming we are talking about dance music of course).
There are decent attempts being made by the big names (Styles, Dougal & Gammer) that got some attention though, so maybe it is possible. You can claim that they don't make the music you like anymore, but you can't deny that they are trying pretty hard, the production value on some of these guys' stuff is really good.
Claxton
quote:Originally posted by Hard2Get:
quote:Originally posted by djDMS:
There have been attempts to model Hardcore on the success of pretty much everything over the past 15+ years, none have really worked out.
Basically, there just seems to be a built in dislike of Hardcore by most people and I don't know what can be done to change that.
Even a PR/Marketing genius would have trouble getting it out there to a much wider audience.
This is accurate. Although i don't see why there is a need to change it. There is nothing to gain from more people liking the genre to a more average degree. The very thing that makes Hardcore what it is is that it is not average, not too many people like it but those that do like it a lot. The only way to make more people like it is to make it more average and watered down, thus becoming something different (much like it already has).
Hardstyle is indeed very successful. But look at how awful it had to sound to become that way. And that's the thing that matters is it not? The music.
People always say this or something along the lines of "well I wouldn't want Hardcore to become mainstream anyway..."
But the point is: the more popular a genre becomes, the better the strength in depth becomes. The underground of the genre would improve. More people would attend raves where the 'mid-tier' and lesser known artists are playing. More people would be making Hardcore.
What we have currently is a scene where there is so little happening you kind of have to like most the music to be current and active. If the scene was bigger, you could literally ignore/discard movements, promoters and sections of artists because it wouldn't matter; they would still be successful and you would still have a wealth of choice.
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