Artists Hardstyle

The Hardstyle genre is a subgenre of hard dance that emerged in the late 1990s and early 2000s, mainly in the Netherlands and Belgium. It developed at the crossroads of hard trance, hardcore — particularly gabber — and certain influences from techno. Hardstyle is recognized by its powerful, distorted kicks, its reverse bass basslines, its epic or dark melodies, and tempos generally ranging between about 140 and 150 BPM.

Hardstyle occupies an intermediate place between several families of hard electronic music. It is more melodic and often more accessible than hardcore, but more aggressive and heavier than trance or classic dance. It is not a simple variant of hardcore, but a genre in its own right, which later gave rise to several subgenres and evolutions such as rawstyle, euphoric hardstyle, dubstyle, or certain forms of modern hard dance.

The style was popularized by artists such as Headhunterz, Brennan Heart, Wildstylez, Showtek, Noisecontrollers, Coone, Da Tweekaz or Sub Zero Project. With its explosive energy, unifying melodies, and very strong festival identity, Hardstyle has become one of the major genres of the international hard dance scene.