Unpopular opinions

[Xurreal]

90% of today's hardstyle kicks are so bad that ten years ago everyone would have just laughed at them.

Didn't peeps say exactly the same ten years ago tho?
Imo the kicks became much better, the sound quality became better, but the general song structure became worse

[The Blaster]

90% of today's hardstyle kicks are so bad that ten years ago everyone would have just laughed at them.

Fully agree. I don't even think this is an unpopular opinion. If you put it side by side next to the joke tracks people made in 2 minutes and put on zippy as a joke, it's the same music. Just had to wait some years for a new audience to properly 'enjoy it'

[Xurreal]

90% of today's hardstyle kicks are so bad that ten years ago everyone would have just laughed at them.

Fully agree. I don't even think this is an unpopular opinion. If you put it side by side next to the joke tracks people made in 2 minutes and put on zippy as a joke, it's the same music. Just had to wait some years for a new audience to properly 'enjoy it'

Just curious but what are the 90% kicks you would consider as bad?

Besides that I can't really judge how much time it takes to produce a proper track nowadays compared to 10-20 years ago. Would be great to get some input from actual producers at this point.

[Nostromo]

90% of today's hardstyle kicks are so bad that ten years ago everyone would have just laughed at them.

Didn't peeps say exactly the same ten years ago tho?
Imo the kicks became much better, the sound quality became better, but the general song structure became worse

Of course they did. And ten years before that. But the problem back then was that the kicks were new, different. Not poorly produced, just different.Today, the kicks are different again, but the quality is definitely not better. I'm not talking about all kicks, don't get me wrong.
But I agree about the structure, a disaster.

90% of today's hardstyle kicks are so bad that ten years ago everyone would have just laughed at them.

Fully agree. I don't even think this is an unpopular opinion. If you put it side by side next to the joke tracks people made in 2 minutes and put on zippy as a joke, it's the same music. Just had to wait some years for a new audience to properly 'enjoy it'

Exactly, I couldn't have said it better myself.

90% of today's hardstyle kicks are so bad that ten years ago everyone would have just laughed at them.

Fully agree. I don't even think this is an unpopular opinion. If you put it side by side next to the joke tracks people made in 2 minutes and put on zippy as a joke, it's the same music. Just had to wait some years for a new audience to properly 'enjoy it'

Just curious but what are the 90% kicks you would consider as bad?

Besides that I can't really judge how much time it takes to produce a proper track nowadays compared to 10-20 years ago. Would be great to get some input from actual producers at this point.

I'm talking about these modern, raw-like, distorted kicks that have basically no power. Most kicks have no punch at all. All that's left is some overdriven, distorted sine/triangle waveform. Or a 909 without an attack. Those kicks are like an aggressive dog that barks behind a fence, but when you get closer, it pulls in on its own.
I mean, if I compare this to the kicks created and developed by Michel Pollen and later Bas Oskam, Headhunterz, Wildstylez, etc... it's a really sad story today.

[Emre]

Sefa is overrated as fuck.

[Grape]

Hardstyle Mafia is the (one of the) best act(s) ever.

The whole discography. They never missed, true to what hardstyle is for me at least. Epic atmos/melodies. Muddy kicks at times, but who cares, i love Schranz haha. even kinda adapted to the newer kickstyle, without losing anything of their uniqueness

[Scitex]

Sefa is overrated as fuck.

do we alredy know - or maybe I missed - why he is not performing at defqon25?

[The Blaster]

I don't know how unpopular this really is, but I continue to find it a shame that scantraxx missed the boat on techno. So much hardstyle-adjacent music could have been under a scantraxx sublabel. I think a lot of new fans find scantraxx very weak (they are mostly on gearbox related music), of course they are setting 13 year olds' spotify homepages on fire by releasing compilations so that's a big no-no, and generally I do get a feeling the labels are not 'driving' a substantial part of the scene as in the past.

[ThePrincipal]

not everyone has to jump on the techno bandwagon because then there would be too many in there being disingenuous


Unpopular - whilst the OG Raw sound itself is cool, need to be careful that it doesn't just settle into one particular vibe and not use all the various sounds within the initial raw years of 09-12

AND FOR GOD'S SAKE MAKE IT AT 155!!! (Yes I am old and like yelling at clouds)

[Amperial]

Hardstyle Mafia is the (one of the) best act(s) ever.

The whole discography. They never missed, true to what hardstyle is for me at least. Epic atmos/melodies. Muddy kicks at times, but who cares, i love Schranz haha. even kinda adapted to the newer kickstyle, without losing anything of their uniqueness

Nothing to add. Prometheus or his two recent tracks are pure art and way over this genres standards.

I‘d even call him almost wasted talent its highly cinematic and goes in to hans zimmers direction even.

Those choirs surrounded by heavy kicks and epic melodies are chefs kiss.

I am not sure if there is anyone who can do apocalyptic raw tracks in this perfection.