Hard NRG
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Hard NRG is a form of electronic dance music that first came about in the late 1990's. It is a hard variation of dance music, sharing some similiarities with Hard trance. Wheras Hard trance has more of a 4/4 beat where every beat is emphasised with a loud banging type noise, Hard NRG has a more pronounced offbeat/back beat structure where there is a loud beat followed by a softer beat. Hard NRG music tends to vary the beat by slowly building up and bringing in the beat and will usually have a breakdown in the middle of the song where the beat stops but the melody and other parts of the song will continue. In some songs the build up/breakdown will happen a number of times. The effect of this is to hype up the ravers who continue to be built up more and more to an excited level.
Hard NRG music also tends to use a lot of noise and frequencies in higher registers, often quirky.
The song Better Off Alone by Alice Deejay is considered something of a Hard NRG anthem and is an excellent example of a Hard NRG song using quirky type noises. Other notable examples of Hard NRG songs include Space Melody by Luna Park, Exploration of Space by Cosmic Gate and Joy Energizer by Joy Kitikonti
In Australia a series of albums were released on the Ministry Of Sound label simply called "Hard NRG Volume (number)" mixed by famous Hard NRG DJs including: Jason Midro, Nik Fish, Cosmic Gate and John Ferris.
Hard NRG enjoyed great popularity from roughly 1999 until about 2005, being played at nightclubs and raves devoted either solely to Hard NRG or also playing Hard Trance music. Around this time these styles started to evolve into Hard Style. While still being made and played it is slowly waning in popularity and being replaced more and more by Hard Style.
