The Best Dubstep Songs Right Now

Trends come and go, but genuinely great dubstep songs tend to stay great regardless of when you first hear them. This list is not chasing this week's chart or playlist algorithm — it is the small handful of songs that, right now and for the foreseeable future, still define what the genre is capable of. Put these on properly, ideally through something with real bass response, before you read any further.

Why These Songs Still Matter

Dubstep songs age differently to most dance music. Because the genre was built around space, sub-bass and mood rather than chart-friendly hooks, its best tracks tend to sound as striking today as they did on release — sometimes more so, once you know the context they came from. The six below span the genre's full range, from its earliest deep dubstep years to the louder, more aggressive brostep era that followed.

Skream – "Midnight Request Line" (2005)

Widely regarded as one of the most important dubstep songs ever released, this track's simple, wobbling bassline and vast sense of space did more than almost any single record to define the genre's early sound. If you only listen to one track from this list, it should probably be this one.

Benga & Coki – "Night" (2007)

A genuinely pivotal record. "Night" took the wobble bass Skream had helped popularise and pushed it somewhere rowdier and more aggressive, directly foreshadowing the brostep sound that would break internationally a few years later.

Digital Mystikz – "Anti War Dub"

The deepest entry on this list, and a good example of why "deep dubstep" is its own distinct thing. Built almost entirely from sub-bass, space and a slow, meditative pulse, it rewards being played loud far more than it rewards close headphone listening.

Burial – "Archangel" (2007)

Taken from the Mercury Prize-nominated album Untrue, "Archangel" swaps club-ready drops for a ghostly, pitched-up vocal sample and a sense of melancholy rarely found elsewhere in the genre. It has been covered and remixed repeatedly since release, a fair measure of how influential it became.

Rusko – "Cockney Thug" (2008)

Bouncy, playful and considerably louder than the deep dubstep that came before it, "Cockney Thug" is a useful marker of the moment the genre's centre of gravity started shifting towards the brostep era.

Skrillex – "Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites" (2010)

The track that, more than any other, introduced dubstep's sound to a global mainstream audience. Its title track went on to win a Grammy Award, and its huge, distorted drops became the template a generation of festival producers copied.

How to Listen to This List

Play these six dubstep songs roughly in the order above and you get a fairly accurate potted history of the genre in under half an hour, from Croydon's earliest deep dubstep through to the brostep sound that later filled arenas. For the fuller story behind each era, our history of dubstep and our guide to the best dubstep artists to know both make good companion reading.

Where to Go Next

If any of these dubstep songs land for you, the artists behind them all made full albums worth exploring — our roundup of essential dubstep albums is the natural next stop. And if you are curious how these tracks relate to the genre's various offshoots, our breakdown of dubstep subgenres explains exactly where each one fits. Streaming makes all six easy to find, though a proper subwoofer or a decent pair of bass-capable headphones will make a bigger difference here than with almost any other genre — several of these mixes were built and tested on club-grade sound systems, and a lot of the detail simply disappears on laptop speakers.

The Bottom Line

None of these dubstep songs are new, and none of them need to be. Each one still sounds like a statement of intent, which is exactly what has kept them in circulation for well over a decade. Start with "Midnight Request Line", work through the rest, and you will understand the genre far better than any explainer alone could manage.

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