Stream: Justin Timberlake feat. Jay-Z - Suit and Tie

A new track with a new album 'The 20/20 experience' coming later this year.

Stream the new single 'Suit and Tie' featuring Jay-Z HERE

Stream: Destiny's Child - Nuclear

If you haven't heard it already, here it is...

OMG! JT might be back!

Via a tweet and a cryptic video shown below, Justin Timberlake may be suggesting he's back in the booth and finally recording some new material, the first music since 2006's Futuresexlovesounds.

We'll find out just what he's doing in three days.  The countdown link is HERE

Lets hope he's not teasing.

Re-Vault: Cassie - Is It You?

One-time Diddy signee Cassie has been banging out great tracks since 2006 and yet, still no album in sight!

If you want to catch up on her post '06 output and introduce yourself to the talented three sides to miss Cassie, you should look no further than the cassiecollective compilations at the link below.

Check out one of my favourite Cassie tracks below as well!

For more info on what prompted the collective to put these albums together, read this post from the UK's Guardian newspaper

Download: The Cassie Trilogy

Top 20 Tracks of 2012

20. Call me maybe – Carly Rae Jepsen

Despite the fact that she’s more likely to get a text than a call, I dare say that there are a million youtube acolytes who’ll talk to her anyway she wants.

This earworm may have struck a chord more because of what it didn’t do, but who cares, it’s addictively catchy and Jepsen sings the hell out of it.

19. Higher Ground – TNGHT

Turn it up and wait for the horns.

18. Wildest Moments – Jessie Ware

You ever been in a relationship that was probably bad for you?  This is the song for you. 

17. I Love it – Icona Pop

Four to the floor optimism in the face of a relationship gone wrong; the two girls from Sweden made dumping boyfriends look like so much fun.

16. The Full Retard – El-P

Dystopic rap with an equally disconcerting and pulverising beat behind it.  So real it made me check for the ‘chip under your wrist skin’.

15. Flutes – Hot Chip

Aka the track where they finally aced four on the floor house music with emotionally draining pop music.

14. Adorn – Miguel

Pulsing and throbbing like an adolescent crush, ‘Adorn’ is the beating heart at the centre of every hot-bloded male who’s ever met his perfect match.

If Marvin Gaye was alive today, this is how ‘Sexual Healing’ would’ve sounded.

13. There he go – Schoolboy Q

Over a shouldn’t-be-surprised sample of Menomena’s ‘Wet and Rusting’, Schoolboy Q bragged and boasted his way to a hit record.

Raps been about the braggadocio ever since it first began, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard a rapper declare that his mistresses boyfriend “got me paranoid” only to then state “I’m the muthafuckin man, ran into him, he’s a fan”.

Who can hate on that?

12. Reagan – Killer Mike

In 2012, with record sales plumetting again, making a politically charged song about a dead president from the 80’s probably seemed like commercial suicide.

Luckily, Killer Mike doesn't give an 'eff' about album sales but loves making hard-hitting political tracks.  And oh yeah, the track knocks.

11. Billboard – S-Type

The video clip is cheaply made and pays homage to Rocky Balboa’s penultimate run through Philadelphia.

That the track doesn’t seem out of place in this comparison is a testament to its effectiveness.  Blasting horns, drums that re-structure themselves every eight bars, it’s triumphant, celebratory music for the digital generation.

10. Pyramids – Frank Ocean

The through-line on this track is the word ‘Cheetah’.  Over the course of 10 mins, the words is utilized in three forms – As the animal, as ‘cheater’ and also as a reference to the chain of California strip clubs of the same name.

That he can pull together the 'cheetah' parallels and then blend Hip-Hop , R&B, Dance and Psychedelic Rock into one track and not let it go to pieces is a triumph in itself.

Tying it all together with a gorgeous John Mayer guitar solo was icing on the cake.

9. Bad Girls - M.I.A.

In the video she files her nails while riding on a car that’s on two wheels.  Badass.

