What is dubstep?

I looked it up on Wikipedia. And there you have it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubstep

Self indulgent, irritating, hard to dance to, dance music. IMHO.

A friend of mine who is a very good DnB DJ described dubstep as “It’s got a beat you can’t dance to, basslines that are so hideous they make walls collapse but everytime you drop one everyone gets up and dances?!?!”

It is….in the top 5 worst things ever.

Pish posh, dubstep is fucking awesome

Somewhat agreeing with deni’s answer…

But to elaborate, it’s a genre of electronic music which is characterised mainly by certain synth sounds, best described as WUBS. It’s usually bass heavy with breakbeat style drums, and is, if you ask me, not very inventive.

As with any music genre taken to the extreme, there’s only so much that can really be done with it. This is a pretty decent example of what dubstep is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFu2DfPDGeU

Seriously….. how the fuck do you deny the awesomeness of this

It’s a genre or subset of electronic music, often consisting of a BPMs around 70–90, bass heavy, often “wobbling” synthesizers, and is generally based around a buildup leading to a “drop”, where the song changes and goes to a second, usually more intense part.

I think most of the people that hate on dubstep are the same ones that call the entire electronic genre “techno”. No offense to anyone here, but if you don’t like music made with sequencers, computers, or synthesizers, you’re not going to like dubstep, and you probably won’t think it’s even “real music”.

That being said, I’m pretty okay with dubstep. There’s genres of electronic that I certainly prefer, like drum & bass or big beat, but the old dubstep out of London, before the genre got huge with Americans, is some of the neatest and most innovative music I’ve heard.
Granted, there is so much dubstep out there that is just genuinely terrible, but so much of it is really good. And to me, it’s gotten people who normally would hate electronic music into it, into much, much better genres such as glitch or drum & bass.

@uberbatman I clicked. I listened. I hated. It’s musical masturbation, music for propellerheads who prefer the journey to the destination. IMHO.

@dverhey I love me a spot of electronic dance music, and I know what techno is. Dubstep just isn’t danceable enough for me…

oh well… just have different tastes in music I suppose. Horrible example of techno btw….

yea in listening to most of that mix… Im confused to how you can have something against dub then post something as horribly generic and boring as that….

Techno isn’t for listening to, it’s for dancing to. I didn’t include that link as an example of what great techno is (although the last time I saw DAVE the Drummer I danced my socks off), indeed I’ve never heard it before, but just to counter @dverhey‘s claim that dislike of dubstep is born out of ignorance of dance music in general.

Very, very little dance music is suitable for chin-stroking musos to sit around and debate the merits of. For me, it’s a visceral thing – does it make me move? Dubstep doesn’t.

@meiosis “Techno isn’t for listening to, it’s for dancing to”..... that has to be one of the most asinine sentences ive read in a while. Soooo you listen to music merely on the merits of if it has a bpm that allows movement or not? Quality of such music doesnt really matter?

Sorry, I tend to look for a bit more in the music I listen to.

“Soooo you listen to music merely on the merits of if it has a bpm that allows movement or not? ”

No. I’ll try to explain it slowly for you.

I don’t listen to techno, because techno is for dancing to. The danceability of techno varies greatly, and this is what makes it good or bad. Without dancing, techno is pointless. IMHO.

If you want asinine, it’s to criticise someone for listening in the wrong way to music they’ve just all but told you they don’t listen to.

Hmmm well saying you went to see DAVE the Drummer implies that you do indeed listen to it. But I suppose you went just for dancing instead of for the music. I just have a hard time understanding why one would do that, thats all. Oh silly of me to not get the concept of music being purely for dancing to, not listening to.

Is like mushup music, that is composed of substep electronic sounds that is converted in a heavy or light symphony melody.

@DeanV most dubstep is composed in the 140+bpm range but due to the nature of it’s 2step garage inspired drum patterns it just gives the impression of being in the 70+bpm range

@RareDenver I actually realized that after I wrote that post. Unfortunately I can no longer edit. :(