Hard, fast and unapologetic: this is hardcore, with DJ Rebekah

Hardcore’s kick drums punch you in the chest, flooding your body with energy like a shot of adrenaline stabbed directly to the heart. Its synths screech bloody murder, piercing your eardrums with high-end frequencies. And as a bead of sweat sprints past your eyebrow, and another races down the groove of your spine, the strobes create a mind trick. There’s no longer any fluid motion; just rapidly changing snapshots of the world around you flashing in your eyes every few milliseconds. Hardcore isn’t a genre. It’s a feeling, a community, a way of life. And it’s bloody exhilarating. It’s intense. And, perhaps most importantly, it’s also peace and connection. 

Now over thirty years old, after a recent rocket-powered surge into mainstream dance music, hardcore’s impalpable magnetism is only strengthening as its vector field continues to sprawl further and further outwards, pulling newcomers in from across the globe to experience it for the first time.

From its inception to today, the genre has spawned and inspired countless subgenres. 

DJ and producer Rebekah tells us about her experiences, how she sees it, and what she’s learnt during her time deep diving into the hardcore space.

The beginning 

“How hard can we go?”

In her early days, you’d find Rebekah spinning funky house, although in a “techno way” and faster than everyone else. Whilst studying music production in college, she found herself heavily influenced by Jeff Mills. Initially carving out a path as a techno DJ, she found herself looking for more. Endless curiosity for music discovery across genres took hold. 

Now, venturing into hardcore may sound like a leap. But, she assures us, the clues were there. Harder, faster music was always in Rebekah’s musical fingerprint, evident in the kick drums of her early techno tracks, which were bare, oversaturated, and distorted, resembling those found in gabber (early hardcore).

As a producer, hardcore’s gargantuan kicks, “polished but rough” sound, and “f*ck off” attitude captivated Rebekah. Techno was a genre that made her question: “How far can we take it? How hard can we go?” Hardcore was her answer.

“Holy sh*t”

Rebekah tells us about the first time she heard hardcore in one of her sets. Performing B2B with Paula Temple, Paula dropped ‘The Murder Stereo track’ “out of nowhere.” She snapped her head towards Paula with a “Holy sh*t” as the crowd lost it. She was sold. 

Getting into hardcore would be a gradual process as she tested out different tunes, starting with industrial: “Industrial was the gateway for me. I came in listening to producers like Tripped, Somniac One, and Ghost in the Machine, Cancel, Prospect Records. It lends itself to industrial techno,” which she says was doing similar things at the time. 

The first-ever hardcore track?

Today’s sound is the product of consistent evolution. Back in the 90s, when hardcore emerged, possibly via Marc Acardipane’s (AKA Marc Trauner, AKA Mescalinum United) ‘We Have Arrived’, hardcore and gabber naturally didn’t sound how it does now. ‘We Have Arrived’, which Rebekah tells us is considered one of the first hardcore techno tracks, is, most notably, a lot slower. Sitting at 135 BPM, it’s a far cry from today’s 200+ BPMs.

Hardcore’s origins branch out from the early rave scene, explaining why the genre’s initial leaps maintained a steady BPM. 

Acardipane would go on to say in an interview that, in the old days, on a cheap mixer, there wasn’t much headroom, meaning sounds would distort quickly. But on ‘We Have Arrived’, he liked how it sounded and kept it. The first time he played it live, a sound engineer sprinted up to him to let him know: “The whole system’s distorted!” He responded, “No, the track is like this.” It was, of course, intentional. 

Then, happy hardcore would take hold of the UK, emerging from hardcore and UK breakbeat rave scenes. As the uplifting and more energetic variant grew, hardcore began to mirror its tempo, Rebekah tells us as she skims through her notes. DJ Paul Elstak (who founded Rotterdam Records in 1992, likely the first gabber label) also influenced the tempo, driving it up to 150, 250+ BPM.

