Gabber revival
Joost Klein's Europapa is bringing back the most iconic Dutch phenomenon of the 90s
The Dutch entry for Eurovision, Europapa by Joost Klein, was released last week, and it has generated quite a hype. It became the Netherlands’ most-streamed song in a single day and reached number 1 in the Dutch charts “by a huge margin” in its first week — the last time a Dutch song did this was in 2013. The video clip on YouTube is currently the number one trending video in the country and is also going viral on TikTok.
From the very first notes, it is evident that this year’s Dutch entry marks a stylistic departure from the Eurovision songs of past decades. While it carries a pro-European message, the track is painfully Dutch, featuring a signature gabber production and Dutch lyrics — a rarity for a Dutch Eurovision entry. This is the first time the Netherlands will compete with dance music— by far its largest cultural export.
The song begins with catchy and retro Eurodance beats. It is not until the final chorus that the audience gets what it has been waiting for from the start: a typical Dutch gabber track with heavily distorted kick drums that will have you hakken in your living room.
Europapa is an ode to the gabber culture of the 1990s. “Gabber is a genuine Dutch invention from the 1990s, and people in their forties today will find much that resonates with them,” said Twan van den Nieuwenhuijzen, who headed the song’s selection committee. “But it’s also completely retro now. Today’s youth have completely rediscovered gabber. I believe that this track will appeal to a large group of people,” he noted.
Gabber was a short-lived yet iconic Dutch phenomenon of the 1990s. Musically, gabber was characterised by its fast tempo, aggressive synthesiser melodies, and distorted and heavy drum beats. But it was never just about the music; with its distinctive fashion, a very specific dance known as hakken, and its own lifestyle, gabber is regarded as the first and only subculture that strictly fed on Dutch soil.
The genre emerged in the early 1990s in Rotterdam. It started as a response to the considerable attention that Amsterdam’s house scene was attracting. In the late 1980s, house made its journey from the UK across the North Sea to the Netherlands, with Amsterdam emerging as a central hub. The Amsterdam house scene was perceived as snobbish, with its glamorous fashion, mellow sound, and middle-class crowds.
Rotterdam looked at it with a sense of contempt and proletarian disgust. The city’s youth was dancing to hardcore Belgian records — Antwerp was just half an hour away by train — but they soon aspired to create their own style. They first imitated their Belgian neighbours before coming up with their unique sound: harder, faster, louder, cruder. Less experimental and straight to the point. The ideal soundtrack for an industrial, working-class city like Rotterdam.
Gabber was, therefore, born out of a sense of underclass resentment. “It illustrates the age-old rivalry between the artistic, extravagant Amsterdammers and the plain, hard-working Rotterdammers. Gabber became particularly popular among working-class youth as a reaction against the arrogant and haughty attitude of the Amsterdam scene,” writes scholar Stijn Verhagen in his study of the movement.
A young DJ and musician living in Rotterdam, Paul Elstak, played a crucial role in bolstering Rotterdam’s confidence in its new style. In 1992, he established the Netherlands’ first hardcore label, Rotterdam Records, and released together with the collective Euromasters the very first gabber anthem, called Amsterdam Waar Lech Dat Dan? (“Amsterdam, Where Is That?”), asserting the superiority of the Rotterdam scene. The cover featured Rotterdam’s iconic landmark, the Euromast, pissing on a map of Amsterdam.
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Funny enough, the term ‘gabber’ comes from Amsterdam, where it means ‘friend’ in slang. When an Amsterdam DJ was asked about the emerging hard Rotterdam scene, he dismissively remarked, “They’re just a bunch of gabbers having fun.” This turned out to be fateful. In response, the collective Euromasters released the track Gabber zijn is geen schande! (“Being a gabber is not a disgrace!”). The Rotterdam youth reclaimed the pejorative term and turned it into a badge of pride. In no time, everyone began calling themselves ‘gabbers.’
The first gabber parties were organised at Parkzicht in Rotterdam on Friday nights. Unlike clubs in Amsterdam, it had no strict dress code or door policy. Everyone was welcome. As attendance numbers grew, the parties moved to the Energiehal, a large events centre that had fallen into disuse. This venue became known as ‘The Temple’ for gabber music, hosting monthly large-scale raves that attracted up to 15,000 people.
Gabber music rapidly gained immense popularity and swept through the nation, eventually transitioning from the fringes of society to mainstream Dutch culture. This would not have been possible without Thunderdome, a massive rave event that brought gabber to the masses all over the country. The first one was organised in October 1992 in Heerenveen. Thunderdome quickly evolved into the quintessential ‘gabber brand,’ the pivotal force behind the popularisation and spread of gabber. By the mid-1990s, Thunderdome raves were capable of hosting up to 40,000 ravers at a time.
