Bassline House; A Reaction To Overly Masculine Grime And Dubstep

We’ve noticed a lot of chatter in the clued-in dance music community about the continued rise of UK bassline house. In essence, the sound is not unlike late 90’s two-step, with 4/4 beats, poppy, sped-up vocals and copious amounts of wobbly digital bass.

Just as a lot of female dancers fled the late 90’s drum and bass scene when it got self indulgent, excessively dark and testosterone-addled, some are now calling the pop side of the bassline sound a reaction to the recent, sometimes overly masculine dub-step and grime scenes.

English critic Simon Reynolds, author of Generation Ecstasy, sums it up nicely:

…Meanwhile, the other strand of bassline–the poptastic R&B hyperdiva strand, now that is actually the drastic pendulum swing from yang to yin, testosterone to oestrogen, that I had always imagined would happen in reaction to grime, except it took so long to happen I gave up on it and just forgot. But here it is: the return to dance energy, groove, amorous vibes, “girls like this/this one’s for the ladies massive/feminine pressure”. I’d imagined it would happen as a some kind of resurgence of 2step. Well, on the rhythmic substructure level bassline is 4/4, but its whole upper chassis pretty much is 2step.

The breakout single so far is T2’s (pictured above) single “Heartbroken” on Universal records, which reached as high as number 2 in the UK singles charts.

Fact Magazine: Bassline House and The Return of the ‘Feminine Pressure’