On the dancefloor 

At the same time, MDMA and amphetamines - with the term "gabberball" used as a name for the combination of the two in the scene - were many ravers’ drugs of choice. With both substances acting as stimulants to allow ravers to dance for hours, rushing their bodies with restlessness, it also just made sense that the music would speed up to match their energy. Good DJs are constantly looking for new ways to mix up their sets and sound. More importantly, good DJs understand how to read a room and give the dancers what they want. And since it was energy and tempo the ravers wanted, that’s what they got. And it stuck. Ravers had not only witnessed but had been a crucial part of hardcore’s evolution.

In the studio 

Part of what makes hardcore intense, heavy, and in-your-face is the drums. Rebekah tells us 909s are resampled, oversaturated, and distorted for kick drums that, in the right venue over the right sound system, make it feel like every note is pounding your chest. 

Another staple is what was originally called the mentasm, now more commonly known as the “hoover sound.” A beefy, fat, and distorted synth, it was used on The Prodigy’s ‘Charly (Alley Cat Remix)’ and, more recently, Lady Gaga’s ‘Bad Romance’ (yes, really).

A signal of its origins, rave stabs are also commonplace. You can hear them throughout The Prodigy’s ‘Out of Space’ (particularly towards the end), keeping the rhythmic elements fresh, expanding on the underlying track, and nodding to the genre’s early years and its parent genres. 

Rebekah’s first hardcore track saw her sample The Substance (2024) with Demi Moore as Elisabeth - “Great film” - taking young Elisabeth’s scream and building the track around it: “That’s perfect for hardcore.” The genre is sample-heavy, and it seems that other producers operate in the same way. What’s important with sampling, which often takes from hip-hop, giving it that “f*ck you” energy Rebekah loves, is how you use it and where it goes: “You can use just a bit of the sample as like a little ‘click, click, click’, and you move the track through with the sample. I feel like there's still a lot of that going on.”

Layering is perhaps one of the most crucial components in creating a powerful hardcore track. Similar to techno, she says, there must be many more layers compared to other genres to create that big, impactful, rich sound. Kicks are layered, the synth lines too, with notes an octave lower for a wide, deep sound, finished with saturation and a little bit of distortion to achieve peak maximalism. 

As well as Acardipane, Rebekah lists DJ Rob (Janssen), Lenny Dee, and Rob Gee as the genre’s founders. In the modern era, she mentions Hellfish: “I don't know what those guys are doing in the studio, but… It's to the extreme. It's almost mixed with like terrorcore or speedcore.”

Culture, community, and aesthetics 

Fashion and pushback 

Hardcore in the ‘90s, the era it was born, was a subculture. Especially in the Netherlands - Rotterdam, to be more specific - where it most likely originated, ravers adorned an unofficial uniform. 

And while Rebekah was never too bothered about fashion, as she just loved the music, we can’t not touch on the look.   

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As it still is in many clubs presently, clubs over there wouldn’t let you wear certain clothing, namely sportswear. Pubs and youth centres, sure, but not big parties. However, Parkzicht, a legendary club that played a massive role in the development of "Rotterdam house" and gabber (early hardcore), had no dress code - it may have even been the only one without one. So gabbers, a community believed by quite a few to have comprised mostly working-class youth - “it was definitely not middle class, that's for sure” - turned up in their trainers and their L'Alpina Australians (a type of tracksuit), sometimes with a bomber jacket on top. 

Finally, they had a place to be themselves. The Australian tracksuits were already part of street culture, so when gabber started, this was just what people wore at the time. Only this time, they could enter the club and make it a part of gabber culture, which it still is today. It was basically a coincidence, but it stuck, likely because they kept ravers cool. But they were expensive, and people had to save up to afford them, especially younger gabbers. 

Another piece of the unofficial gabber uniform is shaved heads, likely in part due to the anti-mainstream ethos and also comfort (meaning staying cool while dancing like a nutter for hours while off your t*ts). As this all happened in the pre-Internet era, with the uniform of the Australians, Air Max 90s or BWs, and shaved heads, gabbers could spot others in the streets and give a little nod, suggesting ‘We have a connection; we're different because we're gabbers.’ In fact, Air Maxes were so huge in the culture that Nike even created a shoe branded with “Rotterdam” and “220 BPM.” 

And if you thought the female gabbers were left out, you’d be wrong. Women in the gabber scene had their own version of a skinhead, with a few more styles to choose from. Tight ponytails and plaits were also common, sometimes with shaved sides. 

