Hardcore (electronic dance music genre)
Hardcore music can be described as electronic music with an aggressive edge.
Hardcore Techno and Gabberhouse
Hardcore techno is a kind of techno music closely related to the Gabba style. It originated in the early to mid 1990s in largely industrial or post-industrial cities (Rotterdam, New York, Newcastle, Australia) and simultaneously in commercial dance techno music looking for a harder sound. It is typified by fast (160BPM-300+BPM) repetative beats, often with a compressed kick-drum. It is possibly a descendant of Industrial music. It is possibly a descendant of the more atonal, beat oriented oriented early electronic music.
Hardcore techno is often obsessed with the obscene, morose, morbid, scatalogical, explicitly sexual or profane. Occasionally this is because hardcore enthusiasts enjoy negative sensations. Occasionally this is because hardcore enthusiasts enjoy ironic cultivation of other people's fears and aversions. Genereally hardcore techno seeks the social relationship which early punk rock or ska had: ironic, working class, demi-political but seeking to transcend the oppressions of everyday life.
Like all electronic dance music Hardcore techno rapidly produced sub-varients.
- Happy hardcore is probably the best known varient, which aims at invigorating and uplifting rapid dancing as opposed to the normally morose focus.
- Speedcore and Terrorcore come closer to the original vision of rapid beats and dark sounds.
- Additionally a large amount of hardcore involves the use of breakbeats and tends towards Drum and Bass and Jungle. One example of this style of hardcore is breakcore.
- Often hardcore is classified by the city in which it was produced, the Newcastle sound, the Frankfurt sound, the French sound. It is uncertain why geography and culture play a large role in defining hardcore varients.
Innovative hardcore often goes beyond the simplistic limits of commercialised hardcore techno. One factor in this has been the way in which hardcore techno is usually composed. It is often composed on home computers using module tracker software. This means that many ordinary people can engage in writing software. The criticism that the early Amiga and PC sound was "8-bit shit" became an article of pride amongst writers of hardcore music. The wide availability of instruments (home computers), combined with the absence of financial remuneration, means that most good hardcore techno musicians write for their own pleasure and explore innovations.
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Alternate meanings of Hardcore techno
In relation to the flowering of British electronic dance music different styles developed. Some focused on beat and tone oriented music, as opposed to vocal, diva or sample oriented music. A similar tendency occured in America. This style could be broadly described as Hard house or Hardcore techno. It developed seperately to the Hardcore techno mentioned above. It can be distinguished from the other Hardcore techno by its slower pace (120-160), its lack of agressive sounds and its lack of morbid themes. It also lacks the distorted, compressed kick drum typical of the other hardcore techno.