Hardstyle

late 1990s to early 2000s · Amsterdam and the wider Netherlands

Dutch hard dance from around 2000: a distorted, pitched-down kick that doubles as the bassline, an offbeat reverse bass in the gaps, and euphoric lead lines inherited from German hard trance (Wikipedia).

The sound

Distorted, pitched-down kicks doing double duty as the bassline, locked to an offbeat reverse bass, topped with the euphoric lead lines of German hard trance.

Listen for: Notice how the kick carries the low end as well as the rhythm, and how the reverse bass only exists in the gap between kicks.

Things to know

  1. Q-dance trademarked the word hardstyle on July 4, 2002, after its Qlimax and Qlubtempo events proved the new Dutch hard dance sound had an audience.

  2. DJ Duro's 2003 track Just Begun, released on The Prophet's Scantraxx label, is credited with setting the standard for hardstyle's reverse bassline, using an overdriven kick as the bassline itself. Duro later became half of Showtek.

  3. Defqon.1, hardstyle's flagship festival, was founded in 2003, has been held at Biddinghuizen since 2011, and drew roughly 250,000 to 300,000 attendees across its recent multi-day weekend editions.

Key tracks

Family tree

  • Trance: Hard trance handed hardstyle its melodic identity and its signature reverse bass, the offbeat pulse that ducks under each kick. Genre histories credit German hard trance producers like Scot Project with the reverse bass before Dutch records made it standard. The DJs leaving gabber, Pavo and The Prophet among them, have said hard trance is where they found the euphoric, danceable alternative that became hardstyle's core.
  • Techno: Hardstyle picked up techno secondhand, through the same late 1990s Amsterdam club circuit where DJs like Pavo and The Prophet were moving on from gabber. At Multigroove and Q-dance's early Houseqlassics parties, techno sat in the record bags next to hard house and hard trance. It lent the new sound groove and four-to-the-floor discipline rather than its own sound design. Hard trance and gabber did the heavier lifting.

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