8. Big Beast – Killer Mike feat. T.I. and Bun B

With ‘Big Beast’, Killer Mike opened his album with the ferocity of Mike Tyson in his prime. 

The perfect  complement to his hardcore face-punch is Bun B and T.I., who both rip through their verses with a flurry.

7. Pyramid – Four Tet

If you wondered where Techno was in 2012, here it is.

6. Swimming Pools (Drank) – Kendrick Lamar

Binge drinking is bad, but you rarely hear a youthful artist addressing a major issue that affects so many.

That Kendrick could address it so articulately within such a heavy-hitting track and without sounding preachy is the perfect example of what made Lamar’s music so special.

5. Bad Religion – Frank Ocean

‘Taxi-cab Confessions’ was a trashy 90’s TV show, letting passengers of selected taxis let go of their deepest and darkest secrets.  A taxi-cab confession was also the backdrop for Frank Ocean’s break-out track, as Ocean laid his soul bare.

He debuted the track on Jimmy Fallon and the performance illustrated everything that’s great about it.  The stirring strings and Ocean’s soaring falsetto was powerful and the late night platform suited it to a tee.

Ocean’s album dropped the next week, and went straight to number one.

4. Clique – Kanye West, Jay-Z and Big Sean

Nobody was messing with this Hit-Boy track this year except for Kanye and crew, who blitzed it as expected.

3. Losing You – Solange

Finally stepping out the shadows of her famous sister (Beyonce), Solange found the perfect muse in Dev Hynes, whose languid bass-heavy 80’s throwback allowed Solange to get all wistful about a soon-to-be-departed lover whilst still having fun.

2. I’ll be alright – Passion Pit

It’s Extreme and chaotic, tense and sad, deceptively hopeful and ultimately deceitful.

If you ever meet a guy like this, do not think you can help him.  Just pop this record on and revel in the craziness, knowing that there are dudes out there beyond repair but also remembering that without them we wouldn’t have amazing tracks like this.

1.    Climax – Usher

Uber-Producer Diplo and Instrumentalist Nico Muhly gifted Usher with a minimal classic that tilted its hat to Dubstep without indulging in the steroid-addled drops that have been grafted on to everything from Madonna to Taylor Swift.

The understated instrumental called for an overstated falsetto that’s so punishing that Usher has trouble pitch-shifting up to it when he sings it live. 

The physical trauma the song puts on his voice mirrors the pain in the lyrics.

Pure Funk's Top 10 Albums of 2012

Pure Funk's Top 10 Albums of 2012

2012 was a great year for music.  Almost every year is.  Sure, the haters were once again claiming the death of every genre from Hip-Hop to Techno to Rock (which has been declared dead every year for the last 30 years).

Contrary to popular belief, Hip-Hop had an extremely fruitful year.  From the quirky East Coast rappers (Le1f, Mykki Blanco), to rapid-fire females (Angel Haze, Iggy Azaelea), from Chicago (King Louie, Chief Keef) to London (Tnght), everybody was finding new ways to approach the genre.

R&B (another yearly candidate for death) was back with a vengeance, with R&B/Dance backing up another great year on the charts, and new hybrids appearing every month (Frank Ocean, Jeremih, Miguel).

Dubstep still ruled the festivals, Tiesto and co were taking residencies in Vegas for obscene amounts of cash and Beiber was getting props from the critics.  Yes it was an odd year, but seriously, when is it not.  That's what makes music and music culture fascinating and fun.

As always, we've focussed our attention on the the Hip-Hop, R&B and Dance releases that got us psyched in 2012, and there were more than a few.  Don't take this for gospel, there's a lot of stuff I didn't get time to listen to. 

However, if you haven't heard any of these albums, you're in for a treat.  Enjoy.

Bob

1. Kendrick Lamar - Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City

It’s a coming-of-age story, capturing a tumultuous time in a young man’s life.  It’s a commentary on life in general as it exists in Compton, a suburb of Los Angeles made famous by  many rappers over the years, but also a poor suburb beset by violence.

