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Pope C XXIII
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 Posted - 2007/05/25 : 00:44:58
Hey there. I got an idea, and that idea is to create a subject consisting of a rather full description of various hardcore subgenres, along with some history behind them, key tracks/artists, sweet mixes of them, and production tips where applicable. The various genres are in a rough chronological order of when they began, with some artistic license to make things flow better (and some are technically not hardcore, but really necessary to understand if you want to "get" hardcore.) Some ideas are not necessarily mine, and I'll try to address all viewpoints.
***THE OFFICIAL HARDCORE SUBGENRE GUIDE PT.1***
New Beat
Tempo: 100-120 bpm
History: This stuff isn't exactly my forte, so I'll keep it brief. In the late 80's, acid house was big...really...really big. But a lot of the acid house being produced had strayed from the remarkably dark atmosphere of the earliest acid house (just think of how not happy Phuture's Acid Trax is.) Some say it began with an acid house 45 being played on 33 with +8% pitch bend, giving what was once kind of happy a dark, grungey, cruel sound. A lot of bands picked up on how awesome this was, and transformed Belgium into the home of the slowest and angriest dance music the world had ever seen.
Description: It's not hardcore, but definitely the beginning of what was to become hardcore. New Beat sounds much like a sort of hybrid between acid house and industrial. While pre Hoover, lots of grungey acid/analog sounds come into play, and has a love of guitars, especially in its later years (around the time The Lords of Acid started getting big.)
Key Bands: Lords of Acid
Key Tracks: "I Sit on Acid" Lords of Acid
"The Sound of C"
Bleeps + Bass
History: In the UK in the late 80's, a new sound was beginning to arise, but nobody quite had a name for it yet. It was techno, but with a distinctive sound, and that sound being the sound of a giant bass, some drums, and a bleepy, plinky lead. In hindsight, we came to call it Bleeps + Bass, though as LFO pointed out "we weren't thinking about how to make our bleeps better". The sampled breaks and heavy bass of this genre would soon be taken in by hardcore (in its more mellow varieties).
Description: Take an Akai sampler. On this sampler there is a pure sinewave function, given just to make sure the thing is working. Make a bass out of that. Take a cheap drum machine and use it for the 4beat, snare, and hat. Sample whatever you want, and put in a lead that sounds like it might be in a chiptune. If you can do that, you've made a bleep track.
Key Artists: LFO, Ital Rockers, The Scientist, NRG Posse
Key Tracks:
"LFO" LFO
"Exorcist" The Scientist
"The Last Ever Bleep Track" 4 Hero
"Ital's Theme" Ital Rockers
Hard Tek/Spiral Tech/that hard shit
Nothing too in depth here. Just pointing out that in late 1989, Spiral Tribe began holding parties showing off their own brand of hard as **** techno. Check out some of their stuff to get what I mean (and be aware that Spiral Tribe was more than one guy, so they made both hard tek and breakbeat hardcore.)
4beat Hardcore
Tempo: 110-120
History: Wait...what? Since when has 4beat been before breakbeat? Believe it or not, the first thing to be hardcore wasn't the breaks sound, but the extension of New Beat into the most magical sound in the world....the hoover. Utilizing the power of the infamous sound (and heavy influences from the loud, aggressive classical of Wagner and Orff), the sound of New Beat became something more powerful and more able to turn the dancefloors into a place of frenzied bacchanalia. This sound first appeared in 1989 with the first hardcore track ever, "We Have Arrived" by Mark Acardipane under his name Mescalinum United. There are in general, two sides to this style. One was what was referred to as "Belgian Brutalism" and specialized in hoovers and dancefloor destruction, while the other was more related to Bleeps + the oddly 303less direction UK acid house had moved in, and had artists like Nexus 21, who took UK Acid, gave it a big bass, and made it dark (and sounded more like techno than anything else). However, the sound was short lived (even by EDM standards), and was pretty much dead by 1991, having been replaced by its descendents, Breakbeat Hardcore (ever wonder why we had to specify that it had a breakbeat? Now you know.) and Rotterdam Hardcore.
