Features

Dubstep's profile has never been higher than in 2009, nor has the sound ever been more diverse. So if there wasn't one ubiquitous record that united everyone in its appreciation this year (Joy Orbison's Hyph Mngo coming the closest, and conspicuously bearing few traces of the genre), previous years from earlier this decade had plenty.

Inevitably this makes it harder to find newer tracks with the same status as Midnight Request Line but artists like Joker, Ramadanman and 2562 represent how dubstep no longer has mere outposts for its Croydon base, but sub-scenes and sounds in their own right.

It's a huge range, some increasingly difficult to identify as dubstep, but for a scene previously thought too rigid, it's been incredibly fertile in launching such a myriad of styles, the most abundant of any UK genre this decade.

While aiming for definitiveness is probably futile, especially in only 20 entries, much of this list is made up of the tracks that were not just popular but defined the sound at a particular point, signposted the way forward, or did something new (or if they didn't do that, they just met their brief well).

In the interests of diversity, producers have been limited to one entry each, with one or two unavoidable exceptions, but most of the names below have several other key tracks that could have been included, and then there's a sea of names that for reasons to do with space, simply couldn't be. But while there's doubtlessly scope for argument, we think these tracks represent dubstep in the 00s at its best.

20. 2562 – Enforcers (Tectonic)
“Who likes techno?" asked Benga at Matter this summer. Everyone in dubstep it seems. Released on Pinch's Tectonic label, 2562 helped foster the Berlin/Bristol axis, a new tangent for dubstep producers looking for a subdued alternative to dubstep's harder centre. While much 'dubstepno' leans more towards techno, with broken beat patterns and edgier bass, Enforcers found a happier middle-point.

19. Ramadanman – Blimey (Hessle Audio)
Pointing to Ramadanman's later, more fleshed-out funky-edged productions like Wad under the Pearson Sound alias, Blimey was made of austere Photek-meets-Shackleton-style kicks and not much else. Somewhere between ultra-spare, skeletal, percussion-driven tracks like Random Trio's Indian Stomp and LD's Woodblock, it's funky as envisioned by dubsteppers.

18. The Bug feat. Warrior Queen – Poison Dart (Ninja Tune)
With his Isolationism and Macro-Dub Infection comps and love of UK sound system culture, The Bug always seemed a likely dubstep convert. The fruits of the Bash night he ran with Loefah, tracks like Jah War are some of dubstep's most intense, with a more bruising, industrial edge than most. Poison Dart was no exception, up there with Pressure's Money Honey and Skream's Check It as Warrior Queen's fiercest vocal.

17. Joker – Hollybrook Park (Kapsize)
80s funk in the body of dubstep, with a full-bodied sound achieved through a vintage gear rather than soft-synths, Hollybrook Park's 'purple wow' was faithful to both Croydon's groaning bass and Bow's snappy fills and violent synths, but like crew members Guido and Gemmy, Joker took his influences somewhere totally new.

16. Kode 9 & Spaceape – 9 Samurai (Hyperdub)
Fanfares have featured heavily in 00s black music, but sampling the theme to Akira Kurosowa's epic Seven Samurai, the flip to Kode 9 & Spaceape's Backward was funereal, recalling a dubbier MF Doom in King Geedorah mode. While the sample gives it bulk, anyone wishing Kode 9's trademark synths weren't interrupted can head to Quarta 330's remix, where it sounds like a batteries-fading Gameboy soundtrack.

15. Matty G – 50,000 Watts (Argon)
Looping Schoolly D's PSK break in slo-mo, 50,000 Watts was part of a cluster of b-boy-inspired dubstep, others including Jakes' Rock The Bells and It's Yours by Loefah, who - hailed by Grievous Angel as dubstep's DJ Premier, gave this an even vaster re-work on the flip. Symbolising dubstep's international sweep, Santa Cruz's Matty G gave the sound a warmer, fatter, almost chopped 'n' screwed slant.

14. D1 – Crack Bong (Tempa)
Sampling the withering voice of 2001: Space Odyssey's Hal 9000, Crack Bong is dubstep at its most sci-fi. The most impressive track on Tempa Allstars Vol. 2, between the dialogue intoning "my mind is going... there's no question about it" and the colossal but nervous robo-bass-stomps, Crack Bong is one of D1's queasiest, most exhausting moments.

13. Appleblim – Girder (Skull Disco)
Ricardo Villabolos' remix of Shackleton's Blood on My Hands might have taken Skull Disco well beyond dubstep's confines but based around little more than cavernous claps and nagging, warping acid bass, Girder is equally hypnotic. Appleblim's spent the last few years exploring dubstep's more muted edges, but its tracks like Girder where his adventurousness sat inside the sound's parameters that hit hardest.

12. MRK1 – Plodder (Contagious)
Like Plasticman (they released two double-header 12"s together), the Virus Syndicate producer works best between grime and dubstep, and Plodder covers both bases brutally. All heaving, claustrophobic bass, it's one of the best things to come out of the FWD>> sound and was fittingly included on Rinse FM ads for the night in 2005.