It’s a west coast Hip-Hop album, in both production (overseen by Compton’s greatest export Dr Dre), and in its reverance of the history of Californian rap (appearances by MC Eiht, references to Ice Cube lyrics).

It’s about the power of family to influence decisions and to ultimately save.  It’s about the temptations in the broader society that test those same familial bonds (drugs, alcohol, and peer pressure).

Kendrick Lamar’s new album is about many things, as most great albums are.

Never was the term 'West Coast Classic' more appropriate.

2. Passion Pit – Gossamer

Michael Angelakos’s problems are all over this album.  Whether it’s addressed directly (‘Constant Conversations’) or indirectly (the bi-polar dynamic of sad lyrics and ebullient music), the despair of fighting within ones own head and the consequences thereof informs every song on here.

The cynicism of faded love comes through on ‘Love is greed’ and ‘Its not my fault, Im happy’, whilst the paranoia and reality of the financial crisis provides the backdrop for ‘Take a walk’. 

All this emotion and polemicism would count for nothing if the music wasn’t up to par, but the Pit have upped the ante from their debut.

‘It’s Alright’ is a chaotic rocket blast and one of the best tracks of the year, whilst the haunting ‘Constant Conversations’ could’ve easily been an R&B hit, if the lyrics weren’t so sobering.

By exploring the battle with his own demons, Angelakos has crafted a hopefully and optimistic classic, albeit one that highlights how hard being hopeful and optimistic can be.

3. EL-P – Cancer for Cure

EL-P is a rappers rapper, the kind of guy that starts his own label and releases his own music, the kind that never follows trends or makes commercial concessions.  2012 was the year that the rap world finally caught up with EL-P and he responded to the challenge by unleashing a nuanced, abrasive yet rallying opus that trades in dirt but transcends through strong narrative.

‘Request Denied’ kicks off the album, its high-tempo electronica sounding like the best track The Prodigy never recorded.  That EL-P can accentuate that track with organ flourishes and wah-wah guitar, without losing pace or power, is a testament to his ability.  That he can also deliver a dexterous verse over the top leaves you dizzy, and that’s just the first track!

‘The Full Retard’ takes its name from a Tropic Thunder quote, but it’s a whole lot more than a one note joke. Dystopia is a favourite EL-P topic, and ‘Drones over Brooklyn’ uses darkly comedic lyrics to make a point through the paranoia.  Danny Brown and Mr Muthafuckin Esquire stop by for ‘Oh Hail’, and neither misses the chance to rip over the blazing beat, laying waste in fine fashion.

El-P has nailed this ambitious album, creating not just an atmosphere of fear, but also articulating it in a subversive fashion.  Hip-Hop never sounded so gloriously pessimistic.

4. Killer Mike – R.A.P. Music

EL-P didn’t just kill his own shit, he also layed down 12 tracks of east coast perfection for Southern MC Killer Mike, resurrecting and re-energising Mike’s career, while Mike used the template to bitch-slap a host of cultural pinatas.

First and foremost was the former president Ronald ‘Reagan’ who gets taken to task not only for lying in the Iran-Contra arm deals of 1986, but also his zero tolerance drug policies designed to target young black men for lengthy jail terms, a policy that is still an issue to this day.

Unlike El-P’s album, Mike is more of a populist rapper, looking to explore the edges of good and evil instead of taking sides.  Whilst ‘Don’t Die’ holds him up as a touchstone for every black person who’s been harassed by cops, ‘Jo-Jo’s chillin’ find him story-telling about about a dude who gets away with drug running and airplane sex.  In Mike’s world, being a good man is complicated.

Like his kiler opening track, Mike is a ‘Big Beast’ who can’t be tamed.

5. Frank Ocean – Channel Orange

Up until now, the sometime Odd Future crooner had been restricted to releasing mixtapes and straight-to-youtube oddities.

Nobody knew what to expect from Ocean, and he lived up to those unexpectations.

