User:Actuallyasriel/sandbox

Artcore (used typically to refer to Japanese artcore) is a microgenre of electronic music which is defined roughly as a fusion of trance, drum and bass or happy hardcore (or any combination of the three), with instruments and compositional techniques typically associated with music conservatories, such as jazz and Western classical music. The variability of tempo for artcore is unusually broad for electronic music, spanning anywhere from 120 to upwards of 200 BPM, but the main consistent factors include a focus on melodic composition and Western harmony, moderately complex drum patterns (typically programmed but occasionally sampled from loops breakbeat style), and the use of synthesized or sampled orchestral instruments.

Artcore developed a worldwide community through the late 2000s, in large part due to its widespread use in rhythm games, with Beatmania IIDX producing some of the most notable examples of the era.

In the late 2000s, the budding genre was discovered by Western rhythm game fans who flocked to the Eastern scene due to the Western video game industry moving its focus away from rhythm games. Early adopters like Onoken and Xi began to form cult followings as rhythm games picked up speed again in mobile games and the re-growing arcade scene. As the era of social media began to take hold in the 2010s, artcore became a common term used to describe these two, as well as other producers like Sakuzyo, Ice and Feryquitous.

Today, artcore has grown to encompass a wide range of drum and bass influenced music with a heavy focus on melody and traditional arrangement. Netlabels like Diverse System serve as stewards of the genre's history, although a lot of notable artcore is made by commission or released independently via the doujin music tradition.

Origins and name
The origin of the term "artcore" is anachronistic and its origins are largely folk etymology. The term "artcore" was used from time to time through the 1980s and 90s by groups both in hardcore punk and hardcore electronic, although only briefly, and never as a genre term.

The framework for artcore, as used to describe a genre of electronic music, was laid in the late 1990s in the United Kingdom, where it was used to describe a form of ambient drum and bass. Leading into the early 2000s, the term migrated to the Japanese BMS community, who began to use the term to describe their music. The first song to describe itself as "artcore" in this community was ARMYTOM's EDENS, released in 1999 ; however, the remark included with the song's BMS files saw ARMYTOM unsure about the term. Overall, this piece bore more resemblance to the British artcore of the past decade, and the community would largely continue to use the term this way for a handful of years.

In 2004, Konami released Beatmania IIDX 10th Style, which included the song Narcissus at Oasis by Ryu☆, which bears more resemblance to artcore as the term is applied today. It also bore some resemblance to the 2003 BMS song felys, composed by Kennosuke Ono, under his stage name onoken. As a result, people began to describe felys as artcore, and in fan lore, it is still pointed to as the first real artcore song, with his 2003 album "Swell Strings" being considered the first artcore album. This model of events would inform the way artcore was composed in Japan moving forward. In 2020, Ono released "felys Artcore Collection-", implying an approval of the term. In an interview with a member of the Doujin Music Discord server, Ono cited film score composers Joe Hisaishi, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Yoko Kanno, as well as music from Disney films, as influences on "Swell Strings."

Development and expansion
Through the 2000s, BMS composers such as SHIKI, xi, AcuticNotes, a would pick up on the growing style and extend on it, although much of this early work remains solely in the realm of BMS. A few events would begin to bring artcore to the greater public in the 2010s.

with independent rhythm game developer Rayark putting a spotlight on BMS music in their games Cytus and Deemo. Rayark licensed songs from the BMS community and produced their own with in-house musicians, some of whom would go on to become important artcore producers in their own right. Rayark's aggressive marketing of Cytus, which included the release of new free songs for every 100,000 purchases, made the game a success, putting a lot of eyes on the BMS community's work, including the nascent genre of artcore.

Fragmentation
The BMS community is known for being fairly insular, with many artists being personal and professional acquaintances. The format of BMS and the events that drive the community encourage the prototyping of nonsense genre terms which become increasingly niche and self-servicing; and if any one song garners notoriety, it's likely that it will be spun off very quickly, rather than being developed with any significance.

A consequence of the rapid development and establishment of artcore as a recognizable label, is that the genre started to become less distinct in its actual meaning.

For example, xi took a decidedly Baroque and Romantic bent with his music with occasional elements of jazz, which contrasted the film score influences of artcore up to this point. xi, as is typical of BMS artists, used a range of terms to describe his work, including "renaissance hardcore" (a term which does see some use by artists who believe themselves to be distinct from artcore), jazz fusion, and happy hardcore, only using the term "artcore" on one song, Ascension to Heaven. However, in spite of this, references to "Parousia" as an artcore album remain prevalent.