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Later, the fashion pivoted a bit, with some ditching the tracksuits for Lonsdale.

These style choices are not simply that; they were ways to demonstrate love for the gabber community, a community that rebelled against cultural norms, expectations, and the mainstream. 

From the outside looking in, Rebekah says, the look was subject to prejudice: “‘Oh my gosh, this is like, these kids are terrible. They're hooligans!’" In some cases, they were even assumed to be Nazis despite being the furthest thing from it, being a culture rooted in unity. 

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Media demonisation 

“Lonsdale youth” was a term coined by the media for these “Nazi gabbers” as they donned the brand’s clothing - Lonsdale already had a reputation as popular among right-wing extremists and racists. While a small minority of bad characters were of course present in the scene - as with every other scene - they don’t and never did represent the majority. "[It was] exactly the same with punk. [The culture] was the opposite. They were just there for connection with each other, to belong somewhere, and actually [stand] against any of that b*llsh*t like far-right stuff.”

Lee Harpin’s 1997 Daily Star article is a prime example of not only how gabber was misinterpreted, but how the media seemed to be intentionally trying to elicit fear from the public over a genre of music. It mirrors the response to hip-hop when it first emerged in the US: moral panic, bans, “not real music” accusations, and mockery.

The media's obsession with the idea that the scene was rotten with racism sparked action from many events, whose promoters used anti-racist statements on flyers to highlight that Nazis and their ideas weren’t welcome in the scene. Some promoters even banded together for a ‘United Hardcore Against Racism’ event in 2005. And some producers dropped anti-Nazi tracks. As soon as extremism popped up, the scene did what it could to suffocate it.

In the context of a scene that is widely believed to have been very working-class while rebelling against norms during a time when everyone (especially parents) was panicking about drug use, one wonders if some people simply didn’t like what gabbers were doing and wanted to see the end of the culture. Especially after the moral panic around acid house rave culture shortly before. 

Anti-dance dances 

As such a strong movement with a clear identity, gabbers naturally developed their own dance: the hakken. In Dutch, "hakken" means chopping. It can also refer to the part of the body that’s most important to the dance: the heel of the foot. Using small steps, the lower half of the body is the most important, though arm and torso movement was and still is common. Some ‘90s gabbers even tapped their shaved heads with their hands while dancing, likely emphasising one of the culture’s standout fashion choices. 

Like the sound, the hakken has also evolved, with dancers putting their own spin on it through variation in their movement. Now we can see the backwards hakken in modern hardcore like uptempo, mainstyle, and industrial.

There are noticeable differences across borders, too. Even though the hakken is still popular across the board, Rebekah tells us how France is full of die-hard, full-on hakken-ers, Italians love mosh pits, and Australians are doing this “new thing where they catapult somebody into the air,” above the crowd:

“So, [at a] big festival, we're talking thousands of people, you'll be looking out, and then one guy will just literally be thrown into the air.” She compares it to spyhopping - when killer whales spring up vertically through the sea’s surface so they can have a look around. Although this catapulting seems to be a bit of a trend and spreading to different countries, many can see how and why the Aussies would come up with this first. It’s their imprint on the culture, their unique take on and contribution to it. And apparently, those who birthed the culture, the Dutch, have begun adopting the practice too. 

Interestingly, this new catapult “dance” reaffirms something Rebekah said earlier: that hardcore has quite a punky feel. Catapulting someone up above the crowd wouldn’t be out of place at a hardcore punk gig - bear in mind “hardcore” was used in music to describe faster, harder, and more aggressive forms of punk before it was applied to dance. At punk gigs where crowdsurfing and stage diving are common, catapulting would just be a normal Tuesday night at a sticky-floored local venue. This just highlights that more extreme, energy-consuming dances and behaviours are drawn out of people when they hear these full-throttle, high-energy, and, some might say, “aggressive” sounds. It supercharges them, flooding dancers with energy that they unleash in healthy and fun ways, while engaging with their environments. 

The same can be said for another popular dance, one Rebekah says people are calling “the lobster dance,” where the dancer puts their arms in front of them in an X formation, crossing over in front of their body, and repeatedly sharply pushing downwards or towards their chest in time with the beat. 

