Party Vibe

@AntiPariah40k 561652 wrote:

I’ve been listening to a lot of music that I believe to be “rave” music. But do they really play stuff like Nightcore, jumpstyle, Trance and the like at the raves you all have gone to? Lets talk electronic genres, and what the difference between them really are.

The only one which isn’t a “proper” genre is nightcore (its an odd modern variant of trance/happy hardcore) but I can understand how it came about, as its made by young people who have easy access to a powerful computer but strict parents who make it difficult for them to go out to a real rave, or live in a rural or suburban area or a larger Northern European country where even if parents are liberal, travelling isn’t as easy. I noticed its popularity went through the roof in Norway immediately following a very unpleasant terrorist attack by a right wing activist on a youth summer camp; which would not be unusual if a lot of parents and young people had suddenly become genuinely frightened for their safety at these events.

Trance is in two forms these days – the faster sort (138-145 bpm) and a slower sort (125-136 bpm, which is also often called “progressive house”). These are currently then genres I listen to and mix most often.

Both often have vocals, except progressive house seems to have a darker theme to the lyrics, with themes of failed relationships, guiilt, shame and even self-harm. Many tracks contain a piano either being played mournfully or frantically. Out of curiosity I looked up the backgrounds of these producers, and wasn’t surprised to find their families were either Roman Catholic or Lutheran (Protestants who use rosaries and have convents and are near indistinguishable from Catholics) – I was raised as a Catholic by a Roman Catholic father and a Lutheran mother who both came from Malaysia. That explains the whole genre and why its equally popular in Asian countries. (house and trance music tends to get past scrutiny of all faith groups as it rarely contains lyrics with explicit sexual references, drugs or drinking hard liquor).

Jumpstyle/Hardstyle/Hard Trance (like the faster trance minus the vocals) are a sanitised version of a faster genre called Gabba and originate from the border areas of the Netherlands and Germany. They are or were to some extent mainstream pop music in those areas, since starting to learn Dutch since 2008 I’ve been intrigued as to why these genres are thought of as underground int he UK, although NL and DE are trying to distance themselves from music/hedonism and the associated drugs culture, even though it was by allowing these to coexist alongside a culture of innovation that they made so many advances in technology from the 1960s onwards…