
What on earth is Splittercore music?
After a long day of working, what sonic soundtrack do you choose to unwind? Some might go for easy listening classics, others might go down an ambient path, and you may even take the route of some hardcore rock to let out your frustrations.
These are all valid options, but if you think that you can relax to something that sounds like a cross between being at the heart of a warzone or stuck in an MRI machine, then I’m sorry – there’s something very wrong with you. But if you’re looking for what Splittercore is in a nutshell, that’s undeniably the perfect description.
Most of the time, we should all be advocates for people enjoying whatever music they like, even if it’s not to our own preferences, as that’s ultimately the way to keep the wheels of art in motion. Yet when it comes to Splittercore, it’s just completely unpalatable – a blitzing assault on the senses in which you fear you might never make it out alive. It’s really that bad.
Having not painted the most glowing portrait of the genre so far, it’s probably worth explaining what exactly Splittercore is, other than a total head thumper. Essentially, it’s high-octane electronic music where the tempo can exceed speeds of up to 600 beats per minute. Yes, that’s fast, but almost to the point where it’s barely distinguishable, with sound and rhythm morphing into one paralysing attack coming from every possible direction.
But even still, if 600 beats per minute somehow isn’t giving you enough of an adrenaline rush, you can amp it up a notch further. Extratone takes things to the next level, with tempos reaching in excess of 1,000 beats per minute or higher. However, at that point, you have to question what you’re actually listening to, otherwise you’ll have your head between your legs ready to pass out.
What are the origins of Splittercore?
Of course, no one just randomly decided one day to whack a line of beats in a row and hammer them out as fast as humanly possible, even though this is basically what Splittercore sounds like. Instead, it originated out of the very first blueprints for electronic speedcore back in the early 1990s, and only grew bigger and faster from that point onwards.
As the genre took hold in subsects of internet culture throughout the course of the 2010s, the need for speed was an almost natural progression in giving rise to Splittercore and its blazing beats. Assembled to mimic the sound of machine gun fire, this is hardly a type of music that most would find remotely enjoyable, but it is nonetheless reflective of the electric highs of the social media age and all that comes with it.
As much as curiosity may get the better of you after reading this, the jury is still well and truly out on the benefits of Splittercore. Sure, it may be something only understood by a select few who get their kicks from that kind of rush, but for the rest, it’s more likely to cause a splitting headache. Get the paracetamol at the ready.