Dubstep

Dubstep runs at 138-142 BPM with a distinctive half-time feel: where most dance music puts a snare on 2 and 4, dubstep usually drops a heavy snare or rimshot only on beat 3, which makes it feel slower than the actual tempo. The genre is built around its bass — a deep, often LFO-modulated sub line that 'wobbles' in time with the beat, sometimes called the wobble bass. Drums lean toward sparse, dub-influenced patterns with lots of negative space, heavy reverb tails, and 2-step garage swing. Tracks are usually instrumental or sample short vocal phrases; full songs with sung choruses became common only after the US crossover.

Dubstep emerged around 2002-2005 in South London — Croydon especially — at the Big Apple record shop and the FWD>> club night, with producers Skream, Benga, Digital Mystikz, and Loefah, and the DJ Hatcha as an early standard-bearer. The Burial album 'Untrue' in 2007 made the genre internationally critically visible, in a moodier, more atmospheric direction. The American producer Skrillex shifted the genre's centre of gravity around 2010-2011 with 'Bangarang' and the harder, mid-range-bass 'brostep' style that became a festival mainstream in the US. The UK underground continued in parallel with a slower, more minimal sound under labels such as Deep Medi Musik and Tempa.

Listen for the half-time feel: clap or counting only one strong snare per bar at what should be a 140-BPM dance tempo. The sub-bass is usually moving — a single low note that opens and closes a filter on the beat, which is what produces the 'wobble' sound. Most dubstep tracks build for about a minute before the first drop, and the drop is almost always the moment the modulated bass first appears at full level.

For the moody UK strain, Burial, 'Untrue' (2007), as an album. For the US festival sound, Skrillex, 'Bangarang' (2011). For a clear bridge between the two, Magnetic Man, 'I Need Air' (2010) with Angela Hunte.

The name combines 'dub' and '2-step' — the latter being the UK garage rhythm that dubstep originally grew out of. Burial worked anonymously for years; the producer was only identified in 2008 as William Bevan, who has said he still works on a laptop at home rather than in a studio.