House is a genre of electronic dance music characterized by a repetitive four-on-the-floor beat and a typical tempo of 115–130 beats per minute. It was created by DJs and music producers from Chicago's Black gay underground club culture and evolved slowly in the early/mid 1980s as DJs began altering disco songs to give them a more mechanical beat. By early 1988, House became mainstream and supplanted the typical 80s music beat.
Trance is a genre of electronic dance music that emerged from EBM in Frankfurt, Germany, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and quickly spread throughout Europe.
A rave is a dance party at a warehouse, club, or other public or private venue, typically featuring performances by DJs playing electronic dance music. The style is most associated with the early 1990s dance music scene when DJs played at illegal events in musical styles dominated by electronic dance music from a wide range of sub-genres, including drum and bass, dubstep, trap, break, happy hardcore, trance, techno, hardcore, house, and alternative dance. Occasionally live musicians have been known to perform at raves, in addition to other types of performance artists such as go-go dancers and fire dancers. The music is amplified with a large, powerful sound reinforcement system, typically with large subwoofers to produce a deep bass sound. The music is often accompanied by laser light shows, projected coloured images, visual effects and fog machines.
Hardcore is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany in the early 1990s. It is distinguished by faster tempos and a distorted sawtooth kick, the intensity of the kicks and the synthesized bass, the rhythm and the atmosphere of the themes, the usage of saturation and experimentation close to that of industrial dance music. It would spawn subgenres such as gabber.
Progressive house is a subgenre of house music. The progressive house style emerged in the early 1990s. It initially developed in the United Kingdom as a natural progression of North American and European house music of the late 1980s.
Hardstyle is an electronic dance genre that emerged in the late 1990s, with origins in the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy. Hardstyle mixes influences from techno, new beat and hardcore.
Eric Sheridan Prydz, also known by his many aliases including Pryda and Cirez D, is a Swedish DJ and music producer. He rose to fame with his 2004 hit single "Call on Me", and saw continued chart success with "Proper Education" in 2007, "Pjanoo" in 2008, and "Opus" in 2015. In 2016, he released his debut studio album, Opus.
Dov Joseph Elkabas, known professionally as DJ The Prophet, is a Dutch hardcore techno and hardstyle DJ and producer. The Prophet is also the owner of one of the largest hardstyle record labels, Scantraxx.
Willem Rebergen, better known by his stage name Headhunterz, is a Dutch DJ and music producer. Rebergen is also a voice actor. He has done dubbing for several movies and TV series. He started his career in 2005 working on Hardstyle music.
Showtek is a Dutch electronic dance music duo consisting of two brothers from Eindhoven, Wouter Janssen. and Sjoerd Janssen. The duo regularly manages to reach the top of multiple music charts and work with artists such as Tiësto, Chris Brown and David Guetta. Showtek was ranked 17th in the Top 100 DJs list of 2014 but by the magazine's 2016 list, they had dropped to 96th. The brothers, who have been musically active since 2001, also offer podcasts on their own radio show on the music streaming service iTunes.
Joram Metekohy, better known by his stage name Wildstylez, is a Dutch hardstyle DJ and record producer. Having previously released hardstyle records under the alias 'Seizure', Joram Metekohy had his first solo release as Wildstylez in 2007 on the Scantraxx sub-label Scantraxx Reloaded. In 2010, he started the record label Digital:Age in collaboration with Noisecontrollers. After he stopped releasing on Digital:Age, and its subsequent collapse, Wildstylez had a string of releases on Q-Dance Records and also released many tracks for free via social media. In 2013, Wildstylez founded his own hardstyle label, Lose Control Music, under the parent label Be Yourself Music. As of 2014, he and Max Enforcer now release their own music through Lose Control Music. Later, in 2018, Wildstylez founded the label Art of Creation with Headhunterz.
Robbert van de Corput, known professionally as Hardwell, is a Dutch DJ and music producer from Breda. He was voted the world's number one DJ by DJ Mag in 2013 and again in 2014. In 2022, he was ranked at number 43 in the top 100 DJs poll by DJ Mag. He is best known for his sets at music festivals, including Ultra Music Festival, Sunburn and Tomorrowland.
Frenchcore is a subgenre of hardcore techno. The style differs from other forms of hardcore in terms of a faster tempo, usually above 160 –185 BPM, and a loud and distorted offbeat bassline.
Gabber is a style of electronic dance music and a subgenre of hardcore techno, as well as the surrounding subculture. The music is more commonly referred to as hardcore, and is characterised by fast beats, distorted and heavy kickdrums, with dark themes and samples. This style was developed in Rotterdam and Amsterdam in the 1990s by producers like Marc Acardipane, Paul Elstak, DJ Rob, and The Prophet, forming record labels such as Rotterdam Records, Mokum Records, Pengo Records and Industrial Strength Records.
Thijs Ploegmakers, known musically as Adaro, is a Dutch DJ and producer. He has produced music in several dance styles, and in 2008 started producing raw hardstyle, for which he is considered to be one of the originators of.
Diamanté Anthony Blackmon, known professionally as Gordo and formerly known as Carnage, is a Nicaraguan-American disc jockey, record producer, and former rapper. Born in Washington, DC and raised by Nicaraguan parents. He first gained recognition for his DJ mixes and live performances at music festivals such as Tomorrowland and Ultra Music Festival. He began releasing EDM singles in 2012 and occasionally performed as a recording artist; however, he has since retired from doing so, along with his Carnage stage name in favor of Gordo in 2022, after which he began working solely in production for other artists.
Joey van Ingen, known professionally as Radical Redemption, is a Dutch hardstyle DJ and record producer. He has played at several festivals such as Defqon.1, Dominator and Loudness.
Kateryna Kremko, known professionally as Miss K8, is a DJ from Kyiv, Ukraine. She played at music festivals including Defqon 1 and Masters of Hardcore, gaining recognition for her performances. In 2019, Kateryna took some time off due to pregnancy.
Bas Oskam, better known by his stage name Noisecontrollers, is a Dutch DJ and hardstyle music producer based in Veenendaal, Netherlands. Noisecontrollers was formerly a duo before Arjan Terpstra left the project in 2013, prompting Oskam to continue as a solo act. They are regarded as one of the pioneers of hardstyle music. Since leaving the project, Terpstra has been producing music using the stage name Bloqshot, focusing on different musical styles.