Description: A pounding 4beat, without a breakbeat on top of it. While tame by modern standards (and many tracks being outright mellow), the unusual approach of hardcore, with its complete abandonment of African musical tradition, was a radical, and dancefloor burning, approach to making music.
Key Tracks: "Space 3001" Space Opera
"We Have Arrived" Mescalinum United
"Mentasm" Joey Beltram (although it could be breaks. I'm not sure.)
Key Artists: Joey Beltram, Marc Acardipane (under his many aliases), Nexus 21, Space Opera, The Lords of Acid, and a number of artists put out on XL in its early days.
Production Hints: It's all about the oldschool. Sample any of the tunes from this era and you'll find some gems. For equipment, a Roland Alpha Juno 2 (for the hoover/pad) and a Korg m1 workstation (has the classic oldschool piano sound.)
Breakbeat Hardcore
Tempo: 120-150
History: Some producers of this new sound decided to take a cue from bleeps and start sampling breakbeats and putting it on top of their kickdrums. From there, hardcore exploded. Every year, the sounds got more diverse (despite the rampant sampling/ripping off), and the tempo increased. While 120 was fine in 91, by 93 the tempo had blasted up to 150, and if you produced at 120, you ended up moving over to breaks. Within breakbeat hardcore, there were undeniably two different currents by 1993. One, the most dominant, was the happy variety, which decided that hardcore could use the explosion of energy of its earlier predecessors with the emerging utopianism of the rave scene. This, at its extreme, became known as "Toytown"; a sub-subgenre capitalizing off of childish riffs, children's show samples, and so many smiles it's ridiculous. That sort of extreme happiness ultimately led the reactionary creation of our next genre, Darkcore.
Description: Hoover silliness, several riffs throughout the song, beats sampled from old funk records, and often times pitch shifted vocals taken from old house records. Breakbeat hardcore is a massively diverse subgenre, and pretty much anything could end up in there. Please note: some people, especially those somewhat new in the scene, call this hardcore breaks. In the end though, nobody really knows what the right thing to call it is, but for now, breakbeat hardcore will do.
Key Tracks: "Charly" The Prodigy
"Trip II the Moon" Acen
"Sesame Street" Smart E's
"On A Ragga Tip" SL2
Key Artists: The Prodigy, Acen, SL2, very early Slipmatt, Messiah, T99
Sweet Mixes: DJ Extreme's mixes @ http://www.newcastlebeats.com/mixes/
Production Hints: Same as 4beat hardcore, only remember to sample some breaks.
Darkcore
Tempo: 150-170
History: On one hand, there was the happy sound of hardcore. That particular side heard hardcore and saw the immense smiles that could be have by capitalizing off of the melody and vocals. This is not that side. Darkcore looked at all the PLURed out happycore ravers (they called it happy hardcore back then too, but it means something very different to us today) and thought that all those smiling little teens and townies needed to get bent, and they got ready to up the speed, go far more insane with the hoovers, and work the big bass into something far more destructive. Darkcore established itself as an opposition to the happy breakbeat sound, and with the two at such odds, what is now nown as the "happy/jungle" split occured. Darkcore, with its menacing music and far more angry fans (convinced of their genre's superiority as much as modern day junglists), took the bass, anger, and atmospherics of the early days and eventually turned into the dark dnb we know today, and into the lighter, happier, though just as heavy sound of jungle. Breakbeat eventually turned into what we now know as happy hardcore, but we'll get to that later, as you don't know jack about what was going on outside of England and Belgium yet.
Description: As you can guess, it takes the loose breaks of breakbeat hardcore and ups the speed to near-jungle levels (160 bpm was darkcore standard, though higher or lower was fine). Big basses, big hoovers, and lots and lots of horror movie samples. If you made darkcore, you put in a horror movie sample at some point. There just weren't producers that didn't. Period. (A lot of the atmospherics of early hardcore were also here, but those didn't come up as much until after the split.)
