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Saturday, October 5, 2024

Is Hardcore called Techno? What is the term for Gabber? - A Slice of Music History - Part 1

In our journey with The Hardcore Overdogs, and in our mission to spread the "good stuff" from the 90s and the current days, we encountered some obstacles that seem to be more on the surreal or peculiar side of things.
One of these is that apparently, at least on the internet, an almost babylonian-level name confusion seems to have taken place.
Which is that we've been hit with claims that "Hardcore is not Techno", "Hardcore Techno is not Techno"[sic!], "Gabber is not Techno", "Gabber is completely different from Hardcore", and so on.

How people arrived at these conclusions, and whether this is just an "internet phenomena" or effects the real world, too, is beyond our knowledge.

But let us try to clear things up a bit and do some research and digging.

Technohead - The Number One Contender 

1. In the beginning, *Techno* was one thing, united, a whole.
Or if we do not want to introduce this word just yet, let us put it this way:

In the late 80s and early 90s, a new movement, a new culture emerged. It was designated a youth movement by the media, even though a lot of its movers were boomers, or even older. But certainly, most of its members were amongst the younger age range.
At the center of this new movement was a brand new type of music; or rather, a whole matrix and rhizome of inspired sounds; let's not even try to debate what the defining element of these was; let's say most had an energetic, upbeat, "driving" beat.
or, like one pioneer once stated, the core idea was that you finally had music where you could go berzerk and insane on the dancefloor (rave!) - unlike earlier 70s and 80s "dance" genres such as funk, disco, eurodisco...
maybe a "punk" moment in "dance history?".

either way, nowadays there are several terms for the different cells of that rhizome: acid, house, techno, ambient, rave, trance, breakbeat, jungle, hardcore, gabber...

(some of) these terms existed back then, too. but they were not used as "clear-cut" as they are now.
but most importantly, the whole thing was still united - as mentioned above.
so people who listened to this music, no matter if it was trance or acid or breakbeat, felt as being part of one scene, one movement. they went to the same parties, wore similar clothes, clung to similar thoughts, ideas, concepts...

Chosen Few - Gabberdam

it was not like there was the "trance crowd" on one side of the fence or the "acid people" on the other.
at most clubs, festivals, squats, what we now consider to be "different" styles were played during 'one night'.
maybe house at start, then some techno, and finishing the night with hardcore and gabber. and in the morning hours, ambient and other chilled sounds.

of course, not everyone liked everything. even back then, people had a craving for the "harder stuff", while others disliked it; or they were left cold by more "cheesy" house tunes, while others loved this.
but it was still one scene.

so, because of this, it made sense to introduce a "catch-all" term for this youth movement that encompassed a confusing number of different styles.
in germany, this term was "techno".
everyone and everything was called techno, especially by the mass media, but also by the majority of the movement itself.
acid, trance, rave, gabber? it was all called "techno".
if you bought at "techno" compilation at one of the chain stores, it could have any style we already named.

Stickhead - Trance Terrorizer 

to give one example: at the "techno" section of one larger chain stores in the midst of hamburg, you could find CDs such as:
terrordrome, thunderdome, hellsound, raver's night, pcp's "the hardcore champions", smash? - prolos have more fun, c-tank - nightmares are reality, braindead 2 - the lurking fear, murora test one, alec empire - the destroyer, atari teenage riot - 1995, johnny violent, "industrial f**cking strength"...
but also mellow and sweet house, techno, dance compilations... within centimeters of each other.

because, yes, most people who listened to trance and house and "normal" techno also listened to hardcore and gabber at the same time. so it made sense to put them all in one place.

in the netherlands, the "catch-all" term seems to have been "house" instead. which, from my understanding, meant both the "mellow" house stuff - and "gabberhouse".
while in germany, by the mid 90s, "house" was more or less only used for the "mellow house" stuff - as a sub-genre of "techno". confusing, isn't it?

another term that was used in germany in these days was "rave" - "ravers" would listen to rave music and go to "rave parties" like mayday, loveparade, thunderdome... that's how it was described by the media and some of the scene's followers.

in the usa, "techno" and "rave" seemed to be the words of use, too.
but not sure which terms where used in other nations or continents.

Rave Creator ‎– A New Mind (Mix A) 

so, depending on which country you go to, everything was either called "techno", or "house", or had an entirely different name.

but "techno" and "hardcore techno" were definitely terms that were used heavily for "gabber" and other hard things. but probably not inside countries such as the netherlands.


as the 90s went on, the scene, this united youth movement, split up and broke apart.
DJs would no longer play all styles on one "floor" or in one set, suddenly raves had designated "house floors" or "gabber floors" for the respective style of music.

eventually, even parties themselves would no longer feature a cornucopia of sub-genres; instead there were parties and festivals specifically conceived for trance, or house, or gabber... (which was a rarity before that, even if it might have existed).

if you went to a "normal" techno or rave party in germany in 1993, it was unlikely that the DJ would not drop at least a few hardcore and gabber tunes.

by 1997, if you went to such party, it was unlikely that you would hear any hardcore at all!

the hardcore scene, too, branched off into different styles like speedcore, breakcore, doomcore, "millenium", oldschool - but this is an entirely different story!

D Mob - We Call It Acieeed 

so, in our conclusion to this text, we repeat it once more:
"hadcore", "techno", and "gabber" were words that were commonly used to refer to the same form of music.

2 comments:

  1. All electronic dance music with a 4/4 beat was commonly referred to as house in the Netherlands. In the Amsterdam club scene, the door policy was strict. Groups of straight guys without women also wanted to attend these parties but were often under the influence of alcohol and drugs. They would start dancing wildly and ask the DJ to play faster and harder. These groups of 'friends' were called ‘gabbers’ in Amsterdam slang. In Rotterdam, this term was not commonly used, so the people of Rotterdam adopted it as a badge of honor. Harder house, or hardcore techno (a hardcore term like hardcore rap, hardcore punk, hardcore sex, etc.), was soon labeled as gabberhouse.

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  2. Very interesting, things for this information!

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