Channel Orange was big in scope, and nostalgic in sound.  There were comparisons to Stevie Wonder (‘Fertilizer’) and Prince (‘Pilot Jones’).  He indulged in 10 minute long strip club anthems with tasteful John Mayer guitar solo’s (‘Pyramids’) and he recorded with the Neptunes (‘Sweet Life’).

He gave the music space, beckoning us to stay with him for the long ride and rewarding the patient listener.  He also gave us his idea of love, a complicated menagerie of feelings, like the love of co-habiting with your drug-dealer or dealing with the fact your missus is a stripper. 

Ocean may have been a headline creator with his personal life this year, but more notable was his music, a wealthy piece of work that never feels less than lived in.

6. Lone – Galaxy Garden

London Producer Matt Culler, better known as Lone, gave us the best rave-inspired dance album in 2012.  Don’t get it twisted though, this is no retro snooze.  Lone’s music has always sounded like no-one elses, even when his sound is tenuously connected to more commercial dance music sounds. 

Dance has been skewing maximal for a while, with Skrillex and the Swedish House dudes destroying speakers with familiar sounds, but while Lone also likes to be ‘loud’ and ‘busy’, he plies his trade in more original ways.

‘Crystal Caverns 1991’ does sound like eerily like something you may have heard in that year, only it’s heavier and more complex.  For all its ravey aspirations ‘Raindance’ is positively transcendant, whilst ‘Lying in the reeds’ rushes forward surrounded by the marimbas and 808’s.

If anyone was able to capture the past, present and future of dance music in 2012 it was Lone.

7. Actress – R.I.P.

Another London artist, Actress is the moniker of Darren Cunningham, who has also been plying his trade for years in the underground, perfecting his own brand of sub-techno.

Heavy on the bass and light on the drums, R.I.P. is a lesson in persistence as Actress jettisons the classic four/four kick drum and finds ways for the music to drive the beat.

‘Ascending’ rises in this fashion, skipping along without so much as a snare, but yet it still remains undeniably hypnotic.  The big beats finally arrive on the sub-bass anthem ‘Marble plexus’, but even then they’re muted, like you’re standing outside the club whilst the gig inside is in full swing.  ‘Jardin’ sounds like Actress’s attempt at Aphex Twin’s ‘Avril 14^th’, but again the sombre ballad couldn’t be mistaken for anyone elses song.

R.I.P. doesn’t offer itself up willingly.  Listeners might find that you will have to live with this record for two or three listens to fully appreciate the pace and structure of this truly unique style.  

A dance music album without drums, what’ll they think of next.

8. Miguel – Kaliedoscope Dream

After a lacklustre major-label debut and several buzz-building EP’s, Kaleidoscope Dream dropped and showed how promise and potential can be harnessed into a cohesive, sexy, mature R&B album without relying on R&B cliches.

‘Adorn’ leads the album off strongly, an ode to the one you love that sounds sincere and yet also gets your feet moving, not an easy task.  As it sounds ‘The thrill’ uses multi-tracked vocals to highlight the rush of doing something bad, whilst ‘Candles in the sun’ quotes Notorious BIG to emphasise the drama of poverty-stricken streets.

Miguel takes some well-worn musical paths, and then purposely strays from them to produce something altogether familiar and foreign, yet ultimately funky.

9. Tnght – Tnght

Two UK bass luminaries, Lunice and Hudson Mohawke, teamed up over a love of Hip-Hop. Typically these ‘superstar’ collaborations are disasterous, resulting in the musical equivalent of the four-assed monkey.

These two transcended their genres and styles and delivered the most trunk-rattling tracks of the year.  ‘Goo’ sounded like trap music performed by an orchestra of killer bees.   The unique blend of ever-changing pitches and sounds made for music that never got repetitive, and whilst the sparse melodies caught some maximalist fans off guard, it just made the dick-punching drums hit all that much harder.

‘Higher Ground’ and ‘Bugg’n’ were so good that Lunice was tapped to produce for Kanye West.