Key Tracks: "Take Me to the Darkside" Tango & Ratty
"Funky Hardcore" QBass
"Hello Darkness" Bay B Kane
"Something New" Andy C
Key Artists: early EVERY DNB PRODUCER WHO WAS ABLE TO MAKE MUSIC IN 93. ALL OF THEM. Acen, Bay B Kane, Tango & Ratty,
Sweet Mixes: DJ Fav- The Darkside Sessions (availible on www.hardcorewillneverdie.com)
Rotterdam Hardcore
Tempo: ???-180
History: While the Belgian (and a German) started hardcore, and the English made it into a thing of the breakbeat, the Dutch were having their own go at hardcore. Taking the 4beat from the earliest hardcore, they decided to make it harder. With many cues being taken from the hard techno crews and the various early German and Swedish hardtek/schranz producers, they decided to make 4beat really fast (which by the standards of the time was 165-170), and distort the kick drum. It was fast, radical, and absolutely took over the Netherlands and most of mainland Europe for some time. Please note that when I say Rotterdam hardcore, I mean old school gabber, and there's no clear distinction between the two.
Description: Hoover silliness, angry sounds, distorted drums, and lots of shaved heads with tracksuits.
Key Tracks: "Poing" Rotterdam Termination Source
[any mods desiring to add much needed content here are welcome to edit]
Key Artists: The Dream Team
[any mods desiring to add much needed content here are welcome to edit]
Sweet Mixes: Any of the mixes posted by JSPR here on the forums. (They're a mix of Rotterdam and Bouncy Techno.)
Production Hints: Alpha Juno 2 + a soft, bass heavy, analog sounding distortion on the kicks.
Youtube Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CGVj2GQ2yo&mode=related&search=
(A video of Thunderdome II, a classic series of hardcore parties, this video featuring a cool Rotterdam soundtrack.)
Bouncy Techno
Tempo: 160-180
History: The Scottish have never liked the English. Nobody will ever deny that. With the same gusto that the US decided to drive on the right side of the road to piss off Britain, the Scots decided to make their own kind of hardcore and completely eschew the English breakbeat sound. Where did they look for inspiration? The Dutch, of course! And so, operating in the same way as the English (as far as the sampling goes, at least), they took the angry sounds of early Rotterdam and made it into something far more happy, fun, and well...bouncy! This is the only subgenre that straight up died, without really evolving into anything (though its kickdrums were taken into happy hardcore, and with it a few of its producers), and did so in 1997. (And as a sidenote, whenever you hear of "happy gabber", this is what is being talked about, except the Dutch are making it.)
Description: The style of Rotterdam hardcore with the construction (sounds and note progressions) of breakbeat hardcore. Sometimes managed to get extremely dark though, but tended to be more towards the happy end of the spectrum.
Key Tracks: Bass Reacation "Technophobia" (1993)
Genaside "Mutations" (1995)
Pheonix "Now whos in control" (1995)
Bass X "Hardcore Disco" (1993)
Q-tex "This fukka" (1995)
3 Steps Ahead "Drop It"
Bertocucci Feranzano "XTC Love" and the Buzz Fuzz remix
Diss Reaction "Jiieehaaa"
Key Artists: Paul Elstak, Scott Brown (before he went happy and gabber), Bass Generator, Bass X, DJ Isaac, DJ Dwarf, and Q-Tex.
Sweet Mixes: RV2's latest bouncy techno mix and JSPR's mixes.
Production Hints: Breakbeat Hardcore + Rotterdam Hardcore. Not that hard to figure out.
Happy Hardcore (old school happycore)
Tempo: 165-180
History: So back to the split. Darkcore had turned into jungle, and all the angry rude bwoys had pretty much taken the English scene over. What was a candy raver to do? From 1993-1994, that question was answered when Slipmatt, under the alias SMD, released the SMD series (which are much slower than would be expected of happy hardcore, and still based in a breakbeat, though with the kick drum more prominent). Rather than try to make hardcore seem "grown up", "sophisticated", and all the other bollocks that jungle tried too hard at, Slipmatt took all the silly, cheesy, really fun parts of hardcore (the hoovers, the pianos, the pitched up vocals), and took it to a higher tempo with a return of the 4beat. In the early days, there was something of a crossover between bouncy techno and happy hardcore, as happy hardcore kept the kick drum. Around 96, the distorted kick became a thing of the past, as the new thing was to include a bigger off beat bass and a plinky, psytrance influenced kick. Some regard this as hardcore's darkest period (even worse than the massive EDM die-off at around 2000), as hardcore became cheesy, ridiculous, dumb circus music. Everything managed to progress rather quickly though, so it all worked out.
