| Author |
Thread |
|
toml123
New Member
United Kingdom
65 posts
Joined: Dec, 2011
|
 Posted - 2025/03/03 : 16:18:01
Sadly we have all witnessed the steady decline in UK Hardcore since c.2008 when the "Clubland era" began... Djs we had known for years (Darren Styles, Breeze, Hixxy and Gammer) all became fixated on the X-Treme Hardcore series and would only produce slow dancey hardcore to suit the commercial needs of the AATW label. The branding of Hardcore Til I Die was used on 3 very clubland-esque albums and Bonkers was bought from Resist by AATW and hammered straight into the ground with more club cheese. Worse was to come c.2011 when Breeze suffered some sort of injury to his head and tried to develop a new style.. "Dubcore". The less said about that the better.
2012 - 2015 UK Hardcore started to pick up ever so slightly, gaining real momentum in 2015 and onto to 2018 with Darren Styles, Scott Brown, Dougal, Gammer producing some slammers and even some new names popping up and doing their thing but with the loss of HTID as an event after 2016 the only events you could attend in the UK were Westfest (once a year) and the marmite that is Ravers Reunited....
Since 2018 we have lost a truly great producer in DJ Gammer to the Hardstyle scene, Which is fine, if that's what he wants to do... Darren styles has also followed him to this scene and it seems Hixxy and Dougal are also heading down that dark path too. With "HTID" now pretty much being a hard style event, The hardcore we once new and loved has sadly gone down the pan. We have lost many great producers in different ways over the years, And with the lines between Hardcore and Hardstyle now being blurred, And with the likes of Klubfiller and Stonebank producing the very scraps of what you could call hardcore...
Will be ever see a return to UK Hardcore?
Alert moderator 
Edited by - toml123 on 2025/03/03 16:22:22 |
Vladel
Advanced Member
United Kingdom
999 posts
Joined: Feb, 2008
|
Posted - 2025/03/03 : 18:09:52
Well alright, losing Gammer and Styles in the 2004-2010 era would have been such a hammer blow but nowadays it's not much of a loss at all because neither of them produces anything any good. Dougal, has never really been up to much without Gammer who already sucks and lets not forget Hixxy hasn't released more than probably four tracks since 2011, again not a loss.
Regarding the rest, where have you been? I'd hardly say what's left of the scene is being picked up by Klubfiller and Stonebank, i'd say that 24/7 hardcore and Brutal kutz would have something to say about that. Both are very accomplished labels with a lot of talented producers who are producing some great music.
Now regarding the Hardstyle stuff, history has taught us that what sucks shall not last long. At the end of the 90's a few of the producers wanted to slow down Happy Hardcore and make the tracks similar to proper songs, IT DIED and was replaced by Upfront hardcore. Then some realised that Upfront hardcore was a stupid name and it became UK Hardcore.
2012 brought around Dubcore which sucked and guess what, IT DIED. Ever since then the so called saviors of the scene have tried and tried again to reinvigorate the scene with the lastest merging and copying of other types of music/genres. We had mininal drops, Big room, Kazoo Core, EDM core and now 160 crap and none of it has lasted and guess what, the latest stuff will die. The sad thing is that everyone seems to have gotten the silly idea that it's Happy Hardcore all of a sudden.
Now considering how picky i can be with these things, I have less issue with the modern music being called Happy Hardcore (which shouldn't apply to anything after 2001 in my opinion) if it's at least happy. I could make the case for the following being called happy:
Most of Darwins Music, Impulse Riders, A lot of 24/7 particularly Alaguan, Dy5on and even at push S3rl but ffs it needs to be happy.
A gammer snoozefest does not count.
Can it be redeemed? Well again if you look at history even during the dark times of Dubcore, you had Hardcore Underground and Magic Chord and since then we've had happier and UK hardcore in the background. I just don't think it will ever be massive again because quite frankly, as UK hardcore has lost it's way and slowed down, it's been replaced by Frenchcore.
__________________________________
remain calm do not be alarmed do not attempt to leave the dancefloor
Alert moderator
|
toml123
New Member
United Kingdom
65 posts
Joined: Dec, 2011
|
Posted - 2025/03/03 : 22:46:42
quote:
Originally posted by Vladel:
I'd hardly say what's left of the scene is being picked up by Klubfiller and Stonebank, i'd say that 24/7 hardcore and Brutal kutz would have something to say about that.
You seem to have completely skipped my sarcasm on that one.... What Klubfiller and Stonebank are trying to pass off as hardcore is very reminiscent of the "donk" music scene of putting the same continuous beat over every track they produce.
Hopefully once HTID has finished it's world tour we will see more events in the UK and producers might start giving a shit about what we want to listen to. Djs such as Fracus & Darwin, Al Storm and Technikore are the only ones that seem to do a decent set these days outside of "classics" sets.
