Why was 2006 such a good year for hardstyle

[ceero]

One word : SAIFAM

their 2006 music is the best hardstyle ever created for me. Golden times, proper kicks no dong crap. Funky simple melodies, no kick pitching, reverse bass (and a proper one, one you could actually feel not just hear) in every other track and NOT just in the intro, Beastie Boys vocal samples... daaaaaw

[Diamanic]

Like Ceero said! AND there was a fucking DIFFERENCE between stuff. Everything nowadays sounds the fucking same, everbody wants to have the same kicks. People care more about sound-design than actual trying to make something unique, just to get recognition by labels.
And indeed: SAIFAM in 2006 was just the best thing ever and still is the best thing ever happened to hardstyle

[Vicious]

[Speaker Leader etc.

That one was released in 2005 ;)l

So it was replace it with Farenheit or sth then.

As Practice said the Hardhouse Generation sets from that era were legendary.

Another big track:

[ceero]

Yeah totally true. Every artists had his own, recognizable kick back than. Own sound. You heard an ID, you immediately knew that is the new Brennan Heart tune or the new Tatanka tune, not like today when it perfectly could be pretty much anyone from the scene.

[Neutronic]

Like Ceero said! AND there was a fucking DIFFERENCE between stuff. Everything nowadays sounds the fucking same, everbody wants to have the same kicks. People care more about sound-design than actual trying to make something unique, just to get recognition by labels.
And indeed: SAIFAM in 2006 was just the best thing ever and still is the best thing ever happened to hardstyle

watwatwatwat. I dont get this at all, imo today sounds so much more diverse than all the stuff from back then.

I like some of the stuff from this era but Im with Dirtytok, post-2009

[Vicious]

Compare the last 5 Saifam releases from today with 5 from 2006... How can you say that is more diverse?

[Neutronic]

Compare the last 5 Saifam releases from today with 5 from 2006... How can you say that is more diverse?

The current SAIFAM style is quite bland but if you compare spoontech to scantraxx to dwx to theracords I would certainly call it alot more diverse than the listed tracks here.

(I'm not trying to be disrespectful, I would just love to understand what you find so diverse about these tracks. I do like alot of the melodies in them, I just dont see how theyre that different apart from that)

[DirtyTok]

Compare the last 5 Saifam releases from today with 5 from 2006... How can you say that is more diverse?

The current SAIFAM style is quite bland but if you compare spoontech to scantraxx to dwx to theracords I would certainly call it alot more diverse than the listed tracks here.

This a hundred times

[John Cove]

Since you weren't into Hardstyle at that time, you just won't understand it

It was another scene back then, impossible to compare it to today.

[d2kx]

2006 was great and so was 2005 and 2009 and 2013... what I'm trying to say is, every year has its highlights and after some years you only remember the positive events/tracks/developments. Also in 2006 hardstyle was still very new for most people and that's when you get excited the most, because it's all unheard of so far (I nearly cried when I heard a LQ rip of Headhunterz - The Sacrifice). The style has introduced you to a genre is also the style that you will always like (the most?), so it is seen as "optimal" and everything afterwards is compared to this. This leads to all the "omg y iz hardstyle so shit nowadays it used 2 b so much betta yeah, it all went downhill in 2007 yeah, omg Commercialhunterz and Cashcontrollers are only in it for the money, fucking sellouts".

Besides Headhunterz, 2006 was all about the Donkey Rollers for me.