Harderstate - Hardstyle & Hardcore Forum

Can someone explain to me what Hardcore is all about nowadays?
Jesus Christ.
Hardcore is too soft for words at the moment.
Where is the "hardness" in the current Hardcore, that you just want to go hard and hak your brains out at a party or festival instead of standing still, socialize and make selfies as if you were in a pub. The New generation even can’t hak!!

And no, this has nothing to do with the past, that everything was better back then, but with the fact that Hardcore has slipped into soulless, uninspired pussy-like festival music where the term Hard in Hardcore has been completely nullified and destroyed...

Modern trends and competition ruined it imo.
Rawstyle's popularity and it's influences changed the hardcore sound for it stay in the current business.
Then uptempo and modern frenchcore became popular.
All these mixed together with hardcore just to please bigger crowds.

Now, we have dozens of new tracks constantly being produced without any soul, filled with generic trends etc.
It sells for newer generation so all producers are doing it a lot just to stay relevant and not to "drop out".

NEKA is spot on here,

As a guy that has been around since the early days, there's been next to no new tracks I've heard that I've even remotely enjoyed.
Granted, I don't check new songs all that often anymore, because I'm tired of getting disappointed. Luckily, Black Metal is incredibly vibrant at the moment, so I'm still getting tonnes of new music to listen to, so in that light, Hardcore's downturn over the past 5-7 years doesn't bother me as much anymore.

Hardcore seems to be too much of a BPM competition nowadays and roughness is somewhat secondary. That's my take on the latest trends and releases. I've not been here since the early days but I think this is somewhat similar to when Hardstyle became a thing. We're at a turning point where someday someone will say "this is not how it should be" and start another trend, I'm predicting that Uptempo will become less relevant... We'll see. I'm in the same boat as some here, it is becoming rare that a Hardcore release really surprises me.

The way that Happy Hardcore (and as a consequence oldschool Gabber) went out of style, so too will Uptempo. We saw some great creativity years ago with Raw Hardstyle while Hardcore has been stagnant since after the turn of the decade.
I paid more attention to the Hardcore scene when I was a teenager into my older years, and tracks like Bottoms Up, the Mike NRG remix of Lost In Dreams, Design The Future, were all fresh and great to listen to. Hardcore had a great thing going on with having a melodic structure, and thanks to people like Nosferatu and Ophidian for keeping that style on life support.
It's all about BPMs now though, and once the general populace gets tired of Uptempo, it'll fade away and hopefully the slower melodic style will rise again. Hardstyle has been seeing some revival of a melodic style that doesn't sound uber weak, hopefully Hardcore will follow.

been shit for many years........
That's what's up.

"Yeah, time to set some shit straight
Let all you motherfuckers know what's up with the state of hardcore.."

no worries, i just love when those ex-"hardcore to the bone" veterans go with the modern flow

I like hardcore at it is today. And yes, I also liked the stuff from 2005 and beyond. Don't hate me

Morbid_Angel:Granted, I don't check new songs all that often anymore, because I'm tired of getting disappointed. Luckily, Black Metal is incredibly vibrant at the moment, so I'm still getting tonnes of new music to listen to, so in that light, Hardcore's downturn over the past 5-7 years doesn't bother me as much anymore.

Not a black metal expert myself and not really a fan of it, but black metal as a genre seems a bit more specific to me with fast drumming, heavily distorted guitars and screaming or high-pitched vocals - and has been the case for decades I guess (probably not the appropriate "definition" but has less to do with the point I'm trying to make though) - than hardcore which is firstly, has numerous variations from melodic or "crowd-friendly" uptempo type to crossbreed or industrial hardcore, and secondly, it constantly changes - as it's an electronic music genre - due to technology and other genres by nature (aaaaand also for some reasons NEKA mentioned).

So with this logic it's probably harder to get tired of black metal when you're so sure what you want and expect to hear than hardcore which is way more vague I guess?

The Convicted:

Morbid_Angel:Granted, I don't check new songs all that often anymore, because I'm tired of getting disappointed. Luckily, Black Metal is incredibly vibrant at the moment, so I'm still getting tonnes of new music to listen to, so in that light, Hardcore's downturn over the past 5-7 years doesn't bother me as much anymore.

Not a black metal expert myself and not really a fan of it, but black metal as a genre seems a bit more specific to me with fast drumming, heavily distorted guitars and screaming or high-pitched vocals - and has been the case for decades I guess (probably not the appropriate "definition" but has less to do with the point I'm trying to make though) - than hardcore which is firstly, has numerous variations from melodic or "crowd-friendly" uptempo type to crossbreed or industrial hardcore, and secondly, it constantly changes - as it's an electronic music genre - due to technology and other genres by nature (aaaaand also for some reasons NEKA mentioned).

So with this logic it's probably harder to get tired of black metal when you're so sure what you want and expect to hear than hardcore which is way more vague I guess?

