Dubstep Music: The Bass Drops You Need to Know
Contents
This post is all about dubstep music and the bass drops you need to know. We’ll go over the history of dubstep and some of the most popular artists today.
What is dubstep?
Dubstep is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in South London in the late 1990s. It is generally characterized by sparse, syncopated rhythmic patterns with prominent sub-bass frequencies. The style emerged as an offshoot of UK garage, drawing on a lineage of related styles such as 2-step and dub reggae.
While early dubstep tracks were often dark and murky, the style evolved over time and subsequent releases were often characterized by a more accessible pop sensibility. In 2010, dubstep achieved mainstream popularity in the UK after being featured in an advertisement for the Apple iPod Touch.
Since then, the style has been appropriated by mainstream pop and hip-hop artists such as Rihanna, Kanye West, and Justin Bieber.
The history of dubstep
Dubstep is a genre of electronic dance music that emerged in South London in the late 1990s. It is generally characterized by sparse, syncopated rhythmic patterns with prominent sub-bass frequencies. The style emerged as an offshoot of UK garage, drawing on a lineage of related styles such as 2-step and dub reggae.
In the early 2000s, dubstep began to emerge as a distinct genre in its own right, with artists such as Dizzee Rascal, El-B, and Horsepower Productions leading the way. By the mid-2000s, the sound had been fully established with producers such as Burial and Skream creating groundbreaking tracks that would go on to shape the sound of dubstep for years to come.
In recent years, dubstep has undergone something of a renaissance thanks to the rise ofEDM and trap music. Producers such as Flume and RL Grime have pioneered a new SoundCloud-based style of dubstep that borrows heavily from trap music while still retaining the signature bass drop so central to the genre.
The rise of dubstep
The early 2000s saw the rise of dubstep, a dark, bass-heavy offshoot of two-step garage that shared much in common with grime (a genre also indebted to garage). Like grime, early dubstep was often instrumental and relied heavily on dark, sparse synths and half-time rhythms. Also like grime (and drum’n’bass before it), the best dubstep is designed to be played as loudly as possible on huge sound systems, with sub-bass frequencies barely audible to the human ear thumping through your chest.
The sound of dubstep
The sound of dubstep is typified by sparse, syncopated rhythmic patterns with prominent sub-bass frequencies. The style emerged in South London in the early 2000s. It often features a half-time or double-time feel, and frequently incorporates a heavy bass line reminiscent of drum and bass or2-step garage. rhythms are generally syncopated, and often shuffled or incorporating tuplets. The tempo is nearly always in the range 140–150 beats per minute (28–30 seconds per beat), with a clap or snare usually inserted every third beat in a bar. In its early stages, dubstep was often more percussive, with more influences from 2‑step drum patterns. A lot of producers were experimenting with tribal Drum & Bass vibe, taking inspiration from Afrocentric music.
The artists who made dubstep
Bass music has been around for decades, but it wasn’t until the early 2000s that a new genre called dubstep emerged from the UK underground. Since then, dubstep has taken the world by storm, evolving and mutating into countless subgenres and becoming one of the most popular genres of electronic dance music today.
But what is dubstep? And where did it come from?
In this article, we’ll take a brief look at the history of dubstep and some of the artists who have helped shape this exciting genre.
The earliest dubstep tracks were produced by a handful of London-based producers in the late 1990s and early 2000s, including Roundhouse Kick (a.k.a. Richard D. James), Benga, Skream, and Horsepower Productions. These producers were heavily influenced by Jamaican dub and 2-step garage, two genres that were popular in the UK at the time.
The future of dubstep
The last decade has seen a major resurgence in popularity for dubstep music. precisely what is dubstep? In its broadest definition, dubstep is a type of electronic dance music (EDM) that originated in the early 2000s in the United Kingdom. It is characterized by a distinctive sub-bass sound, sparse percussion, and frequent use of samples and snippets from other tracks.
While dubstep’s roots are firmly planted in the UK, the genre has since spread to other parts of the world, such as the United States, Australia, and Canada. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in dubstep among mainstream audiences, with some of the genre’s biggest hits coming from American artists such as Skrillex and Diplo.
Looking to the future, it seems likely that dubstep will continue to grow in popularity. Thanks to its unique sound and ability to get people moving, it seems poised to remain one of the most popular genres of electronic dance music for years to come.