In a way, these dances could be seen as ‘anti-dance dances.’ While a good hakken is without doubt a skilful activity, catapulting and the lobster dance are somewhat non-complex. More importantly, they’re noticeably different to what we traditionally consider a dance move requires. These anti-dances are anti-mainstream. They’re unique to the scene, too. So even though the subculture was born 30+ years ago, it seems its attitude has lived on, so much so that people in the 2020s are adding new things to the culture, but without distorting its original message and principles. It’s the sign of a healthy scene that firmly grasps its ideology. 

Hardcore also seems to be being passed down to younger generations, passion and adoration flowing from parent to child. Including the hakken. With the pure skill and flawlessness of many young dancers’ hakken that Rebekah has seen, it brings the question: Is this in their blood? Is it part of who they are? 

“I've been trying to practice the dance. It's not that easy to be honest, especially when you're an old lady.” We wonder together if hardcore has become deeply ingrained in some people’s (namely, Dutch people’s) cultural DNA, like the Spanish and their football, inherited from and fueled by their family and the world around them. “They must have been listening to hardcore when they were younger,” Rebekah says. 

Sounds across borders 

Despite the internet shooting trends (including, whether you love it or loathe it, genres of music) into various cultures, Rebekah notices clear differences between the countries she DJs in. She notes she can play really hard music in France - they’re just super accepting of the sound, as they have their own long-standing history with hardcore. While in the Netherlands, they often aren’t fond of different genres in the same set. As the birthplace of hardcore and gabber, it makes sense they’d prefer to champion their sound. And while the Spanish crowds definitely prefer hard techno, they are still open to harder stuff. 

The US is what Rebekah dubs an "interesting one.” She notes their positive and open attitudes as a defining characteristic that informs her sets. More interestingly, Rebekah raises a great point: in the US, dance music is “EDM.” With every genre of dance music falling under this wide umbrella, no genre fits into a category or a box. While UK ravers might be quick to tell you that “X is not real techno” or “DnB has no place here because it’s a house event,” Americans blur all these genre lines. Everything simply falls under “EDM.” Could this be a reason why Americans are more open to multi-genre DJ sets and events? 

Hardcore visuals and aesthetics 

The “metal of house,” hardcore adopted horror aesthetics pretty early on. The inaugural Nightmare in the Park’s marketing materials incorporated the burned face of Freddy Krueger from the horror classic A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). Hellraiser raves, unsurprisingly, used the face of Hellraiser, the horror film’s titular character. 

Scary clowns, skulls, mummies with rotten teeth, werewolves, goblins, and unnerving animals, like fanged bats, snakes, tarantulas, and fighting dogs, were all common on event flyers, mixtapes, and more. Labels too, with names like Hellraiser, Deadly Systems, and Blood N' Guts. Then there’s DJs with “metal” names like Dominator, TerrorClown, Cryogenic, Disciples of Belial. 

Some ravers would even occasionally dress up as horror villains or wear masks if they didn’t have a dummy or lolly in their gob in an attempt to protect their teeth from hours of incessant jaw grinding. Masks have also been popular amongst harder DJs themselves, especially recently - think Holy Priest, Angerfist, TLØ, KRUELTY, Vieze Asbak, GRAVEDGR, and horsegiirL.

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Metal riffs were sampled in gabber and hardcore relatively early on (this track from ‘96 is one of god-knows-how-many with metal guitars), but later in the ‘90s, more adventurous DJs would go as far as to drop metal tracks in their sets. Add to that tracks named ‘Prepared for Hell’, ‘Lucifer We Praise Thee’, and 'Shizoid Fukd Soul' - a track that features words and screams of an "insane" man who is being threatened with electroshock treatment from the film Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) - and it’s clear why some see hardcore as dance music or house’s metal sibling.

This aesthetic survived and is still present in contemporary hardcore. Go to a hard techno night, and you might see visuals with contorting bodies, black sacks over people’s heads, blood, and eerie settings like foggy woodland, all on screen behind the DJs. Another (albeit loose) tie to this darker, horror-inspired aesthetic: hard techno raves see hundreds or thousands in the subgenre’s unofficial uniform: black and the occasional leather bondage piece, like a harness.

