EVERY GENRE PROJECT - June 21 - UK Hardcore
Genre of the Day - UK Hardcore
Album of the Day - Sunshine Express by nanobii (2017)
June 21, 2024
Europe’s many EDM genres have a way of moving through the continent like passengers on the region’s many trains of which we Americans are rabidly jealous. Different dance sounds stop off in each region, become citizens of that nation, and morph with their new culture. The British are often associated with cool austerity and an itch to differentiate itself from continental neighbors, if Brexit was any indication (and look where that got them). The same instincts that led to Brexit strike even within the world of head-banging EDM smashers, today in the form of UK hardcore.
EDM, on the surface, is all about joy and communal release through ear-catching sounds that make your heart race and your body move. EDM research, on the other hand, can be like navigating murky cave systems, winding through tunnels to try to decipher the origins of a genre. As I put Google to work reaching UK hardcore, some seem to identify it interchangeably with happy hardcore. Others proclaim ways in which it deviates from happy hardcore. Either way, it seemed inevitable that as hardcore developed in Britain, it was bound to drop the happy name. I‘m not sure if Britons can ever truly be happy on that persistently gray isle.
As easy a joke that is to make, I have to acknowledge the truth of the UK’s musically ebullient ‘90s where the sound of happy hardcore emerged in conjunction with DJs in Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands. What exactly is our alliterative friend happy hardcore, you might ask? Hip-hop flair had sauntered into the dance scene in the late ‘80s as UK producers started to get obsessed with breakbeats. This development would eventually spawn jungle, but in the meantime it birthed a fusion called breakbeat hardcore with hip-hop four-on-the-flair motion meeting hip-hop breakbeats, percussive splatters of intensity.
The bifurcation of breakbeat hardcore on one side led to jungle, which found Black British DJs drawing on difficult urban situations and transcending with a sound distinctly their own. On the other, happy hardcore aimed for maximum pep. Happy hardcore featured soulful piano riffs, delirium-inducing ear candy effects, and BPMs stretched to the limit of the human ability to move. Ever so measured, a new crop of British producers hardcore shifted away from happy hardcore’s blinding intensity for a sound that still radiated light but with less overblown gabber-like drum velocity and dropping breakbeats and samples. Some still equate it with happy hardcore, though, since the core aspects are quite similar. Trance was of integral influence in providing inspiration for the euphoric synth melodies that are the bulb to UK hardcore’s lightbeam. YouTube production tutorials end up being some of the best sources of direct information as to the sound of niche dance genres, specifically how much the differences can only be perceived by looking at the digitized representations of all the sounds at hand.
UK hardcore has gained a cult following in the dance scene, as producers seem to love that the flexibility of melodies allow it to be infused with different melodic forms, like J-core which takes inspiration from Japanese pop. The key aspects are pretty simple, after all: euphoric melodies, rapid and hard but not head-splitting 4/4 kicks, and drawn-out buildups. Today’s set (by a Swede, actually, perhaps disproving everything I’ve said about the Brits) sounds perfectly at home with the video game nostalgia and world-building aspects of utopian virtual. It’s not until the third track that you’re launched into UK hardcore outer space, megakicks and aquatic, squiggly synths painting the picture of a deep-ocean rave where the lights come from bioluminescent sea creatures. The sentimental chords of “You Are My World” get treated with an epic buildup and release made all the more satisfying by a subtly intertwined breakbeat, harkening back to UK hardcore’s earlier influences and representing modern adaptors’ willingness to break genre norms. Some tracks bear little relation to the genre as nanobii seemingly aims at a true concept album of a voyage at sea, with more meditative moments on the water slowed down to Owl City cosplay like “Sweet Dreams”, but it’s at its best when it fully waves the euphoric flag of this variant of hardcore like on “Overworld.” All in all, I give props to the British for making something truly joyful, some dance sunshine in a bottle for a cloudy day.