11. Plasticman – Cha (Terrorhythm)
A peak of Plasticman's coupling of dubstep severity and grime energy, Cha was an MC favourite with a vocal featuring Napper, Shizzle and Fresh becoming a 2005 anthem and enough south of the river appeal to inspire a still-unreleased Benga remix. A definitive bridge between both scenes, it's a shortcut to making dubstep and grime fans forget their love-hate differences.

10. Pinch – Qawaali (Planet Mu)
For all its good intentions, ethnic-flavoured dubstep doesn't often amount to more than the sum of its parts, but Qawaali's gossamer-like Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan sample was stitched into its fabric from the ground up. Curiously but never self-consciously delicate, it's one of the genre's most sublime moments.

9. Search and Destroy – Candy Floss (Loefah remix) (Hot Flush)
Starting deceptively sweet and melancholic, Loefah took this into awesomely deep and dark territory. Ultra-minimal but so precise that anything more would lessen the impact, this was dubstep at its most elemental. Like Goat Stare, not so much about meditating on bass weight as getting pounded by it. Purists tend to get a bad rep, but on this evidence, it's hard not to sympathise.

8. Artwork – Red (Big Apple)
An early favourite of Hatcha's, Red is an undying classic of dubstep's transitional phase, still retaining the friskiness of 2-step but with fat, endless interchanging bass riffs - generated by the TS-404 plug-in, a favourite tool of dubstep producers, predicting the rigid, grid-like wobble that would characterise the genre.

7. Burial – Distant Lights (Hyperdub)
The scene's most expressive producer, Burial's fragile, wistful 2-step inspired not just obvious challengers like Falty DL and Hessle Audio's retro-nouveau throwbacks but the new beats scene headed by Flying Lotus, whose Radiohead remix might as well have been credited to Burial. More headphone than dancefloor-primed a la Horsepower and Vex'd's Degenerate, his elegiac debut is still the scene's most accomplished full-length.

6. Coki – Spongebob (DMZ)
Dubstep's Pulse X moment, Spongebob drove ravers wild but was regarded as a new nadir by many in the scene. As influential as Horrorshow, it swapped the heavy wobble of tracks like Shattered for crazed – and exciting - mid-range chainsaw riffing. Giving dubstep mass dancefloor appeal, it cleared the way for the manic tear-out end of the scene to dominate.

5. Mala – Left Leg Out (DMZ)
One of dubstep's most obviously danceable tracks, Left Leg Out surprisingly achieved it without losing any of the heft or darkness that made it so essential. An unusual ensemble of warm Rhodes chords, fierce Nyabinghi drums and Tardis FX, it's a virtual template for how house and dubstep can merge without the latter losing what makes it well, dubstep. The 4x4-steppers stampede of Bury Da Bwoy in reverse.

4. Digital Mystikz – Chainba (DMZ)
Rivalling Heartless Ninja and Intergalactic for Digital Mystikz' most intricate and spiky programming, Chainba was the B-side of Twisup, DMZ's first 12". With garage's speed still intact, if the Mystikz later lost some of that early raw attack, later, more expansive tracks like Haunted were just as inventive. But along with early releases Pathways and Lost City, Chainba helped dubstep arrive at itself.

3. Loefah – Horrorshow (DMZ)
Loefah hadn't yet perfected his steely precision but with Horrorshow he ushered in the halfstep era, reductionist beats influenced by Wonder's What that rack up the tension in a track by making it feel half its programmed speed. Inspiring not just a string of surgical refinement along the same theme in Mud, Ruffage, 28g, the crushingly physical Goat Stare and countless sterling remixes, it also led to endless copies from his imitators.

2. Benga & Coki – Night (Tempa)
Predicted early on by Geeneus as having the potential for Midnight Request Line-style crossover, Night was 2007's answer to Skream's anthem. And with a newly expanded audience in place, it went even further, getting pitched up by funky and bassline DJs who saw something in its soca drums and nagging birdcall they could use for their own means. Dubstep godfather El-B has said he wished Night inspired similar tracks, but whether due to worries about copycatting, commercialism, or just out of respect, save for Benga's Buzzin', it's largely remained one of a kind.

1. Skream – Midnight Request Line (Tempa)
Recognised as a classic from when it first debuted in 2005, Midnight Request Line set a new bar for dubstep's possibilities. Skream's self-noted attempt at making a grime instrumental, it included unusually for peace-loving dubstep, rowdy gunshots and fluttering techno melodies, all pinned down by oppressive bass drops. Finding favour not just with dubstep and grime DJs (Roll Deep MC Skepta even underwent a short-lived dubstep conversion as a result) but minimal techno DJ Ricardo Villabolos and even Gilles Peterson, Request Line pulled dubstep out of the south London suburbs and gave it a whole new reach.

What do you think? Are there any glaring ommissions from our selection? If you agree or disgree then let us know in the comments section below or, even better, post in our forum.

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