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Welcome Back Hardwell!

March 28, 20223 min read

So, after 4 years, the beloved Dutch producer Hardwell is finally back!

And with the complete package! An upcoming Album “Rebels Never Die“, a worldwide tour, this UMF liveset… And a new style.

Love it or hate it, what’s sure is that Hardwell has abruptly changed his view of music, taking a different, way darker direction.
Since you guys asked for them, here are some of my personal takeaways, purely based on my experice with 1 hour of the UMF set, so… Take them with a grain of salt.

• Hardwell seems ANGRY. The whole “Rebel” theme, the dark and Techno-oriented music he’s introducing, the unual type of liveset (more on this on the next points)… He clearly passed through a lot and his music is showing what happened.

His Future Rave/Techno style doesn’t make me crazy, but at least it seems genuine. Honestly, I didn’t find anything that could become an EDM hit or even enter my 2022 favorites list, but I think that Hardwell doesn’t care about that. I also expect a featuring with Maddix, who has taken similar choices.

The liveset was, well, rebel. Hardwell didn’t play any of his old hits (except for the Spaceman remix and the “Apollo” acapella), completely ignored the current Revealed catalogue (lol), he didn’t announce any featuring, only a pair of mashups… Just one hour of Hardwell alone with his dark IDs. I loved his boldness, even thought his strategy became repetitive, since there is little differentiation between many of the productions played and basically no vocals. Many will find it disappointing.

• Speaking about vocals“Crawling” by Linkin Park and “Nothing Else Matters” by Metallica were interesting choices to play, fitting well with the atmosphere of the set. Maybe the producer has been influenced by Rock music during this period?

• The intro, “Broken Mirror”, features a beautiful monologue introducing this new, obscure side of Hardwell to us. I found this line particularly fascinating: “I’m no longer accepting the things I cannot change, I’m changing the things I can no longer accept“.

In the end, Hardwell is clearly telling us that he’s doing what he wants to do. He’s a rebel. We’ll see if this strategy goes well, but for now I’m just grateful to this man that seems to have come out from a difficult period in an energetic shape and a huge desire to change things.

Best of luck, dark Hardwell!

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