First, there's absolutely no correlation to me liking Black Metal and me not liking the garbage the Hardcore scene has turned into.
Second, you seem to make the same mistake with BM as people that don't know hardcore do, by putting everything in the same space. BM is incredibly varied, with micro-genres within micro-genres.

My only point with bringing up Black Metal was that I'm still getting quality music to listen to in other places.
When it comes to Hardcore, I mostly gravitate towards the melodic or "mainstream" stuff because I really enjoy the massive, well constructed, melodies paired with a meaty kick. (but not the shit version of it, EA or Endymion popularized) That micro-genre is (apparently) dead so I don't really check new stuff anymore

When I listen to Black Metal, I tend to steer clear of melodic- and atmospheric black because I want it to be aggressive and hateful, which those sub/micro-genres seldomly are.

The usual Cater for the Festival people and try to aim for the Mainstream and aiming up the Mainstage from various artists.

With the Meteoric rise of Crossbreed a few years back it was dominated with it its slowly dwindled down and Uptempo and the big Mainstage resurgence of Frenchcore has taken its place.

The smaller artists don't even get a look in, just look at these forums the bigger artists used to try and support the smaller ones, once Promo was bringing up like likes of Dither and now we get spammed with that style relentlessly, Even N Vitral went totally mainstream and there has been little noise from the industrial side of things also with some artists breaking out into a more Techno side these days.

Ophidians Split with Enzyme and it appears he's trying help / support alot of smaller artists in recent years that have been taken up by labels like PRSPCT.

The only thing keeping me holding on now is artists like KRTM / Tripped / Ophidian / Djipe / Sacerdos Vigilia / Somniac One / Hellfish / dropping harsh stuff every now and then hell even TOA feel quiet on their hardcore sound these days.

Hell the last records I was really pumped for was TOA / Ophidians Return of the Silence /
[KRTM] ft. Thrasher's Placebo track.

I was never a Fan of the mainstage kinda hardcore and stopped listening constantly around the time enzyme started to go mainstreamy in 2016 and have been picking the gold from the overwhelming trash ever since.

Its all getting a bit much these days, so i just keep checking the odd good artists pages for sniffs of gold, in 2019 alone i have only grabbed 8 releases on Bandcamp / Stores

before all of this things, hardcore was a movement and nowadays, new generations don't represent that movement, with the raising of modern frenchcore and the popularity of raw,usually breaking boundaries with higher bpm or melodic and fast connections,are bringing a well made music that fits the needs of this generation.

i barely listen to hardcore nowadays, i didn't feel this style, the last good song i heard was angerfist-pennywise.
and when i listen hardcore i still listen tracks like: distorted revelation- tell it like it is/ accelerator & lunatic - lost/aof-earthquake/ stunned guys-raise cain/ neophyte&stunnedguys - the soul collector/angerfist-take you back/retaliate/ amnesys-hymn remix / the viper 98 to your min and various early stuff from the stunned guys,gtown madness and neophyte crew.

you can feel the big changes in those yeaRS, i feel hardcore tired of existing nowadays, and dissolving with frenchcore and raw,confusing itself and not resulting a proper style/movement anymore

Over the decades there have been different changes really. But I think the biggest problem is that the music industry has changed and it has become a struggle to make money - especially with styles that arent listened to intently, but get mostly mixed together on festivals, which in itself could through a negative eye already be seen as a form of devaluation. That Promo and Co have been pushing their artists to go with the flow is I think foremost a matter of survival for the labels. Sure as long as they dont make the numbers public its probably a guessing game, but I assume that they simply dont dare experimentation anymore, because their calculated margin is too small for that. Which is a two-edged sword of course, the lack of experimentation will make people leave who are more interested to actually hear interesting, non-conformist stuff, but it will also cater to the ravers and their current beloved trends.
At the same time producing tracks has become more complicated. Most people here seem to be pretty young, but I can look back to Rave The City and Thunderdome - I think they're all on YT. If you listen to that stuff, people could make a track like that in 1-2 hours, while now - as long as you actualyl make the stuff yourself - you would waste probably at least 1-2 days on creating a kick.
Which brings me to another thing which I personally find is somewhere between a natural evoluton but also rather annoying - modern styles are basically not songs anymore but mashups. 6 kickdrums, 8 screeches, 3 transitions, 2:30, done. Thats not a song in my eyes, its polished shit made for dj-mixing so some random dood has something to move his body to. That stuff has no atmosphere, doesnt tell a story, its just spazz-out-relax-spazz-out-relax. Which again lowers the value of it of course, making it necessary to create more shit even quicker.
I'm not sure the strategy is very intelligent, but maybe thats just me.

agree,extremize everything because the business has changed.
looks like a rat race but the results are clear.
when things are going in this way, they must refound the native scheme of this music genre and optimize it with little influences and optimized sounds with the new technologies we have. they have no other chances.
if not, the genre will die slowly.

"..you would waste probably at least 1-2 days on creating a kick"

You made a good point here, friend. Waste is the word. Back in the days, the music was about the feeling, not kicks.