Is rock music like heavy metal?

Hardstyle and Hardcore are both Music Genres that are known as part of the "harder styles of dance music". While the two genres have many similarities, and there are a handful of artists who produce both hardstyle and hardcore (such as Evil Activities/Max Enforcer), the two genres are not identical.

One of the major differences among hardstyle and hardcore is the kick type. Hardstyle and hardcore both contain a hard kick, but there is border between hardstyle and hardcore kicks. Hardstyle kicks are, in some situations, filtered a little bit to be much more suttle than hardcore kicks. In other situations, they are not filtered as much, but are played with more of a raw sounding noise. Hardcore kicks are usually very heavily distorted, more than the kicks of hardstyle are. Also, especially with the earlier hardstyle sound, hardstyle tracks contain a segment called a "reverse bass", which hardcore lacks. This so-called "reverse bass" also appears in newer types of hardstyle music, but as some people mention isn't as powerful as the earlier "reverse bass".

In a few cases, there is some "gray area" in determining whether the kick is a hardstyle or a hardcore kick. Usually if this is the scenario, one would also listen to other features of the song such as what instruments/samples are being used.

This brings us to the next major difference. The other major difference with hardstyle and hardcore is the beats per minute (BPM) of the two genres. Hardstyle music typically ranges from 140-155 BPM while hardcore music can easily reach 150-220 BPM. In some extreme variations, such as speedcore, the BPM can reach up to 500 BPM or higher! To some, this is considered too fast to be called music, but others feel that it too, is a type of music genre in itself.

Hope this helps!

Greetz,

Your everyday hardstyle/hardcore listener.