Is Hardstyle The New Dubstep?
In 2012, dubstep rose to mainstream prominence. The meteoric rise of the genre was capped off that year by 3 Grammy wins for Skrillex. Dubstep was far from a new genre in 2012. The genre had been around for years, getting its start in South London and building an audience across Europe before making its way to the US. A very similar story is beginning to emerge with hardstyle, a sub genre of edm which is well on its way to finding a mainstream US audience.
Like dubstep, hardstyle has its roots across the Atlantic, beginning in the Netherlands. The genre has been slowly gaining steam in countries across the world such as Belgium, Poland, Estonia, Denmark, Australia, South Africa, and United Kingdom.
In order to find mainstream adoption in the US the original dubstep sound had to go through an evolution. The sound which won Sonny 3 gold record players could be described as softer, more melodic, and poppier than the original dubstep which came from South London. I see a similar thing happening to hardstyle right now. As the name suggests, the original hardstyle sound is very well…‘HARD’, with dark melodies, deep-sounding kicks, and short vocal samples. However, now tracks are becoming more melodic/euphoric and are beginning to have more vocals. This shift in style is coming from newcomers to the genre, as well as producers who have been making hardstyle for some time.
Hardstyle producers from overseas are trying to break into the US market and mainstream US producers are beginning to experiment with the sound. Last year Dim Mak signed Belgium hardstyle producer Coone, giving him a nice springboard to introduce his sound to the US. Prominent leader of the hardstyle movement, Headhunterz, has been touring and performing in the US for some time now, but he finally brought his Hard with Style show to Los Angeles last month. The bill featured some of the biggest names in hardstyle, 4 producers from overseas and just 1 from the US. American EDM group, Krewella has been experimenting with hardstyle for sometime now in their live shows, and this past year they put out a hardstyle track and collaborated with Headhunterz on another hardstyle track. And finally, while watching the livestream of Ultra Music Festival, I noticed something very interesting. One of the biggest producers in the world, Hardwell (usually known for his big room house sound), closed out his set with a hardstyle breakdown.
With all this momentum around the genre I still think there is one element missing from hardstyle’s rise to the US mainstream. That is the emergence of the ‘Skrillex’ for hardstyle. An American producer who truly embraces the genre and commits to putting out a full body of work which fuckin’ rocks! I believe that will be the final step in bringing hardstyle to the much anticipated spotlight here in the US.
