The state of Hardstyle - 2021

[Xurreal]

Wanted to gather some information about how you see Hardstyle (music, scene etc.) as of 2021:
e.g.

• Which current trends do you like or dislike?
• What should be reinvented?
• Where do you see potential for improvements?
• What makes you coming back?
• Increasing popularity of the genre - perceived advantages/disadvantages
• What made you discover Hardstyle (if you're relatively new to it)
• honorable mentions for what entertains you, despite the lack of parties

... (technically anything, don't feel limited by these suggestions)

Feel free to use examples to clarify what you mean, but try to keep it on a respectful or at least polite level.

[ThePrincipal]

It's going fine

I do wonder how many more party style tracks will come back now festivals are permitted after 1 July in NL?

[Emre]

It's going fine

I do wonder how many more party style tracks will come back now festivals are permitted after 1 July in NL?

If by party style tracks you mean dancefloor oriented tracks with lots of (fake) stops/anti's, drive etc, then well.. i don't have the feeling that corona actually declined the amount of those being made at all?

[Emre]

Which current trends do you like or dislike?

I like the gated kick trend in raw and sometimes even in euphoric midintro's, not too long ago raw kicks were just 'normal' distorted kicks, the deepness of gated kicks is way better imo. What I dislike is the fact those kicks usually only last for a short while and aren't used in climaxes (for example some euphoric tracks have gated kick midintro's, but normal kick climaxes. I would like to hear some melodic climaxes with gated kicks.

What should be reinvented?

Longer tracklengths. But yeah, not gonna happen in this Spotify generation

Where do you see potential for improvements?

I would like to see euphoric tracks with more drive again. Take KELTEK/DW (not his The_Innergame project, which has more than enough drive). What I mean is, their midintro's are good, and their productions are clean as fuck, but the melodies/climaxes tend to bore the hell out of me. It's all so.. 'regular'? It lacks personality, I can't find better words to describe it at the moment. It just doesn't have enough balls.

What makes you coming back?

Never left.

Increasing popularity of the genre - perceived advantages/disadvantages

Mmhm, I don't really have a strong opinion on this. When I got into Hardstyle in around 2006, it was unique/cool to listen to Hardstyle (even in NL it was still kind of a small scene). Nowadays everyone seems to listen to it or at least sporadically listen to it. It doesn't really bother me. To name a plus, it makes more people want to produce the genre, which results in new creative producers entering the scene.

What made you discover Hardstyle (if you're relatively new to it)

Ain't new, but old HHZ/Wildstylez/NC/DBSTF. I think the first track I ever heard was Hardcore tho (Art Of Fighters - Artwork).

Honorable mentions for what entertains you, despite the lack of parties

The streams. Big respect to Adaro, Ran-D, Clockartz, Rooler and many more for keeping the weekends fun!

[DjThera]

Most inspirational period ever actually for me personally! Having the full focus on music only without any booking pressure has worked very well for me. Released a classic album on vinyl the beginning of this year, even released a track I sang myself again and I'm proud to have finished part 2 of my classic album now too which will be released in September. Bringing back lots of actual classic sound, tracks with emotions and just experiment without restrictions. That's for me the state of hardstyle. Extremely healthy! Less management / branding / political bullshit. Music always conquers

[Shodan]

Best period and best trend is that everyone seems to be doing whatever the fuck they want, experimenting without the events pressure

Hard to say what's to reinvent in this genre where everything seem tested already, maybe how dj sets are mixed

Increasing popularity is good for everyone, can't see any downside of it, the broader the better

I'm really excited to see what's next, with everyone refreshed and maybe with saturation of events when restrictions are released, you may have to offer something unique to the scene to capture visitors, really really curious of what the next wave of producers will offer and what the veterans will do to stay relevant

[The Blaster]

Most inspirational period ever actually for me personally! Having the full focus on music only without any booking pressure has worked very well for me. Released a classic album on vinyl the beginning of this year, even released a track I sang myself again and I'm proud to have finished part 2 of my classic album now too which will be released in September. Bringing back lots of actual classic sound, tracks with emotions and just experiment without restrictions. That's for me the state of hardstyle. Extremely healthy! Less management / branding / political bullshit. Music always conquers

[battlejellyfish]

Which current trends do you like or dislike?