(Note: there was a short lived tendency of Dutch producers to make these ludicrously annoying tunes where all their lyrics had something to do about how much they loved gabber or something related (except "I Wanna Be A Hippy" by Technohead), and took the 96 annoyingness to a new level, with oom pah riffs. Yeah, they had annoying German/Dutch folk music mixed in with happy hardcore. It sucked.)
Description: For the 93-95 sound, have a distorted kick drum, light pads, an m1 riff, and anything else you could do in an old rave tune. For the 96 sound, virtually no hoovers, the cheesiest riff you can think of, a donky off beat bass, and plinky, top end heavy kicks.
Key Tracks: Every SMD release ever.
"Heart of Gold" Force & Styles
"Go Insane" DJ DNA
"Wanting to Get High" Hixxy
"It's Not Over" Dougal + Seduction
"Happy Generation" Critical Mass
"This Is The Night" Stompy
"Verruckte Jungs" Blumchen
"Hardcore Feelings" Charly Lownoise & Mental Theo
"Can't Stop Raving" Dune
"Hand In Hand" Dune
"Shooting Star" Bang!
"Konomama" Misono
Key Artists: Hixxy, Dougal, DNA, Seduction, Scott Brown, Paul Elstak, Bananaman, Fade, Sharkey (in his early days), DJ Demo, Ramos, Supreme, Sunset Regime, Sy, Vinylgroover, Trixxy, UFO, Brisk, Breeze, Unknown, Dune, Dune again (because they're that awesome), Styles, and Stompy.
Sweet Mixes: Happy 2b Hardcore 1-6
Bonkers 1-3
In the next installment:
Trancecore
UK Hardcore
Gabber (and why saying it's a genre to a Dutch person will make you sound really dumb)
Freeform
and many more!
Any desperately needed revisions can be made by any mod, as I'd like these to be as authoritative as possible.
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Edited by - Pope C XXIII on 2007/08/26 09:28:55 |
warped_candykid
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Posted - 2007/05/25 : 01:28:23
I thought the SMD series came out before 1995? Seeing as how SMD#2 is on the 1992-1994 cd mix on "United in Hardcore"
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Pope C XXIII
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Posted - 2007/05/25 : 01:36:29
Hmmm...must've been 94 then. *ponders* Yeah, that sounds about right.
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Meph751
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Posted - 2007/05/25 : 03:00:00
SMD's were '93-94
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Pope C XXIII
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Posted - 2007/05/25 : 06:12:29
Edited for SMD related truth.
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Da Cunney Bugz
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25 hardcore releases
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Posted - 2007/05/25 : 10:08:25
quote:
Originally posted by Pope C XXIII:
Hmmm...must've been 94 then. *ponders* Yeah, that sounds about right.
how can we ever truly trust such a guide when erros like that are present
:P
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Samination
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Sweden
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195 hardcore releases
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Posted - 2007/05/25 : 12:24:55
Ishkur for teh win? :P
well it's more accurate than most other bullox out their (Pope's, not Isk´hkur that is)
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Happy, UK Hardcore, Freeform, Makina and Gabber
http://samination.se/
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SPOOX
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 Posted - 2007/05/25 : 13:34:50
While we're on the subject of SLIPMATT DUBS (SMD) who's heard SMD 5 (MIX 3A)??? BAD BAD BAD best one out the lot i think!!!!!!
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Knightmare
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Posted - 2007/05/25 : 17:02:09
hehe, it's odd how styles get different names in other parts of the world whilst it's still the same music :p
and even though I don't really feel it's 100% accurate (but that's because of personal interpretations) it's probably one of the more plausible guides i've ever read.
props to you pope!
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Smoogie
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Posted - 2007/05/25 : 19:28:32
quote:
Bouncy Techno
Key Tracks: Bass Reacation "Technophobia" (1993)
Genaside "Mutations" (1995)
Pheonix "Now whos in control" (1995)
Bass X "Hardcore Disco" (1993)
Q-tex "This fukka" (1995)
Funny how when I once replyed to a comment about Key 'Bouncy Techno tracks' I said exactly the same... 