10. (TIE) Four Tet – Pink

Four Tet’s (Aka Keiren Hebden) last album ‘There is love in you’ was borne out a need to have people dance, and it’s driving percussion was focus-grouped to death in London’s ‘Plastik People’ club nights as part of his residency there, the heaving crowds a sturdy barometer of dancefloor success.

Pink compiles a bunch of singles released this year following an unusual streak of creativity.  There are dusty breaks galore and heavy wobbling bass on the strong opening track ‘Locked’, but this sound is discard on ‘Lion’, which rides a 4/4, beat more remisnicent of his last album.

‘Jupiters’ find Four Tet in his element, delivering complex beat patterns and sounds would be a mess in a lesser producers hands but are still danceable here.  Less thematic than previous albums, you can get your heavy bass and house fix with ‘Pyramids’, while also chilling out with the beatless blips and bloops of ‘Peace for Earth’. 

‘Pink’ is a tight and taut selection of eclectic dance tunes that reference dance musics past, whilst still remaining confidently in the present; a rare feat indeed.

Hot Chip – In our heads

Hot Chip has been a reliably eclectic dance-pop band for almost a decade, and while they never stray too far from what they do best, they still find ways to create relevant and emotionally connected music.  The fact that you can also dance to most of their stuff is just a bonus.

The first two tracks ‘Motion Sickness’and ‘How do you do’ show off most of the facets that make Hot Chip as enjoyable as they are.  4/4 beats, gliding synth lines and Alexis Taylor’s gorgeous (and waveringly vulnerable) falsetto all combine for a juicy, danceable confection with a hint of sadness and nostalgia behind it.

90’s R&B and 80’s pop have always been key influences in the attitude and song structure of their music and ‘Don’t deny my heart’ is a perfect example of both.  Sounding like a lost Whitney Houston instrumental, Taylor imbues the happy synthesizers with a sombre longing that leaves the song triumphant and sad all at one.

Download: Major Lazer Best-of-2012 mix and new album tracklist

Major Lazer have been busy.  With lead DJ Diplo finishing up his stint on the Stereosonic Festival, he's back on the promotion trail for Major lazer's new album Free the Universe.  The tracklist features more guests than songs, but in the Lazers case, that is usually more of a positive than a negative.

In the meantime, Diplo has released a mix for Hypem using their most searched-for tracks of the year.



The tracklist for Free the Universe is below:

01 You're No Good [ft. Santigold, Vybz Kartel, Danielle Haim & Yasmin]
02 Jet Blue Jet [ft. Leftside, GTA, Razz & Biggy]
03 Get Free [ft. Amber Coffman of Dirty Projectors]
04 Jah No Partial [ft. Flux Pavilion]
05 Wind Up [ft. Elephant Man & Opal]
06 Scare Me [ft. Peaches & Timberlee] 
07 Jessica [ft. Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend]
08 Bumaye (Watch Out for This) [ft. Busy Signal & Flexican] 
09 Keep Cool [ft. Shaggy & Wynter Gordon] 
10 Sweat [ft. Laidback Luke & Ms. Dynamite]
11 Reach for the Stars [ft. Wyclef Jean]
12 Bubble Butt [ft. Bruno Mars, Tyga & Mystic] 
13 Mashup the Dance [ft. the Partysquad & Ward 21]
14 Playground [ft. Bugle & Arama]

Video: Countdown (Snuggie Version) - Beyonce

Good morning Sunday!

Video: The Year in Pop in 8 Minutes - Daniel Kim

Music Mash-up artist Daniel Kim has once again compiled his end-of-year compilation of the years best pop  music.  Eminently enjoyable.

Video: Big Boi feat. Kelly Rowland - Mama told me

Big Boi's latest Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors drops on December 11 and here's the first video from the album 'Mama Told Me' featuring Kelly Rowland in a wig and some speccy graphics.  Big Boi is known for releasing video's for most tracks on his albums, so expect more where this came from.

