Unpopular opinions

[Gommes_]

My most unpopular opinion would be that the kicks made from 2010-2015:ish is much better then todays kick.

This. So true.

IMO the shittiest timespan of kicks.

2008ish stuff was a downgrade to the kicks before, but at least different, the era you mentioned was hollow kicks that got even worse when pitched. todays raw/rawphoric kicks are not really comparable, as they got an huge advantage in technical possibilites

Nah, they got so much better in 2011 and the following years. It was the era of the Wildest kick, they finally knew how to properly pitch kicks and most had an huge impact. Just listen to the kicks Audiofreq, Frontliner, HHZ, Atmozfears and so on made. I agree with you about the 2008 stuff though.

[Digital Shifter]

Wildstylez and NC were pioneers with kicks. Now I think the kicks are perfect but the melodies are boring

[ceero]

2010-2015 kicks are a big ewww for me. I know for many people it's the golden era of hardstyle and there undoubtedly are countless of golden tunes from those years, but speaking about the kicks, I have actively been bothered by them throughout this entire period and I kept listening to hardstyle despite these kicks (and thanks to other qualities of this music), not because of them.

Obviously the best kick era is from 0 up until 2006, maybe 2007. Sorry, but nothing beats the classic, authentic gated kick, 2006ish Saifam crew basslines, the classic Activator/Ultrasonic kick & bass, Prophet's reverse bass from 2004/5, Tatanka's insanely batshit crazy hard kicks and basslines from 2005ish... There is just no match for that. Hard, hitting, energetic, unique sounding signature basslines. Listen to Tatanka - Tripods Attack and listen to the kicks and the bassline, there is absolutely no match to that from any other era of hardstyle. That was the absolute pinnacle of this genre.

The classic nu-style era (2007-2011) was a huge downgrade in terms of the energy and hardness of the kicks, there was a plenty of badly produced annoying soft metallic kicks (Forever Az One is an example above all), but there was a lot of creativity on the other hand, basically each artist had a signature kick, you could identify an artist who made the new ID by the kick, producers were pushing their kicks forward and kept evolving them. Great example is Scope Dj, his kicks were fun as hell, each tune had a different one carrying his handwriting.

And then the era we are talking about came, somewhat around 2010/2011 up untill cca 2015/2016. All of the sudden, each tune had the same kick. Each artist started using the same style kick. Dong dong dong, keng keng keng and that was it. For years. A lot of sound/mess/distortion but you just couldn't feel those kicks, you wouldn't hear or feel the bass unless you heard it at a bigass huge party audio setup, or unless you raped the equalizer. Your home setup woofer was enjoying a mojito, doing a pedicure and chilling with slices of cucumber on it's face. I fucking hated that. Reverse bass almost disappeared for these couple of years (and if it was present it was just one type of it everywhere - the Make It Loud remix kind of), gated kick became a relic of the past, artists quit experimenting with kicks. All you had was A) harder version of the dong kick and b) softer version of the dong kick - depending whether you were making harder or softer hardstyle. I vividly remember listening to one of the very first Hard With Style episodes, there was a Headhunterz tune, a DBSTF tune, a Psyko Punkz tune, Isaac tune etc. and I suddenly realized - holy shit, each and every tune has the same fucking identical kick! It felt like one single kick sample looped for an entire hour. And that feeling didnt go away for years. I was fighting with this to the extent I had periods of time when I just did not listen to hardstyle for a month because it just sounded all the fucking same because of the kicks and i was simply tired of it.

Nowadays kick era is way more interesting then the previous one. Gated kicks are back - I absolutely adore the kick AOC crew/DBSTF/half of the scene has been using for each intro. Sub Zero Project brought the attention to unique sounding kicks once again, eternal praise to them for that. Cool reverse basslines are back again and they are starting to sound creative and actually heavy again. The annoying part is that the danceable parts/kick parts of hardstyle tunes has been reduced to an absolute minimum, but that's for a different debate (or well, the previous couple of pages in this topic debate ) Nowadays era of kicks does have a downside tho, raw has taken it to a quite ridiculous levels and is probably trying to become the new neurofunk or something (and failing super hard at it). I despise the gearbox/radical style laser kicks and kickrolls to the extent it made me completely quit paying any attention whatsoever to raw. But well, everything has a price i guess.

So yeah, as for kicks,
pre 2007 era (by miles) > nowadays era > 2007-2011 era > 2011-2015 era imo.

[Tomix]

We are at an all time low with "piep / laser kicks" simply existing. Add to that, those being used in almost every raw track. Which is like half the scene.
That being said, genre is just two-faced as usuall.

[Trantix]

bad hardstyle

.... lol taken out of context this sounds great. Ok, from now I'm going to try to farm "bad hardstyle". "Badstyle" - Awesome. Thank you.

Man my first thought was Digital Punk/Hard Driver/Public Enemies how they're always trying to be edgy. Just imaging them calling they're own edgy sound that. "Yea check out my new Badstyle single!"

[Reverse Ghost]

Make way for the penultmate "Badstyle" anthem, you heathens

[Backbazz]

bad hardstyle

.... lol taken out of context this sounds great. Ok, from now I'm going to try to farm "bad hardstyle". "Badstyle" - Awesome. Thank you.

Haha good one

[Backbazz]

Make way for the penultmate "Badstyle" anthem, you heathens

haha it's official people, badstyle is the new hardstyle

[Vicious]

2007-2011 while it was dominated by toks still had some absolutely banging kicks
Pounding Senses remix
Zany meets The Beholder
Dark Oscillators - Trapped (Solaio Mix)
All the early Spoontech stuff
and Motherfucking Ctrl Alt Delete

[ceero]

the Keltek League Of Legends tune >>>>>>> the Wildstylez League of Legends tune (super boring one actually imo)