Dubstep Dubstep (
/ˈdʌbstɛp/) is a genre of
electronic dance music that originated in
South London,
England. The music website
Allmusic has described its overall sound as "tightly coiled productions with overwhelming bass lines and reverberant drum patterns, clipped samples, and occasional vocals".
[1] The earliest dubstep releases date back to 1998 and were darker, more experimental, instrumental
dub remixes of
2-step garage tracks attempting to incorporate the funky elements of
breakbeat, or the dark elements of
drum and bass into 2-step, which featured as
B-sides of single releases. In 2001, this and other strains of dark garage music began to be showcased and promoted at London's night club Plastic People, at the "Forward" night (sometimes stylized as FWD>>), which went on to be considerably influential to the development of dubstep. The term "dubstep" in reference to a genre of music began to be used by around 2002 by labels such as Big Apple, Ammunition and
Tempa, by which time stylistic trends used in creating these remixes started to become more noticeable and distinct from 2-step and
grime.
[2] A very early supporter of the sound was
BBC Radio 1 DJ
John Peel, who started playing it from 2003 onwards. In 2004, the last year of his show, his listeners voted
Distance,
Digital Mystikz and
Plastician (formerly
Plasticman) in their top 50 for the year.
[3] Dubstep started to spread beyond small local scenes in late 2005 and early 2006; many websites devoted to the genre appeared on the internet and aided the growth of the scene, such as dubstepforum, the download site Barefiles and blogs such as gutterbreakz.
[4] Simultaneously, the genre was receiving extensive coverage in music magazines such as
The Wire and online publications such as
Pitchfork Media, with a regular feature entitled
The Month In: Grime/Dubstep. Interest in dubstep grew significantly after BBC Radio 1 DJ
Mary Anne Hobbs started championing the genre, beginning with a show devoted to it (entitled "Dubstep Warz") in January 2006.
[5][6][7] Towards the end of the decade the genre started to become more commercially successful in the UK, with more singles and remixes entering the music charts. Music journalists and critics also noticed a dubstep influence in several
pop artists' work. Around this time, producers also began to fuse elements of the original dubstep sound with other influences, creating fusion genres including the slower and more experimental
post-dubstep, and the harsher,
electro house and
heavy metal influenced
brostep, the latter of which greatly contributed to dubstep's rising mainstream popularity in the
United States.