Brostep

An aggressive, high-energy offshoot of dubstep that became popular in North America around 2010. It took the UK genre’s half-time rhythm at around 140 BPM, but replaced its dark, sub-bass-heavy minimalism with loud, distorted mid-range bass sounds: growls, screeches and “robotic” textures produced through heavy synth modulation. It is structured around dramatic builds and explosive “drops,” and borrows the intensity of metal and the scale of stadium EDM. Skrillex’s Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites (2010) defined the sound, alongside artists such as Excision, Datsik and Borgore, with earlier groundwork from UK producers like Rusko and Caspa. The term was originally used dismissively by fans of classic dubstep, but it became the standard name for the style that brought dubstep to mainstream festivals and pop charts.