Review: Kendrick Lamar – Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City

Kendrick Lamar’s new album is many things.  Most classic albums are.

It’s a coming-of-age story, capturing a tumultuous time in a young man’s life.  It’s a commentary on life in general as it exists in Compton, a suburb of Los Angeles made famous by  many rappers over the years, but also a poor suburb beset by violence.

It’s a west coast Hip-Hop album, in both production (overseen by Compton’s greatest export Dr Dre), and in its reverence of the history of Californian rap (appearances by MC Eiht, references to Ice Cube lyrics).

It’s about the power of family to influence decisions and to ultimately save.  It’s about the temptations in the broader society that test those same familial bonds (drugs, alcohol, and peer pressure).

It's also great.

In trying to capture all of the above, Kendrick risks confusing his audience, but this never happens.

The narrative is clear and runs steadily over the course of album. 

At the outset, Kendrick illustrates his protagonist and his surroundings.  A giddy young kid is trying to get the girl, whilst trying to make sense of his world and impress his friends.  The laid-back groove of ‘Bitch, don’t kill my vibe’ hides the troubled thoughts of a pressured teen, while ‘backseat freestyle’, backed by booming beat from Hit-Boy, uses  teenage bravado to disguise fear of failure. 

Now that we know who we’re dealing with, the story sets sail. The intensity is quickly turned up on ‘The Art of Peer Pressure’ as Kendrick and friends get caught up in a shoot-out and car chase following a house robbery gone wrong.  The tension is palpable, and the scene is vividly rendered through lines like “They knew we weren't from round there, cause every time we down there we pull out the Boost Mobile Sim cards”.  The details are specific, emotive, and you feel every heavy breath.

‘Poetic Justice’ finds our protagonist back on safe ground, this time brimming with confidence and laying down his best lines on his ever present romantic interest ‘Sherane’.  The track takes a sample from the Janet Jackson track of the same name, and a verse from the ubiquitous Drake, and turns it into a summer smash.

Both ‘Good Kid’ and ‘m.A.A.d. city’ catch Kendrick in the crossfire of violence brought about by the decades-old feud between the Crips and Bloods.  It’s a part of the tapestry of the area and it’s a little unsettling as a fan of the early 90’s movie ‘Boyzin the Hood’ to realize that this feud is still an issue.  ‘m.A.A.d city’ also breaks down halfway into a industrious beat that would sit beautifully alongside Ice Cubes classic records, and allows west coast veteran MC Eiht to give some aged perspective to the contemporary violence.  It’s a nice touch.

Once we move past the day-to-day stress of the just-beneath-the-surface violence, Lamar finds that there are very few escapes made available to young poor men, and alcohol is one of the more prevalent (and acceptable) vices.  ‘Swimming Pools (Drank)’ is one of the best contemporary songs about the addictive nature of alcohol and its effects.  It also highlights how especially effective alcohol is as a tonic to the ever-present violence. 

The track leads directly into a consequence of that violence, the death of a sibling.

‘Sing about me, I’m dying of thirst’ finds Lamar looking at these consequences from not only his perspective, but also those of a prostitute and the recently deceased.  It’s delivered sincerely and self-effacingly over a gorgeously restrained track, accentuated by a sliding lead guitar and slight orchestral flushes.

The redemptive arc of the story is provided in ‘Real’, a track that ends with two young boys listening intently while a woman street preaches and engages both of the boys in prayer. 

Of course, every success story needs a triumphant arrival anthem, and that’s ‘Compton’, a bombastic Dr Dre track that seems out of place on this album, but then really, that’s the point of it.

Kendrick Lamar joins Dr Dre’s Aftermath label at an interesting time.  Big name artists and groups have come and gone from Dre’s label in the last 5 years, and the only real releases in that time have been the Eminem albums.

So the fact the Lamar album has surfaced show how much faith and confidence that the Doctor has in his new protégé, a similar enthusiasm that drove him to sign and produce the classic Eminem and 50 Cent records.We can only hope that Kendrick resists the commercial and societal temptations that have rendered his peers either irrelevant (50 Cent) or a cautionary tale (Eminem).

