Internet memes like this serve to articulate anxiety about perceived subcultural changes. The album also became widely popular in the United States EDM ( electronic dance music) scene. This along with the layer of synthesizers are what people in the scene refer to when they describe the music (or party) as “grimey.”ĭubstep entered the mainstream club scene in 2006 in great part with the release of producer Oliver Jones’ (aka Skream) debut album “Skream,” which took club culture by storm in Europe ( Woolliams 2008). The heavy influence of grime, the dark elements of drum and bass and the guttural bass lines give it an almost dirty sound. It takes mainly from drum and bass and grime genres, but is influenced by many different styles of music, including dancehall and hip-hop. So what is dubstep anyway? And where did it come from?ĭubstep was conceived in the London dance music scene in the late 90s and early 00s.

For example, a recent NorthFace advertisement uses it while a snowboarder glides down a snowy mountainscape, Britney Spears and Rihanna have both incorporated some dubstep into their recent work, teen heartthrob Justin Bieber is rumored to be working on his own dubstep album, and the teaser trailer for the new Mission Impossible film features a distinct wub-wubbing in the background. You may not be a fan of the wub-wub-wubbing musical genre known as dubstep, but it is increasingly taking center stage in American popular culture.

How dubstep was discovered.