What is Gabber???

First and foremost, "Gabber" is a person who listens to "hardcore techno" music. In German, the feminization of the word is most often used in conjunction with other words such as gabber mouse, gabber angel, etc., instead of gabberine or gabberette. Gabber-typical recognition features are often a shaved skinhead, or a very short haircut with partial shaving of the hair in men. The gabber-typical distinguishing feature of women, are long hair with bald shaving of the sides. In addition, the Nike Air Max Classics shoes have become naturalized and are widely used. Typical clothes include jackets, bomber jackets, polo shirts, army trousers, training pants, training clothes and much more, for example 100% Hardcore, Pit Bull Germany, Nike, Lonsdale, Cavello, Australian or Merchandising articles by artists and so on. Of course, it is up to each one to decide what he wants to wear. There is not any rule such as: "Only by wearing Classic shoes, you are a real Gabber." This is something fictional of "wannabe gabbers". The spelling "Gabba", has its origins in 1993, from the northern and eastern underground hardcore scene in Hamburg and Berlin such as Gabba Nation (Berlin) and Nordcore G.M.B.H. (Gabba Mutant Band Hamburg), where the first use of this spelling was introduced. The use of the words "Gabber / Gabbertje" has its origin in Dutch, which means friend / mate / comrade. The translation from the American is, unfortunately, quite another with the people who do not know the Gabberszene there. There is the Gabber unfortunately a gossip, but from the scene as important as a comrade. Furthermore, the word Gabber is used as a generic term (Gabber party, Gabber scene, Gabber music ...), and also as a music style (Rotterdam Gabber), which describe in sense, the dark styles like "Darkcore (Rotterdam Hardcore)", "Terror" & "Industrial Hardcore", but normally means the person.

The history of Gabber

As the founder and Godfather of Gabber Paul Elstak is referred to the hardcore scene. The first hardcore techno track from Rotterdam was created in 1992 and is called "Euromasters - Amsterdam, waar lech dat dan?". However, his pioneer was Marc Acardipane from Germany, who already produced a hardcore techno track in 1990. This one is called "Mescalinum United - We have arrived". Differences between hardness and speed can not be identified today, that's why it's easy to go head to head with "who produced a Gabber track first", because today both are by definition only Tekkno tracks. The first known Gabber track was "Bald Terror - Rotterdam" and will continual attributed to Paul Elstak according to this definition, because here is a clear audible difference to the hartness of the beats, which makes the crucial difference. This year, many other artists followed, such as Neophyte, The Dream Team (DJ Dano, DJ Buzz Fuzz, DJ Gizmo and The Prophet), DJ Rob, Charly Lownoise & Mental Theo, etc., who released their productions. At this time, these tracks were very elaborate. At that time you needed "high-tech" such as the C64, Amiga, synthesizer and drum machine like the Roland T-808. The breakthrough into world history Hardcore / Gabber managed with the Thunderdome series by the media broadcaster ID & T, which appeared as an series in 1993 for the first time, with the title "Thunderdome - F*ck Mellow, This Is Hardcore From Hell". Nowadays, all fans wish back, the Thunderdome in the classical form. With the breakthrough of Thunderdome, the meaning "International Discjockeys & Thunderdome" became known to many fans, but their real meaning is the initials of the names "Irfan van Ewijk, Duncan Stutterheim & Theo Lelie".

Which stiles are important? How do you define and destinguish them?

The category Hardcore / Gabber as a generic term includes the following styles: (Mainstyle)-Hardcore, Oldschool-Hardcore or today also Early-Hardcore, Darkcore, Industrial-Hardcore, Terror(core), Uptempo, Speedcore (also Splittercore / Extratone / Suicidcore), Frenchcore, Happy-Hardcore, Rave, Hardstyle (also Emotional-Hardstyle / Rawstyle), Tekk and Schranz. The exact definition of the individual styles is even more difficult, since each individual track does not focus on the beat per minute alone and can take on numerous variations and mixed forms. There is a distinction between tones, melodies, lyrics and the beat itself. It should be noted that the word "rave" was also often used as a generic term for a "techno party / event". It is also important to mention that EDM (Electronic Dance Music) is often listed as a separate style, but it's the absolute generic term for any kind of electronic dance music.