The spaces 

The home of ‘Rotterdam house’

Crucial to any sound's development, the relationship between a genre and its culture and venues is symbiotic, feeding off one another to mature, define, and refine.

As we mentioned, Rotterdam’s Parkzicht had no dress code, allowing for tracksuit-donning ravers in trainers to flood the dancefloor. The unofficial headquarters for hardcore and gabber, the owners not imposing clothing rules allowed this new subculture to bloom. The music was different. Just like the club. And it’s very possible - likely, even - that this and the unofficial tracksuit uniform helped the scene develop its ethos of no ego, unity, freedom, and acceptance, while also being the vital ingredients for its anti-conformity and anti-mainstream spirit. Had hardcore and gabber started in a more mainstream club with a dress code, say, something like modern-day The Warehouse Project, the scene would look entirely different. 

The villa-turned-discotheque Parkzicht was built in the 1900s near the Rotterdam observation tower/landmark Euromast. DJ Rob had a Friday night residency from 1989. He created his own sound, using 909s that increasingly became harder and harder. The sound caught on, and Friday nights became massively busy. It was considered a new form of house, ‘Rotterdam house’ or ‘gabberhouse’, until it eventually became hardcore/gabber.

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Today, Facebook and Reddit groups are still rife with stories of the massively adored, famed club, filled with retired ravers keen to share stories of chaos from back in the day. Asking if anyone remembers who warmed up for a headliner in 1991, reminiscing about a bloke refereeing dancers with a whistle and red and yellow cards (yellow - dance harder, red - not good enough; off the dancefloor) and “army lads dancing around the cars” at the water pumps near the park by the river, which they visited after clubbing, and proudly declaring the mantra “hardcore will never die.” They share mixtape covers, old, dark, blurry pictures of dancers in the club, event flyers, Parkzicht tattoos, and their Parkzicht T-shirts from back then, often to a chorus of “best times of my life” and “legendary” in response. 

Parkzicht lives on through stories and outdoor events, with many of the legendary OG DJs that kicked it all off in the 90s on its lineups. First held in 2022, the day-long festival will return to Vlaardingen in June 2026 with DJ Rob on the Parkzicht Classics stage, Paul Elstak and Human Resource on the Energie Hall stage, and DJ Francois on the Warehouse stage, plus many more, of course.

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When you’ve got Parkzicht at 10pm and the footie at 10am 

Another important piece of context: Parkzicht wasn’t too far away from Rotterdam football club Feyenoord’s De Kuip stadium. Across the internet, you’ll find references to ravers going to a match at the stadium and then hitting the club after. Or the other way around, staying up all night before making their way to the stadium for kick-off (likely without a single intact jaw in sight).

And the hakken, the hardcore dance, is said to have been inspired by the moves performed in the stadium stands by Feyenoord fans.

Ajax (Amsterdam) and Feyenoord (Rotterdam) supporters were, and still are, rivals. Naturally, the rivalry didn’t always stay in the stadiums. Both cities were rivals on the pitch, in the studio and in the clubs. 

In ‘92, hardcore pioneer Paul Elstak, who proudly represented the Rotterdam scene, released ‘Amsterdam Waar Lech Dat Dan?’ (‘Amsterdam, Where Is That Then?’) under the name Euromaster (likely borrowing the name from the Rotterdam attraction near Parkzicht), with cover art showing someone, a seemingly very dehydrated cartoon, urinating on the city of Amsterdam. Something tells us Feyenoord fans would have had it on repeat before matches against Ajax; it might have even been played in the stadium. And no, that wouldn’t be a stretch: football stadiums in the Netherlands sometimes play hardcore at matches, even in recent years. And the fans love it.

Operation Ponytail

Another core gabber venue, Amsterdam’s Elementenstraat held 61 illegal raves between April 1992 and May 1993. DJs like The Prophet, Buzz Fuzz, and Gizmo hopped on the decks, pushing gabber forward and creating a home for a tight community of ravers who rejoiced at raw, crazy energy. But then, on 15th May 1993, ‘Operation Ponytail’ saw police raid the warehouse over noise complaints and safety concerns, forcing its closure for some years before it respawned decades later. DJs were arrested, the founder was fined and served a four-week prison sentence, but its legacy lives on.

