Hardcore Techno
Hardcore techno is a fast, aggressive branch of techno with heavily distorted kick drums, harsh sounds and tempos from about 160 to 200 beats per minute or more.
It emerged at the start of the 1990s in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, and 'We Have Arrived' by Mescalinum United, from 1990, is often named as the first hardcore techno track. Rotterdam's gabber scene then turned it into a mass youth movement. Offshoots include gabber, happy hardcore and speedcore, and it also fed into hardstyle. Compared with techno it is faster, louder and abrasive on purpose.
Artists it is known for: Marc Acardipane, Neophyte, Angerfist.
- Family
- Electronic & Dance
- On Spotify
- A current genre
- What it is
- A genre
- From
- Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, early 1990s
- Also called
- hardcore
- Trackify listeners who play it
- 2%
About 1,400 of 83,000 Trackify listeners with public profiles have hardcore techno among their top artists of the last four weeks. Rounded; updated 13 November 2026.
Hardcore Techno artists
The Prodigy
HOLY PRIEST
Restricted
Sickmode
Vieze Asbak
Fantasm
Lil Texas
Lekkerfaces
Yoshiko
TNTThe hardcore techno artists most Trackify listeners have in their top fifty. Each opens on Spotify.
Sources
The definition is written for this site from open sources, and was checked against them on 13 November 2026.