Push The Tempo: BPM’s are rising, but what about the quality?

150BPM. One hundred and fifty beats per minute. For the typical house music fan or techno hipster, this number may be untouched territory and an intense musical path that they’re too afraid to venture into. On the other hand, for Hardstyle aficionados 150 has been the traditional ‘magic’ number for many years and an emblematic marker of the genre.

150BPM has always been more than just a number; it’s symbolic of the lifestyle we live, the music we love and the entire world that we’ve submerged ourselves into. Feels warm and fuzzy, right…? Well, what if this beloved 150BPM suddenly became 155 or even 158BPM…?

Growing pains

I’m not going to bore you all with the details about the evolution of raw Hardstyle, so unless you’ve been locked in prison for the last couple of years you’d know that this sub-style has spread like wildfire and has even overtaken the ‘traditional’ Hardstyle culture. Traditional ‘underground’ Hardstyle, or earlier raw, has morphed from the old Crypsis and Zatox sound into a boundary-breaking, high tempo style that relentlessly breaks through all musical extremes.

Around two years ago there was a lot of controversy surrounding the new wave of raw Hardstyle; as kicks became more distorted and the BPM was rising, producers and fans made heartfelt complaints about this sub-genre bordering too closely to Hardcore. In its defence, raw Hardstyle producers stuck to continually exclaiming “It’s all Hardstyle, who cares!” For fans who grew up listening to early Hardstyle or ‘nu-style,’ there were a lot of growing pains associated with the reveal and uprise of modern raw to the point where older fans simply refused to listen to new music.

Fast forward to a couple of years later and it’s evident that the majority of raw Hardstyle releases had abolished the 150-rule and are pushing their tempo into new territories. For many raw Hardstyle crusaders, a new wave of possibilities has been welcomed now that the BPM-rule has loosened up. However, (metaphorically speaking) for traditional fans it was as if Hardstyle folklore was re-written in messy, unreadable handwriting…

High BPM’s and low quality

One of the biggest complaints associated with the rising BPM’s in Hardstyle was the ‘lack’ of production quality. Those in opposition to the 150+ rule picked apart these boundary-pushing tracks and critiqued them for being mindless party-bangers that negotiated quality. In some instances I can certainly understand these critiques; there are quite a few raw tracks that significantly lack in sound design, however the higher BPM acts as a supplement for this. These lower quality party bangers may do great things on the dance-floor, however they may not be an intelligent or sophisticated production that a fan can ‘seriously’ listen to.

The appeal that high BPM tracks have in a party environment has caused a larger demand from fans, subsequently placing a lot of pressure on the producers who don’t want to produce tracks at 155BPM. If the majority of Raw Hardstyle artists begin making music at 155+, this may throw a few things out of balance, especially regarding set times at festivals. A talent performing at 2PM might spin a banging high tempo set, however it’s not particularly fun for the next artist who wants to play at traditional tempo.

Don’t get me wrong, I love aggressive Hardstyle as much as the next person, however it’s important that listeners are conscious about what constitutes a well-produced track and can differentiate between that and a random party banger.

With that being said, there are an abundance of high tempo raw Hardstyle tracks that boast incredible quality – so as long as producers keep striving to maintain this quality then the genre’s bar can remain high.

What about Hardcore?

Seeing as I’ve brushed on this ‘issue’ in Hardstyle, I may as well speak a little more about another genre that’s experiencing similar circumstances. With ‘mainstream’ Hardcore traditionally the centrepiece sound for many years, over the past couple of years Uptempo Hardcore has risen to become Hardcore’s new phenomenon. With experienced producers such as Partyraiser and Destructive Tendencies being positive representatives higher BPM’s, a lot of fans have also sadly fallen into the pitfalls of hollow productions that lack any stylistic sound design.

As addictive as ‘uptempo’ Hardcore can be, many producers and fans alike complain that this style lacks quality and substance. In an interview conducted with Mad Dog as part of the Dominator magazine, he made quite an interesting statement regarding uptempo Hardcore’s popularity.

“I have to be honest again, in my technical opinion I feel like the quality in this sound is really poor and really isn’t comparable to music made by legendary artists such as Tha Playah, Evil Activities, Art Of Fighters, Neophyte and Angerfist (just to name a few). However, this is a technical point of view and I can understand that many of you guys don’t have the desire or patience to compare tracks or to sit back and carefully understand the finer details that comprise a good song. What I do understand about this concept is that instead of complaining about it and blaming everybody for what is happening, we should act and we should do more.”

Just like Mad Dog stated, a lot of partygoers, especially casual fans don’t have the patience or desire to sit back and compare tracks based on their quality. For fans, their definition of a ‘good track’ merely lays in how it sounds in a live setting and how hard it rocks a party.

Fans and artists can preach as much as they like or complain about ‘mindless’ bangers taking over, however it’s ultimately a group effort to maintain a high quality within Hard Dance music. Sophisticated, high quality productions do exist, and they exist at all BPM’s!