Bassline (music genre)
Bassline (sometimes referred to as bassline house or 4x4) is a music genre closely related to UK garage that originated in South Yorkshire and the West Midlands in the early 2000s.[1] Stylistically it comprises a four-to-the-floor rhythm normally at around 135–142 beats per minute and a strong emphasis on bass, similar to that of its precursor speed garage, with chopped up vocal samples and a pop music aesthetic.
Bassline
Particularly in the scene's early days, the most prominent bassline club was Sheffield's Niche Nightclub, which became the centre of controversy due to a police raid which resulted in the club's closure in 2005.[2]
Characteristics[edit]
Early bassline house[edit]
Early bassline shares more similarities with its predecessor speed garage than the style that began to emerge in the latter half of the decade, with many people still referring to bassline house releases from the early 2000s as speed garage. This early style grew from the sound that was popular in nightclubs in Yorkshire and the West Midlands during the late 1990s, which played speed garage mixed with melodic vocal house. While the four-to-the-floor style of speed garage retained popularity in Yorkshire and the Midlands, in London it had declined due to the rise of 2-step garage and grime,[3] which led to Northern and Midlands DJs needing to produce their own records.[4]
A separation between "organ" and "bass" mixes of tracks appeared in the early bassline scene, with "bass" or "B-Line" tracks featuring a "warp" or "reese" synthesized bass line, influenced by speed garage, and "organ" tracks featuring sampled Korg M1-style organ leads, influenced by the house music of the 1990s.
Like most electronic music, sampling played a large role. Many of the same sampled bass lines and drum loops can be heard in old speed garage and bassline house releases, and many popular early releases were bootleg remixes of R&B tracks, or otherwise based on unlicensed vocal samples.
4x4[edit]
Towards the end of the 2000s, a new wave of younger Yorkshire-based producers such as TS7, Service Crew, Danny Bond and others, coupled with the rise of digital audio workstations, reduced the use of drum machine samples and old sampled bass lines, which took bassline along a different path. This style started to be called '4x4', moving further away from the original speed garage sound, but still retaining the core elements such as the warping bass and female vocals. In general, bassline as a whole remained fairly underground and was mostly only popular in the North and Midlands, and releases often never went beyond a 12" vinyl EP, or obscure CD mixes or compilations.
Eventually, 4x4 gained popularity on the pop charts, allegedly because it appeals to both genders, while grime and dubstep at the time gathered a predominantly male following.[5] However, a more aggressive style of bassline also developed, which was absent of pitched-up female vocals and melodic leads, and was more reminiscent of grime. According to Steve Baxendale, owner of Niche nightclub, the Niche DJs began to take the vocals out of speed garage and house music, and pump up the bass. The changes in the style of the music at Niche led to a change from a predominantly white crowd to a predominantly Black British crowd.[6] While the "darker" style of bassline was popular in Sheffield, local scenes in cities such as Birmingham and Leeds continued pursuing a more upbeat style. By 2007, it had become common for people to MC over bassline.[3]
Like dubstep and grime, bassline generally places a strong emphasis on bass,[1] with intricate basslines (often multiple and interweaving) being characteristic of the genre.[7] However, in contrast to these genres, bassline tracks use a four-to-the-floor beat.[7] The music is often purely instrumental, but vocal techniques common in other styles of garage can also be present, such as female R&B vocals sped up to match the faster tempo, and also samples of vocals from grime tracks.[1] Most songs are around 135 to 142 bpm, faster than most UK garage and around the same tempo as most grime and dubstep.
Together with its return to feminine-style music, bassline is said to embrace pop music aesthetics, and to have a euphoric, exuberant quality similar to that of earlier British rave music - both also in contrast to grime and dubstep.[7]
Producer T2 maintains that bassline and UK garage share a common origin in house music but are different sounds, while major bassline distributor and DJ Mystic Matt describes bassline as having a similar rhythm to UK garage, but that the strong emphasis on bass makes it a separate genre.[8]