Since its meteoric rise to popularity, dubstep has been assaulting minds around the world. Some might argue Skrillex pioneered what we know today, while purists make a stand for the UK underground and DnB’s responsibility for the sound. Whatever you believe, Beatport has been supporting the proliferation of the genre since its beginning, and these five tracks were the platform’s biggest dubstep tracks of January 2016 to August 2017.
However, contrary to some beliefs, there’s more to life than dubstep, and Beatport is launching three new genres to celebrate its beloved bass community: Trap/Future Bass, Garage/Bassline/Grime, an
Trap/Future Bass hardly needs an introduction. UZ, Mr. Carmack and Bro Safari will be taking the helm along with key labels like Quality Good Records, Mad Decent, Dim Mak and OWSLA.
Garage/Bassline/Grime will highlight the UK’s breakthrough sounds, whose thriving underground scene is ground zero for all things low-frequency. DJ Q, Distinkt and Flava D, with Butterz, 877 Records and Crucast are just a few of the names heading this genre.
Leftfield Bass will depart from the brasher US sound, and give the spotlight to underground innovators. Subgenres like Halftime, Deep Dubstep and Juke/Footwork will host deeply respected labels like Teklife, Deep Medi Musik and Hyperdub alongside scene luminaries Ikonika, DJ Spinn and Addison Groove.
Terry Weerasinghe, Beatport’s General Manager, says, “We 100-percent recognise that we are really late to the game introducing these genres,” but that the company has been diligently working with labels, artists and press to build the best possible experience for the bass community.
“We can’t make up for not having huge genres like Trap properly curated on the store five years ago. However we have now assembled a team dedicated to our bass genres, which means we can promote more bass artists and labels by giving them features like an international sales chart, profiled DJ Top 10s and regular artist and label spotlights, plus targeted social support and cross-promotion to our other key genres and global fan bases. We’ll also hand curate the best tracks every week, making Beatport the only store to give promotional merchandising slots to these genres week in, week out.” – Terry Weerasinghe