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Edited by - Smoogie on 2007/05/25 19:29:40 |
Pope C XXIII
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Posted - 2007/05/25 : 21:03:51
quote:
Originally posted by Smoogie:
[Funny how when I once replyed to a comment about Key 'Bouncy Techno tracks' I said exactly the same...
Never said it was all original content
(They are good suggestions too.)
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Fluffbomb
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Posted - 2007/05/29 : 12:29:58
quote:
Bouncy Techno
This is the only subgenre that straight up died, without really evolving into anything, and did so in 1997.
Not sure I agree with this. I'd have said that Bouncy Techno & Happycore merged as the mid to late 90's Happycore combined elements of both and lost the breakbeat & hardcore bassline.
Fluff
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Hardcore Breaks
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Pope C XXIII
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Posted - 2007/08/26 : 04:17:10
Just added an entry for bleeps, added some key artists/tracks, and did some genre clarifying.
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Lilley
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Posted - 2007/08/26 : 06:35:24
quote:
Originally posted by Pope C XXIII:
Rotterdam Hardcore
Key Artists: [any mods desiring to add much needed content here are welcome to edit]
I would have thought the dream team had a fairly large influence in this genre.
The Prophet is teh secks
Wouldnt mind knowing how this turned into gabber, even though theres not a huge difference.
would also like to no how the old 4 beat happy hard evolved into the 2001-02 UK hardcore
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nearly in line....
.....strange continuity problems
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Edited by - Lilley on 2007/08/26 06:38:06 |
whispering
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Posted - 2007/08/26 : 07:22:35
quote:
Originally posted by Pope C XXIII:
Happy Hardcore (old school happycore)
Key Tracks: Every SMD release ever.
"Heart of Gold" Force & Styles
"Go Insane" DJ DNA
"Wanting to Get High" Hixxy
"It's Not Over" Dougal + Seduction
"Happy Generation" Critical Mass
Key Artists: Hixxy, Dougal, DNA, Seduction, Scott Brown, Paul Elstak, Bananaman, Fade, Sharkey (in his early days), DJ Demo, Ramos, Supreme, Sunset Regime, Sy, Vinylgroover, Trixxy, Anabolic Frolic, UFO, Brisk, Breeze, Unknown, Styles, and Stompy.
Sweet Mixes: Happy 2b Hardcore 1-6
Bonkers 1-3
Apart from one all "key tracks" are UK happy hardcore. All sweet mixes are UK happy hardcore. Take off Anabolic Frolic from the key artists, hes done 1 track AFAIK, and it wasnt even good.
I would add those to the list of key tracks:
Blümchen "Verrückte Jungs"
Stompy "This Is The Night"
Charly Lownoise & Mental Theo "Hardcore Feelings"
Dune "Hand in Hand"
Bang! "Shooting Star"
Misono "Konomama"
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Edited by - whispering on 2007/08/26 07:23:03 |
Pope C XXIII
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Posted - 2007/08/26 : 09:08:16
quote:
Originally posted by Lilley:
quote:
Originally posted by Pope C XXIII:
Rotterdam Hardcore
Key Artists: [any mods desiring to add much needed content here are welcome to edit]
I would have thought the dream team had a fairly large influence in this genre.
The Prophet is teh secks
Wouldnt mind knowing how this turned into gabber, even though theres not a huge difference.
would also like to no how the old 4 beat happy hard evolved into the 2001-02 UK hardcore
Okay, Dream Team is being added. Can't really say I know how they changed, though I'll definitely keep that in mind and do some researching.
And whispering, thanks for the suggestions. Can't say I have much knowledge outside of UK Happy Hardcore (can't believe I forgot Dune though), and I suppose Anabolic Frolic was just a slip of judgement (was thinking of the great mixes while listing key artists, so because I thought of happy 2b hardcore, I thought of Anabolic Frolic.) Those will be some definite additions.
And if anybody else has any suggestions, I'm totally open to them.
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