For hard house music vinyl is not only preferable, but there are specific reasons why it has major advantages over other forms of media. Despite all the advances in computer technology, with music files compacted and compressed into highly portable files, there is still a demand, perhaps even a need, for traditional vinyl. Even in the modern day when music such as dance, house, hard house and trance are enjoying massive popularity and global exposure, the traditional vinyl record is still enjoying something of a cult status.
What is it about the scratches, the crackles, pops and hisses created by playing a vinyl record? It seems so strange that we enjoy listening to what is effectively imperfection. When listening to hard house music, trance, dance or the many other popular kinds of music with the dance and rave scenes, we seem to pick up on those imperfections in very subtle ways. Many people might be hard pressed to quickly decide whether a piece of music is being played via the medium of vinyl or a fully digitized format.
Yet there is also something clinical and pure about digitized music, even though its origins may well be in electronic bass, synthesized sounds, electronic melodies and drum synthesizers or electronic drum pads. The several tracks may even have been arranged, compiled, edited and recorded using a computer based studio. Yet the final result can still seem somewhat clinical and bare without the warmth of vinyl to add ambience and sincerity to the track.
Hard house is not the same as house music, and although primarily popular in the UK, has enjoyed popularity elsewhere in recent times. Even in the UK hard house is still a relatively new form of music, coming out of the 1990s along with trance and rave. Indeed, many of the early rave parties were hard house music based. This led to a number of problems, primarily with misrepresentations and assumptions about what rave parties actually were.
Many people assumed that those attending rave parties, listening to rave, house or hard house music were using drugs. The truth is that, as many of those who attended such events will testify, the music was more than enough to get you dancing, raving, and feeling a rush and sense of escape. Hard house vinyl records have proved to be immensely popular with DJs and those organizing or performing within such events as rave parties or hard house nightclubs.
However, this gave rise to a number of popular hard house vinyl records being produced with songs which sported names suggesting a close relationship between hard house and Ecstasy amongst several other popular drugs. These were primarily for marketing purposes, cashing in on the misconceptions and stirring up greater publicity for the events. As they so often say, there's no such thing as bad publicity. But regardless of the misconceptions and assumptions which both the mainstream media and the public in general gave to rave parties and the hard house industry, the songs and vinyl records grew rapidly in popularity, with DJs in particular finding the vinyl versions preferable to digitized formats.
There are several reasons for this, and of course the feel of natural music, properly recorded music and imperfect music is always going to be a major reason. But in many cases music recorded specially for the 12 inch vinyl records had extra long drum sequences at the beginning and end, specifically to allow DJs to mix and fade between tracks more effectively and more smoothly. Easy transitions, fades and well choreographed musical performances have always been popular and much sought after within rave parties and house nightclubs. Breaking the rhythm or disturbing the mood is definitely not a good move.
One of the more noticeable things about how hard house vinyl records have established a hardcore fan base is through the revolt against handbag songs - cheap and easy to produce pop songs with a retro disco beat, forced into a hard house format. Whilst some of these have gone on to prove successful in nightclubs and bars, the main hard house fans remain true and faithful to traditional hard house and rave styles, with vinyl records being produced primarily for those songs truly referred to as being hard house. And above all, for fans of true hard house music vinyl is always going to be the preferred medium, crackles and all.
