So what's the deal with dubstep?

[Jimmy]

To me, dubstep is a very strange genre. It's one of the more oddly-specific genres to have emerged relatively recently - all the songs stay within the range of 140bpm and have a specific half-time drum pattern. The music is made mainly by taking a bunch of low-frequency oscillators and putting them through a meat grinder. Often the genre foregoes melody entirely and focuses completely on getting the rudest, loudest, squelchiest sound possible. With this in mind, a lot of it still seems to follow the "verse chorus verse etc." format of traditional music, so music it is, and not just noise. It's basically structured chaos.

Even weirder is the fact that the genre doesn't seem to stop there with the specifics. There are people in the dubstep community that think the noises should be made this way, and another that say they should be made another way. It's from this divide that you get "chillstep" and "brostep". Within those subgenres are further subgenres, and it seems to go on.

I do find it bizarre how big it's become. Yet, for all of the genre's weirdness, I still derive enjoyment from it, and I'm finding it difficult pinpointing why. I can't dance to it. There's very little melody in it, which for years has been absolutely essential in songwriting. Maybe it's the anticipation of the drop and the sequence of sounds that it consists of - like progressive rock, it requires repeated listens to fully comprehend. Is it the urge to memorize the order of every sound within the drop that makes me come crawling back to listen to it every now and then?

What are your thoughts, MLR? A lot of us like dubstep. But why? And what is it really to us?

[Freewave]

Gah. I dunno. It's kind of lost on me as well. I mean I don't really hate it but again I'm not a big fan of the brostep approach to making it loud and wubby or even a lot of the stuff that CALLS itself dubstep but has nothing in common with what it was. I much prefer the original "ukstep" approach when it was based on DUB and not WUB and the step wasn't so much a slow hip-hop beat but was an emphasis on the half-step or the rhythm element. Not many in the brony music scene make anything close to what i consider "real" dubstep but that's ok. It's moved on and adapted into something different and much more varied i guess. :/

If anyone wants or cares about its roots check out this
http://drownedinsound.com/in_depth/4140731
or
http://rateyourmusic.com/list/At_SwimTw ... t__dubstep

[bartekko]

first of all
this is dubstep 90's style
and this is brostep pretty much everything by skrillex in 140-ish tempo, 90% of ukf and what you all call "dubstep"
and I'm pretty certain this is liquid dubstep and not "chillstep"



NOW the end of my rant


melody, when only considering what note that sound is, is very simple, but the arrangment of sounds is where the other half of the fun in brostep is. the first part is sound design, which makes brostep so interesting.

let's look at other music. for the past 500 years, music was always about the melody, which most often was a progression of different notes, and/or chords

and now there's brostep, in which melody is a progression of sounds.

brostep takes sound synthesis, and turns it up to eleven

[the4thImpulse]

melody, when only considering what note that sound is, is very simple, but the arrangment of sounds is where the other half of the fun in brostep is. the first part is sound design, which makes brostep so interesting.

let's look at other music. for the past 500 years, music was always about the melody, which most often was a progression of different notes, and/or chords

and now there's brostep, in which melody is a progression of sounds.

brostep takes sound synthesis, and turns it up to eleven

Exactly. The melody is all in the sound design's progression.

On the topic of "can't dance to it", its really as easy as dancing to any other genre. If you get into the music and really enjoy it, and assuming you like to dance, you will quickly find that tempo and groove in which to move your body too. From my experience working at electronic festivals a lot of people hang out in the back of the crowd where they have room to run/jump/spin/flail around to the beat of the drums.


Why do I listen to it? Simply for the sound design. Skrillex is a genius when it comes down to his sound design and mixing skills, its, one, of the major reasons he's so famous.

He is an example of excellent sound design (not skrillex)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MylixkwKARU

[ChromaticChaosPony]

I honesty perfer the extremely robotic dubstep. Stuff like Cybertroptics, Downlink, Excision, and Datsik. Dubstep sound design doesn't get any crazier than that type of stuff. So that is the style I'm producing in.

I've always like music that is just hardcore, and even unmelodic.

I find it amazing how the dubstep producers I listed above can synthesize sounds that sound like a robot apocalypse. I've always perfered their styles of dubstep to any brostep or liquid dubstep.