But it’s not all about these smaller spaces. The sound eventually outgrew these venues. 

Scaling up 

Part of what shot gabber into the stratosphere was Paul Elstak and Rob Janssen’s Nightmare in the Park event at Parkzicht in December 1992. It was huge. So huge it needed a new, bigger venue. After this, Nightmare events were held at Energiehal, which could host crowds of 15,000. 

Energiehal became known as 'The Temple’ for gabber in Rotterdam. Despite its short lifespan, spawned in 1992 before its closure in 1999, it hosted some other absolutely massive gabber and hardcore events such as Megarave. After partiers tore it up at Energiehal, they’d sometimes then head over to Parkzicht to continue. Incredible stamina from them lot, we know.

The Nightmare raves would stay at Energiehal until the party was retired in 1995. So important to the scene, gabbers deeply mourned the venue's demolition, shedding tears and taking parts of the building as souvenirs of their Mecca. Nightmare raves then made a triumphant return in 2004, landing in another now-legendary hardcore venue, the Ahoy arena, where it stayed until 2012. 

At the same time Nightmare was getting started, the first edition of a little something called Thunderdome was being conjured up by three schoolmates in their 20s. Named The Final Exam, the first Thunderdome was held in 1992 at Jaarbeurs in Utrecht.

In 1993, the friends held six editions of Thunderdome across the Netherlands. It exploded in the mid-90s, with editions held abroad in countries like Belgium, Germany, even Australia, helping to spread hardcore fever across Europe and beyond - as did Thunderdome’s many compilation CDs, which sold in the millions. All editions but the first were held in big arenas. 

Cultural dominance 

By the mid/late 90s, hardcore and gabber were massive in culture, filling big parties in huge halls with thousands of bodies. At the same time, hardcore was evolving. The beginning of a new millennium was closing in, and hardcore was entering its next stage of evolution like a Pokémon: it was birthing millennium hardcore.​

“It's made for these big spaces where you have the big bass bins at the front, and then you can have the synths going overhead. It also has space. There's sections of space, sections of the kicks, then the big breakdowns, and everything has its place,” Rebekah says.  

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Around the time that the millennium strain came around, hardcore was so popular that it had started dominating these huge venues, and nowadays, “It's very rare that you go to a hardcore club. I don't think I've heard of it. [It] Just seems to be at these bigger events.” 

Rebekah emphasises that producers should consider where their music will be played, making production choices based on the rooms it’ll flood: “The combination of music and the environment that they’re played in is really important, and as a producer, you always have to have that in mind.” As hardcore moved to huge stages, it only makes sense that we’d see the birth of millennium hardcore, a bigger, more epic sound.

Finally, back then, music events were a lot louder than anything you’ll come across now, as regulations for maximum volume hadn’t yet been implemented. When music’s super loud, as some of you will know, it becomes distorted. And with hardcore already being distorted, the sound was likely insanely distorted, chaotic, and overwhelming, sounding significantly harder and rougher over a fat sound system, the sound ricocheting off the walls of the clubs and the massive halls. Sensory overload. 

The development of the sound

The expansion of the hardcore umbrella

Hardcore is over thirty years old. Music production technology has improved exponentially, as have dance music and ravers’ tastes. While there are genres that very clearly wouldn’t exist without hardcore, there are others that it influenced that may be less obvious. 

Keeping local to hardcore as a whole, it now encompasses gabber, uptempo, rawstyle, Frenchcore, hardstyle, and more. Another massive one, especially in the UK in the ‘90s: happy hardcore. 

‘F*ck That Happy Sh*t’

Still mocked to this day for its syrupy-sweet, cheese-imbued sound, happy hardcore was somewhat divisive among gabbers and hardcore fans who deemed it a more pop-friendly version of the sound and culture they adored. Hardcore wasn’t for the masses - remember, it was inherently anti-mainstream. But with speed and pills being people’s drugs of choice around this time, happy hardcore was inevitable. People felt good, and they had enough energy to run across the continent and back, and the music reflected this. So, Rebekah says, while the Dutch were "cultivating a more darker rave sound," the UK made happy hardcore, which would then become the building blocks for jungle and ultimately drum and bass.

