Saturday, November 19, 2011

Dubstep- What Is It?


Whenever people ask me, "What the heck is dubstep?" I simply smile and shake my head. Without a word, I lead them to the closest computer and look up Skrillex or Nero or Mt Eden. If a computer's not available, I take out my ipod and hand them the headphones so they can experience the music for themselves. There's no other way to relate the experience. Any description I give them is useless. The definition I can think of for dubstep is "a genre of electronic music that makes heavy use of synthesizers, wobble bass, intense drum patterns, huge drops, keyboard, and unconventional sounds." But if you've never heard dubstep before, that doesn't really make sense- I might as well go with the above picture and say that dubstep sounds like armored tyrannosaurus rexes shooting laser beams through Cretaceous forests. Yeah. I encourage you to listen for yourself though- below are only two songs out of many. (When listening, keep staring at the picture above and comment on close you think it comes to capturing the music!)



It's a pretty jarring genre of music, but in a cool sort of way. It took me a while to get used to it, and even now I have specific preferences. There are a TON of artists and dubstep songs out there, so don't give up on the first few songs if you find them unappealing. Here's one of my recent favorites, a softer form of dubstep that ingeniously combines piano and dubstep.

3 comments:

  1. Ah, dubstep. I have a love/hate relationship with dubstep. I can't get into a majority of it. Most dubstep sounds like transformers going at it to me, which is why I can't stand Skrillex and dubstep similar to his. Every time I listen to his songs, I really enjoy it...until the bass drops lol. I really like some dubstep songs from Mt. Eden though.

    Mostly, I like the old, smooth sounding dubstep, the type without the massive amounts of transformers sounds. But yeah, most dubstep is not for me. :)

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  2. Haha I can definitely see where you're coming from, most dubstep that I come across I either love or think is horrible. I happen to like the bass drops in Skrillex songs but whatever, to each their own =]. Maybe you enjoyed the piano dubstep song by John Caza I posted? Anyways thanks for the visit, it's much appreciated!

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  3. great blog, ive been listening to dubstep for many years and have enjoyed the progression from its original format to the standard skrillex adaptions. Like you said, theres a ton of artists which it actually makes the genre more substantial, more options, new avenues to evolve. But as soon as I seen that image you posted, i nearly choked with laughter because thats such a great visual representation for where dubstep sounds right now. Thanks for sharing this for everyone to shed some light.

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