Stream: Rihanna feat. Kanye West - Diamonds Remix (prod by Kanye West)

Kanye takes on Rihanna's 'Diamonds'.

Video: Freddie Gibbs - BFK

It's pretty clear at this point that Freddie Gibbs won't be making any concession in his sound any time soon in a bid to win mainstream love.  They call him 'Gangsta' Gibbs, and he's not about to relinquish that moniker any time soon.

His recent mixtape, Baby Faced Killa, continued his string of strong releases, and 'BFK' was a standout.  Given his street persona, where else could he film the video clip than his hometown, the city of Gary, Indiana.   It's as economically poor a city as you'll find, and the city represents Gibbs as much as Gibbs reps for the city.

Hardstyle: Is it all in the name?

What is hardstyle?  I’ll be honest, I was one of those uneducated types who’d avoided any contact with any type of hard dance music and had lumped ‘hardstyle’ in with ‘hardcore’.  This was a big mistake.

Hardcore purists are a world away from their Hardstyle second cousins.  Hardcore celebrated brutal node-destroying beats and breaks, whilst Hardstyle was living off the ether of rave and slowed-down nu-gabber.

When discussing dance music (or any music), you have to talk about the way that it makes you feel.  In a lot of cases (including hardstyle) you don’t have vocals to give narration to the story of the song, and so the weight of translating emotion in the song is laid entirely on the beats and melodies.

The beats in dance music serve an important function.  House is perfect for those who want to go to a club and dance but not spill their drinks from dancing too hard, whereas a style like down-tempo is more likely to be consumed at home in a relaxed position in your lounge-room.  I am generalizing a bit, but you get the picture. The beats drive action (or inaction, in the case of down-tempo).

Hardstyle is uptempo, as its name would suggest, but not as speedy as its Hardcore brethren (Speedcore, Metalcore).  Its predecessors such as Rotterdam and Nu-Style Gabber were embraced by soccer fans and dis-affected college students.  Hardstyle was born out of those styles but became somewhat slower and more deliberate, making the beats and synth stabs more pronounced.

The sped-up beats of the older Hardstyle music do not carry with them much emotion, although compared to the hardcore genres they do allows a small amount of room for introspection   Hardstyle seems less angry, but yet still fronts with a somewhat tough facade.

The current hardstyle offers a little more variety, and the emotion is measured in the rise and fall of the melody.  It uplifts, and then uplifts a little more before leveling out and waiting once more for the coming build up and bass drop.  Recent Hardstyle sounds have been dressed up with vocal clips and other random aural accouterments cribbed from the stadium-sized sounds of the Euro Trance cliques, making for a more commercial sound.

Today’s hardstyle certainly has a lot more variance than it’s early incarnations, and even tries for a real punt at emotional connection that isn't ecstasy.  Where it goes to from here is anybodies guess.  Music cross-pollinates these days in ways that it never did before, so I don’t think Hardstyle is immune to change or about to die out. 

Its strength is comes from two directions – its power and ability to empower the disaffected and angry youth (of which there will never be a shortage), and its desire for pure ecstasy, the fleeting delirious thrill sought by many young dance music aficionado's.

Maybe one day we will evolve to the point where any emotion can be expressed at 140bpm, and Hardstyle will be  a rebellious outlet for a new wave of musical genius.   Or maybe it continues morphing and moving, it’s lack of relative connection with the everyday confining it to the basements of the world.  

We will see.

Video: Macklemore and Ryan Lewis - Thrift Shop

I'm a bit late with this one, but if you haven't seen it, prepare to enjoy.  The chorus "I'm gonna pop some tags, I got $20 in my pocket" is all you really need to know, as newbie indie-rapper Macklemore waxes lyrical about the virtues of looking GQ-style on the cheap.  That's a philosophy we can all get behind.



There was also a short doco made about their DIY rise through the independent music scene.  Worth a watch.