Early-hardcore or old-school hardcore falsely describes classic hardcore as its own style, because the tracks look old and out of date. However, it is not a style of its own but just another word. Everything that was produced from the year 2000, on the turn of the millennium, is for better understanding Millenium-Hardcore, so called Newstyle-Hardcore, which is also not a style of its own, but just a description that it corresponds to the new development. Sometime from the year 2020, 2030, 2040, 2050 and so on, every track today will be called Old-School / Early. So it's a generation-related word.

Happy-Hardcore and Rave are just as old contemporaries. This style is mostly cheerful or sadly melodious, and uses vocal pieces, mostly covered from other historical songs and hits, but also from self-performed and sung vocals. The difference between Rave and Happy Hardcore is that Happy Hardcore uses typical hardcore kicks. Rave kicks are gentler and evoke the style of dance / trance.

Mainstyle-Hardcore or Gabber describes the main category. Most tracks can be classified as Hardcore. These are the tracks that are most well-known in the scene, so the commercials. A classic example would be the tracks of Angerfist or Neophyte, which are sometimes wrongly dismissed by "haters and troublemakers" as "commercial Gabber".

Terrorcore is one of the oldest styles since around 1994 and has been published by the Terrordrome series. These are dark sounds with often fast, variable and changing beat tonalities in one track.

Uptempo is not different to Terrorcore, and it's just a new term of people, who are stickler for details on speed of beats per minute.

Darkcore, Metalcore and Industrial Hardcore also fall into this category of tonality, although there are also songs that can be a bit slower than the beats per minute.

Darkcore describes sounds that Gabbers perceive as sound from hell.

Industrial-Hardcore has sounds reminiscent of machinery, steel mills and the like.

Metalcore has influences from electric guitars like the music style Heavy-Metal and several other categories (Blackmetal, Deathmetal, etc ...)

Speedcore, as the name suggests, reveals the turbo among the racers and is based on almost nothing but speed and rigor.

Hardstyle is a Milenium new development which was created in the year 2000. You could call it a cross between softer Hardcore-kicks and Hard-Trance kicks. Often Hardstyle tracks are very melodic, happy, sad and very vocal-text-mixed, and more often not covered, but even sung today, compared to (Happy)-Hardcore.

Rawstyle has a bit harder kicks than Hardstyle and is more limited to the sounds with less vocals.

Tekk is a bit similar to the Rawstyle, but the beat has its own high tonality.

Schranz is very easy to categorize, because the sound and beats are absolutely monotone. It sounds it would be in an infinite loop.

Frenchcore is a very new style which was created in 2012. This is very often reminiscent of the elements of Happy-Hardcore and Rave, but has its own distinctive beat tonality.

Beat sector as standard guideline:

140 - 160 BPM = Hardstyle, Emotional-Hardstyle, Rawstyle, Tekk

160 - 220 BPM = Tekk, Schranz, Mainstyle-Hardcore, Oldschool-Hardcore / Early-Hardcore, Happy-Hardcore, Rave, Frenchcore, Darkcore, Industrial-Hardcore

220 - 600 BPM = Frenchcore, Darkcore, Industrial-Hardcore, Terror(core) / Uptempo / Metalcore

600 - 1000+ BPM = Speedcore /Splittercore / Extratone / Suicidcore / Metalcore

Frequently asked questions:

Are Gabbers dangerous?

Basically definitely not because he is a friend, buddy, dude & comrade, as just explained. These are often funny, good-hearted, happy, but at the same time internally deeply injured, problematic, depressed and outcast people. Exceptions, however, confirm the rule, so it must also be mentioned that there are also reasonless aggressive gabbers who hate everything and everyone and are unpredictable. Some Gabbers are also violent and terrorist-inclined, but usually in a positive sense, if there are sufficient reasons. That means he helps you, or they gather in groups and help you in emergencies as a comrade in the first place. It simply can not be generalized, because after all, they are not their own race or species. In the scene they are united as one big Hardcore family. It's a real pitty to explain that to people who ask such questions, because everbody in fact is an individual.

