i don't know if you could sum it up in 3 tracks, it's so rich and wide-ranging, but you could crystallise a sort of a slice across the continuum, a single facet of it
I’m going for the opposite tact, trying to cram as much diversity into three tracks as possible. It's taken an hour to come up with these three. They’re not necessarily my favorites, but they allude to a lot of the currents I like in the hardcore continuum.
Tempa T- Stop Acting Shady (off of Slack’s Slew Dem Comp)
Grime’s one of the best genre’s in the nuum, so I’d be remiss not to include any. My personal taste is the rougher stuff rather than the more comical stuff (Eskimo, Hoods Up, etc.) and this fits in that vein. I’m not much of a fan of 2 and 4 drums in any genre, which is partly why Jungle and Grime appeal to me so much. This one’s pretty syncopated and the clap and snare interlocking is great. It has a Darkcore-ish sound palette (and experimantalism) and manic stabs like Hardcore. The pirate radio sound quality is a bonus. Ideally it’d have a different MC on it though.
Remarc- RIP (Remarc Remix)
To me Jungle’s by far the greatest genre of all time, so I’m definitely including some. This one really shows the rhythmic sophistication achieved at times in the hardcore continuum. It uses a number of bass timbres, so it’s an example of the continuum's bass mutation lineage. It has the kind of chopped upped vocals explored in Garage a few years down the line too. The fact they’re Jamaicn vocals is a bonus. It sounds like an attempt to evoke Hardcore’s frenzy using Jungle’s sonic idioms.
Myron- Get Down (Groove Chroicles Remix)
This one covers a lot of the flavors found in the hardcore continuum that aren’t covered in my other two picks; 2step’s sexy swing, ambiance (in the lineage of Spiritual Aura, Bukem, etc.), RnB samples, pop potential. The inclusion of a low pitched sine wave is great too (it's mildly reminiscent of bleep tracks like Pressure Dub).