New era of gated kicks are okay but I'd like to hear more tracks where the classic gated is used throughout the entire track and not just for the mid-intro But the most exciting "trend" (if it is) is how hardstyle seems to be influential to techno, lots of tracks with oldschool "flavor" and proper length. They might sound a bit amateurish compared to hardstyle tracks these days but give it a try and you'll see. And for some reason many labels are French but I couldn't figure out why

Anything I dislike? GPF is very cringy but I somehow made "peace" with it.

What makes you coming back?

Despite a couple months of ignoring hardstyle in 2019 I never actually left but guys like Geck-o, Audiofreq, Thera, Synthsolider, Horyzon or Hatom give me hope. I'm keeping an eye on the most popular artists as well.

What made you discover Hardstyle (if you're relatively new to it)

As if 11-12 years count as new I was looking for some handsup tutorials on Youtube when I bumped into a guy who did a remake from Showtek - FTS. Then I checked out the original track because I liked the remake with the taste I had when I was 13-14 lol - I can't seem to find the video anymore, sorry - but after that I just couldn't stop listening to it. I don't remember how but later I found Da Tweekaz and Hardstyle Mafia, so that's when the love started.

honorable mentions for what entertains you, despite the lack of parties
... (technically anything, don't feel limited by these suggestions)

Podcasts and some streams are nice to watch/listen because I got something I normally wouldn't without corona. I felt like I didn't see too much interactions between artists that openly and often before and imagined as artists love to live mostly in their own bubble but it's nice that I'm convinced by the opposite

[Xurreal]

Well, firstly - thanks for the early input. It is really interesting to read both - listener's and producer's perspectives.

Taking the previous posts in account, there may be a first tendency towards the majority appreciating the increasing number of productions, leading to more experimenting and a higher diversity within the genre.
Probably, a bit early to draw any conclusions though.

Hope to read more opinions

[ceero]

Which current trends do you like or dislike?

I adore the fact that gated kicks are back. Gated kick is THE hardstyle kick, the original kick. I don't think I would even call it a trend, more like coming back to the roots I truly hope it's here to stay because the gated kick comeback is the best thing that happened to this genre in YEARS.
I also love the fact that early hardstyle has been resurrected from the grave by techno scene and techno producers.

As a vinyl collector, I am absolutely thrilled to see vinyls slowly coming back to hardstyle!

On the other hand, I absolutely can't stand how short are tracks getting. 3:20 is now an acceptable and usual track length for an extended version and 4:30 is already considered a 'long' track. Thats fucking ridiculous. It's like paying for a menu in a restaurant and only getting a steak without a side dish and without a drink. Or like going into the cinema and finding out that the movie is only 45 minutes because that's how long is the audience able to keep their attention now.
That's connected to other thing that's bothering me incredibly much - super short danceable passages with a kick. An intro is now 20 seconds of kick, mainpart is now 20 seconds of kick and that's it. I started listening to this music because I like hypnotic, progressive, danceable passages with kicks that get you into a state of trance and this is now almost gone. Everyone just cares about 'drops', the only point of the kick based passages is to make you pump your fist hard for 15 seconds and then post an IG post 'Which drop you prefer, 1,2 or 3?' I absolutely hate this reduction of this whole music to 'drops'. Fuck that, drops are for dubstep, I want normal mid-intros that go on for 2 minutes instead. This shit takes away SO MUCH from this music.

What should be reinvented?

1. Normal track length, normal length of danceable parts of tracks

2. I strongly believe there are way too many vocals, songwriters and attempting to appear as 'pop/instrumental music'. While it does sometimes work and sometimes i def enjoy it (PN or DBSTF are doing awesome job at it). When there is a vocal, songwriting, a featuring singer to compliment the tune, it's totally fine. But when there is a hardstyle bit to compliment 75% of that singing/songwriting/vocalists, I think that it's not in the DNA of this kind of music. I want more tunes like Andy SVGE - Ravetrip. Simple, funky, driving stuff that's not pretending it's something it is not. I want more sampled vocal bits from movies, games, rap songs - that stuff fits hardstyle WAY more then featuring a god damn singer in each and every tune out there.

