Hardstyle

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Template:Unreferenced Hardstyle, sometimes referred to as hardbass, is a sub-genre of trance music that is closely related to nu style gabber and hard trance. Its sound is usually characterized by a four to the floor kick beat and an off-beat gabber style bass line, trance like synth stabs and sweeps and miscellaneous samples. Tracks often feature excessive reverb and/or other effects, breakdowns and occasionally small breakbeat sections. The average tempo is between 140 and 150 bpm, around 30 slower than nu style gabber. Many hardcore artists produce hardstyle songs, which sound very similar but are more accessible. Hardstyle is generally played along side Nu-NRG and hard house in the UK and aside hard trance or hardcore in the rest of Europe.

1 History
2 Current status
3 Notable artists
4 Record labels
5 See also
6 External links

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History

Hardstyle evolved from German, Italian and Dutch hard house which blended with influences from hard trance and oldschool hardcore techno in the year 2000. The first hardstyle events were held in The Netherlands in late 1999, early 2000. One of the key figures in its development is Dana van Dreeven, also known under her alias Lady Dana. At a later time more of her colleagues from the hardcore-era joined the club, such as DJs Isaac, Luna, Pavo and The Prophet.

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Current status

Hardstyle is mainly produced by artists from The Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland and Germany, yet other producers from around the world are starting to pick up the sound.

Currently, the scene is booming in various countries around the world besides these founding countries. Notable scenes worth mentioning include those in the United States, Belgium, Spain, Poland, Estonia, Denmark, Australia, South Africa and the UK.

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