Bassline (music genre)

Bassline generally places a strong emphasis on bass, with intricate basslines (often multiple and interweaving) characteristic of the genre. Bassline tracks typically use a four-to-the-floor beat. Early bassline house Bassline grew from the sound popular in nightclubs in Sheffield during the late 1990s, in particular Sheffield's Niche nightclub, which played speed garage mixed with melodic vocal house. According to Steve Baxendale, owner of Niche, the club's DJs began to take the vocals out of speed garage and house music, and then pumped up the bass, from around 1997. The changes in the style of music at Niche led to a change from a predominantly white crowd to a predominantly Black British crowd. There are local variations in bassline music, with a "darker" style more popular in Sheffield and Manchester, It being mixed with organ house popular in West Yorkshire, while local scenes in cities such as Birmingham and Nottingham favoured a more upbeat style. Often, different "organ" and "bass" mixes of a track appeared on the same record, drawing on the genre's different musical influences. The bass or "B-Line" mix would be more influenced by speed garage, featuring a synthesised, low-frequency oscillation bassline, known as a "warp" or "reese". The organ track would instead feature sampled Korg M1-style organ leads, influenced by the house music of the 1990s. ==History==

Niche Nightclub In 1992, Steve Baxendale opened Niche Nightclub in an abandoned warehouse on Sheffield's Sidney Street as an underground music venue, playing house music and later speed garage. The club was subjected to frequent raids by South Yorkshire Police throughout the 90s and early 2000s. In November 2005, the club was stormed by 300 officers in a raid named "Operation Repatriation", and closed, despite a lack of charges against the club's owners. According to Steve Baxendale, Sheffield's police force told him they targeted the venue due to the heavy drug use on the premises, although he believed it was because the police thought it brought Black gang violence to the city. DJs were restricted to playing classic bassline house and vocal tracks; 4x4 productions were banned. High levels of security were eventually relaxed in 2009, and the Vibe premises were expanded and renamed to Niche. Emergence into the mainstream Bassline entered the mainstream with the release of Leeds producer T2's single "Heartbroken", featuring vocals by Jodie Aysha, on All Around the World. "Heartbroken" also attracted international attention, entering the music charts in several other countries and becoming popular on the club circuit. After T2's success, H "Two" O released their single featuring vocal group Platnum, "What's It Gonna Be" which reached number 7 in the national charts on downloads alone, rising to number 2 the following week, where it remained for the next 3 weeks. Later in the year, one of London's leading bassline producers, Delinquent, signed a deal with All Around The World for another national release, "My Destiny". Tony Portelli of M.I.RAW Recordings signed DJ Q (BBC Radio 1Xtra DJ) and MC Bonez to Ministry of Sound for the nationwide release of their single "You Wot!". It was available for download from 14 July 2008, with physical formats released on 21 July. The video for the single received airplay on mainstream TV music stations such as MTV Base. 23 Deluxe also released their single "Show Me Happiness" which reached number 2 in the BBC Radio 1 Dance Singles Chart. "Daddy O"—a song by Wideboys reached number 32 on the 2008 UK singles chart. Decline After its mainstream success through the mid to late 2000s, bassline began to enter a stage of commercial decline. This was mainly driven by the genre no longer having a presence in nightclubs. By 2012, bassline was mostly underground again, but the rise of "UK bass", an umbrella category covering multiple genres, allowed bassline to be played alongside house music and grime. Resurgence By 2015, although nightclub owners were still unwilling to host events, the warehouse and rave culture in the North of England led to a resurgence in the bassline sound and party culture. By the late 2010s, bassline had regained some of its earlier popularity due to acts like Darkzy, Holy Goof and Skepsis, and events like the Bassfest festival. On 28 January 2017, Niche reopened temporarily, this time at Wicker Arch, the site of the former Arch 9 club, in Sheffield. The organisers continued to run irregular reunion events into the 2020s. In the early 2020s, social media played a large part in expanding the audience for bassline, as did the use of bassline by artists such as Jorja Smith and PinkPantheress. In November, they were the subject of a reality series on ITV. In 2022, their track "BMW" reached number seven in the UK Top 10. In April 2025, Redditch-based DJ and producer Denon Reed's track "I Need To Know", originally released the previous September and peaking at number 49 on the UK singles charts, was re-released with guest artists Dizzee Rascal, Silky, MIST and KAV. By May, it had entered the UK Top 40 Singles Chart. In November 2025, nightclub Niche hosted its special 30th anniversary party. ==Responses==

The popularity of bassline during the 2000s has sometimes been attributed, in part, to its appeal across genders, with female vocal artists and a focus on love and relationships thought to appeal to women more than grime or dubstep. In ,The Guardian, John McDonnell said bassline became a mainstream successor to UK garage in a way grime hadn't been able to, in part due to its "girl-friendly tunes". Simon Reynolds, who lamented the late emergence of bassline into the mainstream, described the genre as "the drastic pendulum swing from yang to yin, testosterone to oestrogen" in response to grime (itself sometimes said to he a response to late-90s 2-step). ==See also==