New genre alert! Okay, maybe not new, it’s been around for a couple of years now, but it’s new to me anyway. Ladies and gents, introducing bassline house.
The UK’s boom and bust take on pop music can be quite confusing – from the outside you don’t know whether something is genuinely happening or is just the hopeful wish of London media types (new-rave anyone?) This time around though, the hype seems to be arriving from the ground up, no doubt due to two factors 1) bassline is from the North, and 2) it’s a working class thing. It also seems to be a gang/criminal thing, which creates the odd situation of being introduced to the genre through sensational TV reports. The Yorkshire police, obviously, know a lot about bassline house:
Musically, bassline, or niche, named after the Sheffield club it originated from a couple of years back, sounds like a happier/sped up version of UK Garage (How close is it to speed garage anyway?) and most importantly the girls really like it, which counts for a lot. Kinda the antithesis of the sausage sizzle factor in other urban UK genres in 2007, which can get a bit wearying. The track to beat so far is T2’s irresistible ‘Heartbroken’ from March this year, which is getting a re-release on Universal this month. Bound to be huge.