Are Gabbers Junkies?

Again, it must be said that this can not be generalized, but if you look at it statistically, you unfortunately have to say, that a majority of people at least do drug abuse, but this is found in every scene. Unknowingly, there was drug abuse even before the 19th century, and even earlier in the time of Jesus Christ, who had certainly had some great mushrooms (yes, certainly from the Stone Age), and is found at every social level. The corresponding forerunner generation of the Gabberszene are the so-called hippies from the 60s / 70s, or the disco people in the 80's, who celebrated peace & harmony and free love at that time. So drugs were always represented in every human history. Gabberspider has also celebrated parties on drugs many years, and have had sleepless nights and sessions. But personally he has completely renounced that.

Are Gabbers Nazis? How are Gabbers politically classified?

NO! So-called Nazis lived at the time of the Second World War, and today they mostly died, and none of them are known in the gabber scene. Gabbers are predominantly classified as apolitical. Many are uninformed and ignorant of the political events, and therefore they often prefer to stay out of political discourse or often use political satire parties. However, the Gabberszene has its origin from the Oi! right-wings of the skinheads & hooligans. Examples include "Neophyte Vs. Paul Elstak - Rotterdam Hooligans" or "D.J. Skinhead - Extreme Terror III", which was then also in a cut version on the "The Hardcore Champions - PCP", because it was assumed at 1:35 min. of the track, it would be the exclamation "Sieg Heil! Skinhead".

To this day, the bald head is and remains symbolically preserved in the scene for it. So it cannot be denied that the origin belongs to the right-wing skinheads and hooligans and still continues to this day, even if the scene unfortunately also allows itself to be indoctrinated further and further to the left-wing. However, the politics have always been a bit divided and afterwards they had "something more meaningful (Terror Against Terror)" in mind, which is why distance was taken from left-wing extremism & right-wing extremism. But beware, not everyone who wears a bald head is automatically a right-wing radical, or a right-wing extremist. There are also left-wing radical and left-wing extremists, as well as politically neutral and non-political ones, who have bald heads, because they just love it to wear a shaved skinhead. The origin of the right-wing space can be explained by the fact that they often associated with the Metal-Rock-Oi-Skins international (Haymaker, Bootboys, Kiss, etc.), because at that time there were already massive problems with people who belonged to Islam and other illegal aliens. Isolated Muslims may be in the Gabberszene, but no one is known, who belong to Islam and who lives it radical. The highest of the feelings was Smash?, also known as the Tschabos.

Islam (political and ideological), as well as any other form of extremism, such as left-wing extremism or right-wing extremism is no longer desirable in the scene. Until today there is no Islam in the scene and that will stay that way, because we make ourselves strong for it. So if you had to define it politically and to carve in stone, then you would have to say that the gabber scene is a federation of united patriots, who defend themselves against injustice and anything that is bad. And NO patriots are not racists. And National Socialism, in which connection gabbers unfortunately are brought over and over again in Germany, is a pure conceptualization, and must not automatically equated with the extermination of people, as it is everywhere falsely propagated. This is, however, the left-wing dictatorship by CDU / CSU, SPD, Die Grünen & Die Linke, under the leadership of Olaf Scholz in Germany. The definition of patriotism is a separate topic, where you have to look at several sources, because on Wikipedia and many other sites there are always one-sided attempts to equate patriotism with right-wing extremism. There is also very little correct and neutral enlightenment about National Socialism, because these definition attempts are always just one-sided about Hitler and the 2nd World War and they never define the pure concept neutrally.

The designation as Nazis remains inappropriate in this context, because the international motto of the scene is: "All Gabbers unite against racism & fascism!" They are thus politically neutral. Left-wing extremism & right-wing extremism is and remains stupid extremism! Gabberspider personally positions himself politically liberal-right as a pacifist-patriot with isolated slight tendencies to the good ideas of National Socialism, but not as a right-wing extremist, which is a world-wide difference!