Tekstyle is not jumpstyle

10 months have passed since my last post. Time flies... which brings me to this post. Fans of hard dance music have probably heard about tekstyle and jumpstyle. They are like "cousins" to the more popular hardstyle and hardcore, and nowadays the tracks on these genres are usually categorised under the label "tek/jump", which leads people to think they are the same... no, they aren't.

Why is the title "Tekstyle is not jumpstyle" and not the other way around or simply "Tekstyle and jumpstyle aren't the same"? I chose it to be that way because tekstyle is recent and a genre that branched off of jumpstyle, and some people don't realise that and think that jumpstyle simply changed its name. Speaking of which, let's talk about jumpstyle, the music genre, not the dance.

The jumper silhouette commonly associated with jumpstyle.

Wikipedia describes jumpstyle better than I ever could, so here it goes:

Jumpstyle music is an offspring of tech-trance, hardstyle, gabber and mákina. Its tempo is usually between 140 and 150 BPM. However, it cannot be seen as merely a slowed down version of gabber. It is characterized by a 909 kick drum used in a four on the floor beat. It also has influences from hard house and electro house. 

Ok, so now you know what makes a track jumpstyle. But a definition isn't enough, right? Because how are you supposed to know how a 909 kick drum sounds like without hearing it? Here, I'll give you something to listen to. I guess it's also some shameless self-advertising... I made this mix last year containing what I consider "jumpstyle classics". As I'm writing this, it's the most viewed video on my YouTube channel. I never expected it to go that far!

As you can see by the thumbnail, I used the jumper silhouette. You will find it on almost all jumpstyle videos on YouTube, with or without the "jumping is not a crime" text. I won't go deep on that matter because Know Your Meme explains the origins of this image here: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/jumping-is-not-a-crime.

Jumpstyle was popular on Europe, specially in Belgium and the Netherlands, and I guess it reached its peak on 2007-2008. Some artists that contributed to this genre are: Vorwerk (yes, that guy that is known to be a ghost producer behind many house tracks!), Ruthless, Patrick Jumpen, Dark-E, Jeckyll & Hyde (aka Ruthless & Vorwerk, are the main reason jumpstyle got popular in Holland), DJ Francois, Coone (nowadays produces solely hardstyle), Lethal MG and DJ Greg C.

In the 2010s jumpstyle got totally replaced with tekstyle. It usually maintains the uptempo mood of its predecessor, but now with a more aggressive and sometimes exaggerated faster kick. It is usually closer to hardstyle and electro house than jumpstyle. You can instantly spot a tekstyle track when it has a climax like this (skip to 2:40):

Dr. Rude is one of the biggest names in the tekstyle scene, although recently he is more focused on hardstyle and "freestyle". Another name in the scene that needs to be mentioned is Mark With a K. His tekstyle track "Music Is My Alibi" has gained over 2 and a half million views. Woah. It actually sounds nothing like jumpstyle or tekstyle, it just seems a nice hardstyle track with those vocals and melody but then, at 1:44... yeap, tek fuckin style right there.

I could go on and on about this genre, but I think you got what I meant and I would probably end up diverging from the initial subject. So yeah, tekstyle is not jumpstyle. You can say it's an evolved form of jumpstyle, I'd rather say it's just another branch in the vast hard dance music "genre tree", because personally, jumpstyle just sounds a lot better. :)

For the hardstyle fans out there, tekstyle is to jumpstyle what hardstyle is to early hardstyle and hardtrance. You will hear jumpstyle in "flashback sets" (the best ones in Reverze IMO!) and fitted in regular tekstyle sets for the sake of nostalgia, and it will easily stand out from its "tekky" counterpart.