Machine gun BPMs

Essentially on the flip side of happy hardcore, terrorcore is a sort of darker counterpart. Tracks explode between 160 and an insanity-inducing 300 BPM, featuring samples from horror films and metal tracks. It adds more distortion and harsher sounds to take an already intense, extreme sound up a level. Similarly, there's speedcore, which is 300+ BPM, aggressive, and a sometimes violent and vulgar subgenre. Rebekah describes the two aptly: “machine gun-like because it's just fast.” 

The sound splitting the scene

Another harder sound Rebekah tells us about is uptempo and the divide it's caused in the scene. Unlike the absolutely insane tempos of terror and speed, “the beauty of uptempo is it still maintains that it's hardcore and it still has the sound design.” An extreme, faster, “maxed out” strain of hardcore with cheesy vocals, many established DJs have either embraced it or reverted to millennium in recent years. She tells us some hardcore DJs pivoted into hard techno because they “couldn’t bear” uptempo.

“We’re hit with resistance because it’s change. We’re old. We don’t like change. It’s like, well, you guys are going to change and grow or die a slow, long death into obscurity.”

When recalling how one DJ didn’t like uptempo but eventually came around to it, she says, “As a DJ, you have to remember you were never going to be as big as a genre. You’re there to support the genre to help it develop, help it grow, nurture it. I like to say that you're an ambassador of a sound. That’s what DJs are.”

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Rebekah recalls a set she played in the Netherlands in 2024. For the final track, she whipped out an uptempo track and, despite another DJ at the same event the following year playing a hardcore closing, she “got so much sh*t for it. Like they didn’t want to hear it at a hard techno event… the Netherlands are notorious for wanting to keep the genres separate. I think it's fun and just shows music is meant to be fun. Doesn't always have to be serious, y’know?”

As one of the harder, faster subgenres of hardcore, some DJs are exploring uptempo because there’s nowhere else to go. They’ve hit the ceiling of intensity. You can go harder, or you can go softer and build back up to hard sounds again: “We've got to go up.”

Why is hardcore still relevant? 

It wouldn’t be right to miss one of the hottest club genres at the moment that wouldn’t be here without these rabidly hard kicks, hoover sounds, and the like: hard techno. 

Today, we have brands like Teletech, PRTY, DISFUNCTION, Exhilaration, NRG, Verknipt, and more spreading unrelenting hard techno and hardcore across the UK and beyond. Teletech, for example, perfectly represents the genre’s contemporary cultural dominance - in 2024 and 2025, Teletech hosted its own arena at Creamfields (and it will again this year); its parties and resident DJs are selling out huge venues like Blackstone Street Warehouse, and it seems to be becoming a Parklife Festival mainstay with a dedicated, curated stage once again this year. The brand even secured a residency on BBC Radio 1 Dance. 

It’s been decades since hardcore’s birth, and it still resonates with young clubbers. But why? Why do people still adore and ride hard for hardcore? Club culture accepts and celebrates individuality - it doesn’t matter who you are, how you dance, how you express yourself. But you can enjoy other genres and that feeling of community in the club. So what is it about hardcore? 

Politics and the state of the world

Hardcore specifically seems to speak to those who want something different, who, whether they know it or not, may be drawn to the genre’s anti-mainstream, anti-authority, anti-conformity ethos. In hard techno, the unofficial all-black dress code can help enforce the feeling of community, while the hard music provides a cathartic release as a maximalist, fast-paced sound that you can thrash around to like mad if you want to. A meeting point between physical activity and spirituality - both of which bring benefits - the absolute chaos of hardcore can, perhaps paradoxically, provide a sense of calm. Or it can be stimulating. It depends: on you, the track, your mood, where you are, and what’s going on in your life at the moment. 

In the UK, within the context of decades of austerity, that worldwide issue that started in 2020 which shall not be named, and more recently the threat of digital hegemony, hardcore invites ravers to let everything out and feel a part of something: a real subculture, which have all but died since the internet integrated into our daily lives and since third spaces have almost entirely evaporated. Rebekah backs the idea of having to stay inside for years as a factor: "When they came out of that, the kids had lost a year. They were raring to go. They really had something to say and an energy to express. It's [getting] worse and worse [trying] to get a job and the price of living has gone up as well."