Alert moderator
|
Samination
Advanced Member
Sweden
10,214 posts
Joined: Jul, 2004
195 hardcore releases
|
Posted - 2025/03/10 : 22:29:19
Hixxy played three German Hard Trance tracks on Bonkers 4, none of them are Makina. Why do people keep getting this wrong? The only Makina-ish to them is that spanish DJ started playing more Hard Trance from Bonzai and Tunnel Trance in their makina sets
__________________________________
---------------------------------------------
Samination, Swedish Hardcore DJ
Happy, UK Hardcore, Freeform, Makina and Gabber
http://samination.se/
---------------------------------------------
Alert moderator
Edited by - Samination on 2025/03/10 22:32:10 |
Samination
Advanced Member
Sweden
10,214 posts
Joined: Jul, 2004
195 hardcore releases
|
Posted - 2025/03/13 : 19:01:53
quote:
Originally posted by Sparkz_LuckyStrike:
Wasn't slashing fun kids - imagination "makina".
Released on the german hard trance label EDM
__________________________________
---------------------------------------------
Samination, Swedish Hardcore DJ
Happy, UK Hardcore, Freeform, Makina and Gabber
http://samination.se/
---------------------------------------------
Alert moderator
|
Icewind
New Member
Canada
20 posts
Joined: Jun, 2013
|
Posted - 2025/04/03 : 02:27:29
The old guard can't steer the ship forever. Maybe what we need is a total reset...
__________________________________
http://www.soundcloud.com/icewind
Alert moderator
|
jenks
Advanced Member
United Kingdom
3,598 posts
Joined: Feb, 2003
19 hardcore releases
|
Posted - 2025/04/04 : 03:21:55
I would think the biggest problem is that there was an old guard that completely monopolised the scene and didn't leave any room for new talent to emerge.
Alert moderator
|
Jacco
Junior Member
United Kingdom
120 posts
Joined: Mar, 2005
|
Posted - 2025/04/20 : 12:13:40
The big guys all left and you need some rather mainstream sound to pull the masses which is part of what keeps the scene alive. Without trying to be dramatic there was almost an exodus of the most famous artists which hurt the scene pretty bad.
Gammer -> went on to finding himself
Darren Styles -> hung out to much with the tweekas and turned hardstyle
Sy -> child abuse allegations, left the scene, feels like he took Unknown and Quosh with him
Squad-E -> RIP
Re-Con -> found greener pastures with CamelPhat
Breeze, Hixxy, Dougal -> lost their mojo
That's a pretty significant number of people that all put out sound that would draw the masses and inspire the younger generation.
Add to that that there was an issue with growing a new generation. Didn't Al Storm get a newcomers award once after having produced for 10 years or so lol?
I miss the big events, the crowds knowing all the lyrics and the vibrancy of the scene back then but it's probably not gonna come back sadly.
Alert moderator
|
Samination
Advanced Member
Sweden
10,214 posts
Joined: Jul, 2004
195 hardcore releases
|
Posted - 2025/04/21 : 08:51:24
Chris Unknown was still around, but since most people found his solo stuff or non-sy collabs to be mediocre, you're kind of right.
And as for the awards. Normal listeners only see the name that appears, not who appears behind the name.
So DJ Storm =/= Al Storm.
Not to mention that Fracus & Darwin won the Freeform awards, despite rarely being actual Freeform artist at the time. (just to point out the irony, I'm actually listening to Darwin's remix of Helix - Now Control as I was writing this.)
__________________________________
---------------------------------------------
Samination, Swedish Hardcore DJ
Happy, UK Hardcore, Freeform, Makina and Gabber
http://samination.se/
---------------------------------------------
Alert moderator
Edited by - Samination on 2025/04/21 08:55:35 |
DJ Omnimaga
Starting Member
Canada
9 posts
Joined: Jan, 2007
|
Posted - 2025/07/19 : 21:56:52
Personally I drifted away from listening to new UK hardcore around 2007 when Resist Music went out of business and Canadian record stores stopped selling hardcore compilations. At one point I decided to listen to new stuff again and most new stuff sounded like nightcore. Later in 2011 I checked new UK hardcore tracks again and now it sounded like sped up trance with electro kickdrums (with a near total lack of stomp), so I pretty much gave up on UK hardcore other than producing my own.
Now since 2020 I started listening to hardcore again but this time around I'm more into gabber and frenchcore, plus I've been checking the local Quebec scene more as well (which is more into the harder styles of hardcore music). Sadly our local scene is minuscule, so each year we get about one or two events in my city and about three in Montreal where at least one UK hardcore set gets played.
__________________________________
 
Alert moderator
|
|
Printer friendly
