Hardcore (electronic dance music genre)
Groups such as Throbbing Gristle,[8] Coil, Cabaret Voltaire, SPK, Foetus and Einstürzende Neubauten produced music using a wide range of electronic instruments.
In the mid-1980s, under the influence of the Belgian group Front 242, electronic body music (EBM), a new genre more accessible and more dancing inspired by industrial and new wave, appeared.
[10] This style is characterized by minimalism, cold sounds unlike disco, funk or house, with powerful beats, generally combined with aggressive vocals and an aesthetic close to industrial or punk music.
It was first used to designate a more radical movement within punk rock (Black Flag, Minor Threat, Bad Brains...) which, in addition to hardening the music, also attached importance to their attitude and their way of life as in the street where it was born: violent, underground, but engaged and sincere.
[18] In the early 1990s, the terms "hardcore" and "darkcore" were also used to designate some primitive forms of breakbeat and drum and bass which were very popular in England and from which have emerged several famous producers like the Prodigy, Altern-8 and Goldie.
It introduced sped up hip-hop breakbeats, piano breaks, dub and low frequency basslines and cartoon-like noises, which has been retrospectively called 'old skool' hardcore (a.k.a.
[13] Another important project of Trauner was PCP, popularizing a slow, heavy, minimal and very dark form of hardcore that is now designated as "darkcore" or "doomcore".
At the same time in Rotterdam, the DJs and producers Paul Elstak[22] and Rob Fabrie popularized a speedier style, with saturated bass-lines, quickly known as "gabber", and its more commercial and accessible form, happy hardcore.
[26][27][28][29][better source needed] Many artists on the compilations have become well-known figures in the scene, notably 3 Steps Ahead, DJ Buzz Fuzz, The Dreamteam, Neophyte, Omar Santana, and Charly Lownoise and Mental Theo in the gabber/happy hardcore registry.
The same year, the label Mokum Records was created[20] by Freddy B who had success with artists and groups like Technohead[30][31][32][33] Tellurian, the Speedfreak, Scott Brown,[34] and the Belgian musician Liza N'Eliaz,[35] pioneer of speedcore.
In 1994, they founded the label Network 23 which among others has produced Somatic Responses, Caustic Visions and Unit Moebius, establishing the musical and visual basis of the free party rave.
[19] It was successful in Europe, especially in Netherlands and Italy,[19] with producers and groups like Endymion, Kasparov, Art of Fighters, The Stunned Guys and DJ Mad Dog.
Numerous producers and labels emerged representing the hard techno and the frenchcore genres: Epileptik, Audiogenic, Les Enfants Sages, Tekita, Breakteam, Mackitek, B2K and Narkotek.
Meanwhile, in 2001, Norwegian DJ duo Thomas S. Nilsen Fiction and Steffen Ojala Søderholm began to develop the nightcore genre influenced by pitch-shifted vocals in German group Scooter's songs "Nessaja" and "Ramp!
[52] Major artists from other genres such as Marshmello, Carnage, Porter Robinson[53] and Headhunterz[54] started to occasionally play faster hardcore in their sets.