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Much of hardcore, particularly gabber, is rough around the edges, unpretentious, energy-driven, and just chaotic. We all love a bit of organised chaos, don’t we? Maybe it also, with its history, feels connected to a simpler time: the 90s. Or at least it may seem like a simpler time to some younger clubbers today. Every era has its problems, but of course those born outside that timeframe have an easier time romanticising it or focusing on the positives: no mobile phones, less anxiety, more freedom, more connection, less destructive politics. And in an era where many feel watched, hyperaware of their behaviour as a result, the “I don’t give a f*ck” attitude of such a subculture could prove irresistible. This leads us to ponder the social identity theory, which essentially is the idea that our own concept of ourselves derives from our perceived membership to a social group, such as the hardcore subculture. Being a part of it says to the world: “I’m here, in this subculture, so you know exactly who I am and what my values are.”

Rebekah has always been locked into the scene - she’s a DJ and a fan, after all. But she didn’t expect hard techno to get this big. Artists like Nico Moreno and Warface collaborating, for example, is something she never thought she’d see. But it’s great. We’re witnessing genres growing, colliding, mutating, and creating something new. We’re witnessing progression - youth culture, art, music, and creativity. The growth seems almost exponential. And all that means is more spaces, more niches, and potentially even more crossover as hard techno fans explore millennium hardcore and so on. 

What’s next for hardcore? 

So where does it go from here? For some, it’s going towards uptempo or hard techno. And for others, they’re looking back: “I think the main artists at the minute are taking influence back from the early 2000s. So, it's now a remake of millennium [hardcore]. Industrial hardcore is looking more in[to] the hard techno scene. So, they're influenced by hard techno.

“There's a lot of hardcore guys that are playing hard techno in their sets. But the scenes are still not fully merged. And this is what I find really interesting.

“I don't know how open the hard techno scene is to booking, like, AniMe or maybe N-Vitral as he stands now, because, y’know, they've got the MCs. It's like, that doesn't really fit with hard techno. So I think it’s finding a way to present it to a generation that doesn’t necessarily want that.  

“With hardcore, with the millennium sound, I presume it's just going to continue to be super epic and the bigger the synth, the better, the bigger the kicks, the better.”

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Rebekah talks about Mad Dog, about how he’s successfully transitioned from hardcore to hard techno, dipping into downtempo on the way: “It’s really trancey. He takes the epic moments of hardcore with the big trance and synth lines, and he just did it a little bit slower. So, all the tracks are 160 BPM.” 

She also points out how hard techno is moving into trancey, bouncy, and groovy territories, but keeping the tempo. She wonders if clubbers’ ketamine use could be a contributing factor to this shift, as MDMA and amphetamines have been in the past. It wouldn’t be a stretch - techno DJ VTSS, amongst others, have spoken about K impacting the dancefloor too. She mentions that some hard techno producers seem to be inspired by hardstyle, so perhaps they’ll go in that direction. 

But still, Rebekah says she doesn’t really know where hardcore is going as “a lot of them have just got their eye on hard techno.” And when we look at how hardcore has progressed since its birth, it really is a mystery where it could go.​

“I would love it [hardcore and hard techno] to just merge and create a new scene. All these younger producers taking some parts of hard techno and other genres and then bringing it into hardcore and making it something new, that would be really exciting.” Though she can already see potential speed bumps: “I don't know at what level that would be supported. I think for the big hardcore labels, they're not so open to having hard techno producers on there. It's like the passage has to come through hardcore rather than coming through hard techno.”

“Maybe it's a good thing to not know and just see who's going to do what and when.” 

While the next evolution of hardcore isn’t 100% certain, one thing is: hardcore will never die. 

​Rebekah’s new album Industrial Mind is out now via RECKLESS Records. Rebekah said it’s “the culmination of my deep dive into the hard dance sub-genres and realising that what comes out still leans towards industrial.” Listen to Industrial Mind here. 

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