Hardstyle is a genre of electronic dance music, characterized with overridden “hard” kicks drums. Together with several sister genres such as Hardcore, Happy Hardcore and Frenchcore, it is the main substituent of the Hard Dance super-category.

Hardstyle started to evolve notably from Hard Trance in the 90s. The hardstyle community then grew in the 2000s, with prominent hardstyle festivals starting to be organized. Hardstyle then evolved into one of EDM’s fore-running genres by the end of the decade, as tracks implement more melodic breaks suited for broader audiences.

This melodic but simplistic design continued to drive hardstyle until the mid 2010s as hardstyle methods developed further. From this point, kicks and musical patterns started to become even more varied and free, with Rawstyle conquering the general scene, while classical melodic styles evolved into Euphoric Hardstyle.

Artists:

• DJ The Prophet
• Headhunterz
• D-Block & S-te-Fan