Breakbeat Hardcore
The 9 Best Breakbeat Hardcore
Tracks of All Time
Britain's rave music between acid house and jungle: sampled funk breaks sped to breaking point, piano riffs, cartoon samples and a sub-bass borrowed from Kingston. Two frantic years that produced two whole genres.
- Origin
- United Kingdom, 1990
- Tempo
- 125–155 BPM
- Also known as
- hardcore, rave, ardkore, oldskool
- Tracks
- 9
- Updated
- 2026-08-29
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Number 1: Lennie De Ice / We Are I.E.
1991
Routinely named as the first jungle record, made two years before anyone used the word. A reggae bassline under a hardcore break, and the entire future of British bass music in four minutes.
Also on The Waxonia Desk — 160
Number 2: The Prodigy / Charly
1991 · XL
A public information cat sampled over a hardcore breakbeat, and a top three hit that the scene never forgave for the wave of novelty records it licensed.
Number 3: 2 Bad Mice / Bombscare
1991 · Moving Shadow
Moving Shadow's calling card and hardcore at its most musical — a genuinely lovely chord progression fighting a breakbeat that keeps trying to fall over.
Number 4: Metalheads / Terminator
1992 · Synthetic
Goldie and Mark Rutherford discover time-stretching and use it to make a break sound like it is being pulled apart. The technical leap that turned hardcore into jungle.
Also on The Waxonia Desk — 160, The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
Number 5: SL2 / On a Ragga Tip
1992 · XL
Number two in the national charts with a record built on a Jamaican vocal sample and a hoover bass. British pop has rarely been this directly a report from a field somewhere off the M25.
Also on The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
Number 6: T99 / Anasthasia
1991
Belgian, orchestral, and completely deranged. The stab sound on this record became a standard component of British rave within about six weeks of its release.
Number 7: Human Resource / Dominator
1991
Dutch hardcore, and the origin of the hoover — a synth patch so recognisable that it functions as a genre marker thirty years later.
Number 8: Origin Unknown / Valley of the Shadows
1993 · RAM
Two spoken words about a long dark tunnel, an Amen break and a sub-bass. The point at which hardcore has clearly become jungle and everybody involved knows it.
Also on The Waxonia Desk — 160
Number 9: Shades of Rhythm / The Sound of Eden
1991 · ZTT
The euphoric end of the spectrum: piano, a diva sample and no cynicism whatsoever. Hardcore is remembered as chaotic, and half of it sounded like this.