3. I would absolutely adore to have the 'early raw' (is that a thing?) sound back. The 2010-2017ish stuff before piepkicks and gearbox crap took over. The early Roughstate, late Fusion, the A2 Records kind of stuff. Nowadays raw is 100% effectively dead to me, but i used to adore raw during this period im talking about. Ballsy, dark, screechy, hard and modern hardstyle without sounding like something coming out of a crack den. While the classic mainstream stuff is coming back and you can find this sound nowadays if you enjoy it, you don't really have too many options in 2021 if you are looking for something that sound like Adaro & E-Force - Open The Gates or B-Front & Slim Shore - Scary Noises. I miss that stuff hard.

4. I do wish that the Thilo & Evanti / Straight On Black kind of techstyle and the subground/QULT sound were resurrected, I think they were an absolutely awesome addition to the palette of hardstyle/harddance genres, but I know that's a complete fantasy

Where do you see potential for improvements?

I kinda wish hardstyle producers would focus on the ELECTRONIC part of this music instead of the pop/radio friendly/top40 parts of the music. Less vocals, more actual hardstyle.

My ultimate dream is that the early hardstyle scene / nowadays early hardstyle from the techno scene somehow unite. And people like Dana, Luna, Pavo get on the big stages again and start making early hardstyle oriented techno. Activator/T78 is already on that train in some ways

What makes you coming back?

To be completely honest, I think mostly nostalgia/habit. 90% of hardstyle I listen to is older hardstyle, tbh more often then not I find it hard to enjoy most of nowadays hardstyle except a couple of producers. And paradoxically, it's the techno scene/techno producers who make the best hardstyle in 2021.

Increasing popularity of the genre - perceived advantages/disadvantages

Hardstyle has never ever been an underground genre, not even in 2004, anyone who thinks otherwise is simply wrong. When it comes to hardstyle djs playing at Tomorrowland mainstage and that kind of stuff, well, why not, at least people attending those parties will hopefully hear some hardstyle and get hooked. When it comes to people like Steve Aoki or Timmy Trumpet making hardstyle, unless there is a hardstyle producer involved in the tune it usually ends up being super shitty and i'm just happy to ignore it. The thing I dont like about hardstyle getting more and more popular is that the sound is trying to fit the boxes of mainstream edm and dubstep more and more (see my earlier points about the short tracks, drop mania, too many vocals)

What made you discover Hardstyle (if you're relatively new to it)

Discovered it in 2004. I was 12, it was an era of music discovery to me. I was super hooked into Prodigy, early Tiesto trance stuff, early Scooter albums, first two Armin's albums. I discovered hardstyle randomly, my good friend has an older brother who was into electronic music and he borrowed me a self made compilation of random mp3s burned onto a blank CD, with a tracklist written on it by a permanent market (people who were into dance music in early 00s will remember ). And there was this tune - Alphaverb - Just Listen. I didn't even know what it really was, but I loved it. Tracking it back, i figured out that was the first hardstyle I have ever heard. Funny thing, i've no idea where the hell did he get the tune because it was never released and Alphaverb was basically a noone in 2004 (he actually sent me the tune in wav when i told him the story and asked for it, what a champ!). I got TRULY hooked into hardstyle thanks to the Sensation Black 2004/2005 dvds. With all due respect, for those times those were parties with cooler themes, stages, effects, stories then what Q-Dance is doing today. Yoji Biomehanika, The Prophet, Luna, Dana, Pavo - those people are the reason why I started listening to this genre.

honorable mentions for what entertains you, despite the lack of parties

Despite what many people say, that these people guys are done and behind the zenith already, people like D-Block & S-te-Fan, TNT, Zatox, Frontliner, Wildstylez, HHz, even Brennan Heart are still able to make stuff that's decent and that keeps my interest alive. Maybe not each and every tune, but I still find myself enjoying their stuff the most.

Also a huge thumbs up for those few relatively new names that keep on doing their thing - MYST, Phuture Noize, Horyzon, Synthsoldier, Stormerz.