Even cooler is that there aren't any brony producers that have tried going as far out as Datsik, so my dubstep might stand out (I've already perfected the "yoi" and "yaiee" basses to where I want them). And I have achieved the transformers sound effect, so all I need to do is perfect my wubs to sound like Megatron vomiting in your ears.

[Habanc]

I don't always listen to dubstep, but when I do... Hey, this sounds familiar.

Anyways, for me, modern dubstep is appealing, on a case-by-case basis, by how it manages the immense energy and power dubstep can have. Certain tracks just squander their opportunities, and then other make use of them perfectly, such as Dorincourt's remix of Nasty Anthem by London Nebel (It's dubstep mixed with elements of electro, but whatever).

I mean, fourteen year-old kids on youtube can argue all the want about how Skrillex is a bad producer, but the fact is, he's very talented and he knows what to do with the energy in his tracks.

[Navron]

If anyone wants or cares about its roots check out this
http://drownedinsound.com/in_depth/4140731

Just read that the other day. Fantastic read, and I highly suggest listening to the collection of songs they have as well, that start from some of the earliest roots of dubstep, into what most call brostep nowadays.

In the context of the article, and after listening to the progression of dubstep over the years, it doesn't seem as far fetched to see how it became what it is today. You can pretty much hear it evolving as the track examples move through the years.

Genres evolve. Hipsters don't.

[XXDarkShadow79XX]

I really don't care. I will always listen to filthy dubstep garbage and I will always make dubstep garbage. It's what I enjoy, so I don't care.

[Friv]

garbage

garbage

garbage

The fact that you call the music you like garbage makes your point irrelevant...

[XXDarkShadow79XX]

Hehe I was being sarcastic. Other people may view dubstep as "garbage"; I was stating that I don't care.

[Lanthus]

Most "Dubstep" or "Brostep" today would have been closer to Toxic. which is interesting because as a genre it basically died out in the early 2000's to dubstep. when modern Dubstep sounds exactly like it
do I mind?
not really, music is a living breathing changing thing. (or at least culture's perception of genres) Look at other fad Genres like ska there are like... 4 different "waves" of it when if you where to ask some random guy on the street what ska is he'd say "the one punk genre with trumpets."
(or more likely nowadays "what's ska?")
My point here is...
honestly I've forgotten...
But dubstep is cool, bro

[vladnuke]

Idk man, uk-style drone dubstep sends me right to sleep. I guess all I want is a song that's over the top and crazy and pulls out all the stops. But not as fast as DNB. So yeah, dubstep, it certainly is cool.

And no melody? You cray, man. Listen close-er to Centipede. There's tons of melody in there. Hell, even the sample has the right melody. And then there's melodic dubstep, which purely focuses on melody. Have you ever heard the orchestral adaptaion of Skrillex? So yeah, even in dubstep, melody is important.

[XXDarkShadow79XX]

Vladnuke...

/]

I agree.

[Makkon]

I'll just leave this here. Also listen to the song at 1:52

[vladnuke]

I'll just leave this here. Also listen to the song at 1:52

oh wow
they didn't just do that
no
I refuse to believe that
wow
old timey musique concrete=living tombstone.
yes.
of course
it all makes sense now.
and deadmau5 makes dubstep

[ChromaticChaosPony]

deadmau5 makes dubstep

Yes. And Datsik makes speedcore, right?

[Acrylia]

deadmau5 makes dubstep

Yes. And Datsik makes speedcore, right?

Ironically, deadmau5 makes better "dubstep" if you can even call it that than skrillex. Neither are actually dubstep though...

From what I know, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that when dubstep first came on the scene, it sounded something like this:


This is now referred to as Sublow or Grime, even tho it is "true" dubstep.

What people refer to as dubstep now is somewhere between brostep and jump up drum n bass.

I may be wrong, but whatever, at least I know what "real" dubstep is.

[BlackElectric]

I love dubstep. Well, more specifically the "brostep" stuff. I love the aggressiveness of it and the sound design for a lot of it is really cool.

Brostep was also the gateway for me to discover a bunch of other electronic genres that I love now like electro house and hardstyle.

[Anforium]

I like some dubstep, as long as it isn't just a bunch of noises that sounds like robots having sex.

