Artists List

Drum & Bass music

Music enthusiasts preferring the rawness of rhythm and beats in their electronic music have turned to drum & bass music. This style of electronic music has won favor not just in the hearts of music lovers, but in clubs and raves across the globe because of the emphasis on rhythm, as well as the growling bass lines which suit the sound systems in these environments. If there is one style of music worthy of dancing to, it has to be drum and bass.

This form of music gained much popularity in the 1990's in the European rave scene, and incorporated many stylistic elements before evolving into the bass-heavy break beat style many know and love today. The heavy bass is often combined with simpler and more subtle melodies with emphasis on the bass, making much of this music very easy to dance to. Composers of drum and bass music also enjoy the relative ease of composition.

Drum n Bass through the Years

Electronic music helped to push the nightclub scene further into the limelight, with nightclubs, rave parties, and outdoor culture events becoming the norm of the nightlife. This nighttime culture also helped to influence the music itself, with sampled and syncopated break beats becoming all but the norm through sound systems in these clubs at the time.

By the 80's and 90's, rave music and hip hop took center stage in these nightclubs. Samples from songs in other genres also gave electronic music at the time a wider and richer tonal palette, and sometimes also incorporated samples from television shows and films. A lot of the more cutting edge electronic music at the time was played on pirate radio stations, as well as in smaller rave gatherings throughout parts of the UK.

Many artists across a wide variety of genres are credited with helping push the drum and bass genre to its prominence today. Influences ranging as far as the jazz legend Miles Davis to reggae icon Bob Marley have been cited as top influences, with funk and rock and roll artists of the 70's also having significant impact on the genre today.

The UK served as a hotbed for this kind of music by the late 90's. Artists such as Goldie helped push drum & bass music further into popular music lexicon, somewhat transcending the underground nature of this unique form of music. Other artists in countries such as Australia and the US also had drum and bass musicians emerge at the time, such as the Perth-based Pendulum. These artists also helped to push the genre into clubs and raves in their parts of the world, making drum and bass a permanent staple in clubs worldwide.

Because of the stylistic upbringing and diversity that drum and bass has, pinning down a solid definition of the genre can often be hard to do. The “true” sound of drum and bass is subject to many opinions and heated debates about the topic, and can bring up counterpoints for aspects like highly industrial sounds to the use of conventional instrumentation such as guitars.

However, many do not dispute the prevalence of the namesake of the genre; the drum and bass. Great importance is placed particularly on the bass line which is often so deep that they can be felt physically on the dance floor through powerful, bass-heavy sound systems designed to churn out low-range frequencies. Deeper timbres within the bass regions have been explored in many sub-genres; artists such as Shapeshifter and STS9 have used actual bass instruments in their songs besides a sampler and drum machine.

Prominent Drum & Bass Artists

Drum and bass music has attracted many would-be musicians because of its ease of composition as well as heavy, bass-driven rhythm. The emphasis on this rhythm and bass makes it easy for a person with a drum machine and synthesizer to get started with making his own beats, and as such, has spawned a vast variety of artists within the genre. Mp3mixx.com has all the best drum and bass artists, as well as up-and-coming ones soon to make a mark in a club near you.

One of the most influential figures in the drum n bass scene, Goldie has close to 150 tracks available on the mp3mixx.com music store. This multi-talented disc jockey also dabbles in the visual arts as well as film, making notable appearances in movies such as James Bond: The World Is Not Enough and Guy Ritchie's cult classic, Snatch. His innovations in the areas of jungle and drum and bass are still undisputed as well.

Squarepusher is also one artist who has been pushing the limits of drum n bass music. Based in England like the other pioneers of the genre, he also incorporates acid elements into much of his electronic compositions. Squarepusher has over 160 drum and bass downloads available from mp3mixx.com so that you can explore the origins of this artist and genre even further.

Dom & Roland is a one man drum and bass machine, and is often cited as one of the leading artists in the dark drum and bass sub-genre, darkstep. One of his most seminal recordings, Industry, remains an underground hit to this very day. Tracks from Industry as well as other drum n bass songs by Dom & Roland can be bought at mp3mixx.com at low prices and fast download speeds so you can be hitting those break beats in no time.