But gabber was never just about music. Gabbers developed their own fashion, jargon, and lifestyle. They adopted the sportswear for practical reasons: you can dance and sweat freely, and it dries quickly. Key to their attire was the fluorescent Aussie, with men typically wearing it over T-shirts or on bare chests and women pairing them with sports bras. Men shaved their heads, while women shaved their temples and the back of their heads, styling the remaining hair into braids or ponytails. A shaved head was simply handy: it is easier to dance without hair on your face. Just as handy as the Nike Air Max 90 sneakers, known for their durability, elasticity and thick soles, ideal for dancing all night in them without hurting your feet.
Contrary to other subcultures, gabber culture was generally less politically involved; gabbers gathered at parties during weekends but seldom outside these festive events. The movement centred on entertainment and individual expression, with like-minded people coming together once a week to dance, offering relief from the daily grind – a community that needed music and each other to get through the week.
And in contrast to other music scenes, such as hip-hop and rock, the gabber scene was notably egalitarian. There were no distinctions between men and women; everyone wore similar clothes and danced the same way in an atmosphere that did not exacerbate sexuality.
Gabber quickly evolved into a mass movement. Thunderdome turned into a cult, with its own merchandise and compilation CD series. Gabber ruled the top 40, entire TV shows and magazines were dedicated to it, and a special clothing line was launched. By the mid-1990s, gabber had reached its peak. “1996 was a special year,” says DJ Rob Fabrie in DJ Magazine. “We talk about the second summer of love in 1988; I think 1996 was that for gabber.”
But its mass popularity was also its downfall. The genre was exploited by labels, which pushed for more pop-friendly tracks to make easy money. Advertisers also attempted to cash in on the gabber craze with TV ads. There was also the emergence of parody tracks like Gabbertje and Hakke & Zage, kid-friendly gabber songs by famous gabber DJs that topped charts and ridiculed the whole movement. “Gabber became a caricature of itself. It had exploded in every direction,” explains journalist Mark van Bergen in his book on Dutch Dance. The rough edges were simply taken off, and the subculture became so mainstream that even pre-teens began to like it — there were gabber parties for children starting from 1997.
This overexposure attracted media attention to the extremes of the gabber culture. The movement was endlessly stigmatised by the media, with skewed stories focused on extreme drug consumption, hooliganism, and racism. Far-right groups did attempt to hijack the movement, but without success. Yet because of their shaved head that made them look like skinheads, the gabbers were increasingly associated with right-wing extremism, fueling the bad press, with sensationalist reports of gabbers waving Dutch flags and performing Hitler salutes during raves. Satanism was also brought into the picture by the Christian press.
Commercial exploitation, overexposure, and negative media profiling all contributed to discrediting of the movement. By the turn of the millennium, gabbers had become a national joke, prompting many artists and fans to leave the scene, pushing the die-hard fans back underground. Thunderdome was discontinued in 2012. By the early 2010s, the gabber movement was virtually distinct. “The gabber culture collapsed under the weight of its own immense success and was cuddled to death – even by parents,” scholar Verhagen concludes in his study.
But gabber never truly went away. As the media shifted their attention away from it, the gabber scene could thrive away from the spotlight and continue to evolve, shattered into several subgenres and sustained by a dedicated core that kept the sound and culture alive. “Hardcore never dies” has remained the community’s slogan for 30 years. And this seems to hold true.
Because gabber has been experiencing a resurgence. In 2017, Thunderdome made its comebacks to celebrate 25 years of gabber, attracting 40,000 ravers. Documentaries have begun to revisit the movement, notably from Vice. The Amazon-produced film Hardcore Never Dies, released in 2023 and set in Rotterdam’s gabber scene, was one of the most popular films of the year in the Netherlands.
And now, with Joost Klein and Europapa, gabber is definitely making a comeback. “Gabber dance hip again thanks to Europapa,” could be read on the front page of AD, the second-largest paid newspaper in the country, on Thursday. “Golden gabber time is back,” announced WNL the same day. On Friday, gabbers were invited to dance on a popular TV talk show because “it’s back in fashion,” the host declared.
Gabber remains one of the most original subcultures in recent European history. Music journalist Simon Reynolds called it “Holland’s own equivalent to gangsta rap,” while Billboard magazine described it as the country’s “first homegrown youth culture.” Gabber has made it onto the list of Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Netherlands and is now seen as quintessentially Dutch — like Delft blue and windmills. “It is the most Dutch dance export product that is very genuinely typical Dutch, recognisably Dutch, and almost exclusively Dutch. So a very Dutch achievement,” Volkskrant journalist Chris Buur said this week in a podcast.
Joost Klein is thus bringing Dutch culture to Eurovision with the first authentic Dutch folk song in ages. And this seems to be hitting the mark, as the excitement surrounding the song now seems to foster a new sense of national pride. “These days, the self-confidence in our country is overflowing. Where last year gloominess and self-hatred prevailed, it turns out that one gabber song with a cheerful music video and dance is enough to turn the national mood around,” writes Roelf Jan Duin, a columnist for Het Parool, on Saturday.
30 years after being exploited, stigmatised, and marginalised, gabber is finally getting the recognition it has long deserved, as the Netherlands now realises it can take pride in its own culture and showcase it to the world. This is already a victory — one that hopefully leads to a greater one on 11 May.
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