[phaux]

FUTURE GARAGE > DUBSTEP

[ghelded_kultz]

EDIT- Added links so that my argument seems more reasonable/So I can be a douche with my supposed knowledge

Before I started listening to brony music, I couldn't stand mainstream-y electronic music, especially dubstep, so I am new to the whole scene. I still don't really like Brostep but I have gained an appreciation for the earlier, more ambient-y dubstep, especially Skream, so I feel like I know enough to add to the conversation.

The reason I think so many people like dubstep (especially brostep) is because of the "noise" (I use the word with a heavy heart because brostep isn't really that noisy and noise is musical too [see my signature]) and aggression. People, especially young people, are always looking for aggressive sounds in their music, relative to the popular music of the time. Hence why rock&roll became more popular than whatever Frank Sinatra did (and regular blues for that matter [maybe not in that case, I really don't know]); why Jazz genres like bebop overtook were more popular in young audiences than Big band/swing in popularity; why hard rock and blues/heavy metal became more popular than old psychedelia and rock&roll; why alternative rock (specifically grunge) became more popular than hair metal; and so on (note: I know these aren't the best examples but bear with me). Music seems to oscillate between aggressive and non-aggressive and when a genre starts to fall on the non-aggressive side people begin to look for something more aggressive. Dubstep is the natural continuation of this cycle.

As far as the whole avant garde case, I have to disagree. While it is interesting the similarities, I doubt many of the early 2-step/grime producers knew about these when dubstep was developing. I am sure the futurists would have loved it though. And as far as popular music coming out of/taking influence from avant garde music, there is nothing special about that and it definitely does not mean said music is also avant garde. Punk took aspects of the avant garde from bands like Velvet Underground (Best band of the '60) but would never be considered avant garde music (this excludes post-punk and art punk which are more experimental). Grunge was influence by the noise rock of bands like Sonic Youth and Butthole Surfers, and isn't avant garde (Well neither is noise rock, but noise rock is more avant garde than punk or grunge and Sonic Youth were originally a no-wave (which is avant garde) band). All those early electronic experiments were avant garde but Kraftwerk isn't (well it was for a while but that isn't what its known for. [When they split after being less experimental the resulting band, Neu! was avant garde]). Industrial is avant garde (the futurists would have loved it even more than they would dubstep) but industrial metal and ebm are not. Unlike these other genres, dubstep didn't really even draw from a contemporary/slightly older avant garde tradition, so it has even less claim to the title, Avant Garde Musical Genius. (Avant garde music is one of my great loves so I get a little touchy on this issue.)

tl;dr- People like dubstep because it is aggressive and there was a dearth of agressive music during the time it became popular. Dubstep is not avant garde.

p.s- I am no music expert so everything I said has the potential of being wrong.

p.p.s- I have no idea if my links are going to illustrate my point or not.

- Matt Metronome Clipclop

[Sugarholik]

I don't listen to dubstep regularily, but it's nice. It has energy and makes you move but it annoys me alot when some people seem to treat dubstep as world's hardest music ever. I just don't get the kick equivalent to a megaton of energy drinks from it like I do from hardcore. :/

[Markelius]

FUTURE GARAGE > DUBSTEP

I bucking love you. There is brostep and some dubstep I like, but it doesn't even compare to future garage.

[phaux]

I hate the term "brostep". There is no such genre!

I've seen it used to describe hard dubsteps like skrillex and other artist who moved onto dubstep and took their electro-house style with them. These are still dubstep. It's like with DnB - it was totally different at the beginning too and nobody argues when someone call new DnB tracks "DnB".

I've also seen people who call all not-exactly-dubstep tracks - brostep. We already have names for pretty much every style. These tracks are usually moombahton or glitch-hop, not brostep.

[Navron]

Pretty much when people hear any song with a distorted bass synth with lots of sub frequencies, they automatically go, "Ick! Brostep!"

What they don't realize is nearly every type of EDM genre has some kind of drop to it, and nearly every EDM genre has some sort of heavy bass. Dubstep's surge in popularity just simply made these parts noticeable, and to many people's mistake, the focus of the song.

Some people also think any kind of formant bass is unique to dubstep as well, however bands have been doing that for a looooonnnggggggg time already: