One of the key moments in the history of Rave music came in the early to mid 90s when the scene split into Happy Hardcore and Jungle. Happy Hardcore started life as basically a faster version of what went before whereas Jungle became a much darker and moody version. Some tunes of the time could fit in both a Happy Hardcore or Jungle set, but as time went on they both evolved into two completely different genres of music.
Jungle evolved into Drum & Bass and brought us several household names such as Roni Size and Goldie, there was a Drum & Bass show on Radio 1, you had Drum & Bass arenas at big Dance Music events and more recently we've had Drum & Bass number ones in the UK Singles Chart.
Happy Hardcore on the other hand didn't fare so well. It was ridiculed by many Dance Music fans for being too fast, too cheesy and a bit of a joke. By the end of the 90s it was pretty much finished but came back from the dead in the early 00s and gained a new generation of fans, but in reality it was never really that popular.
When the likes of London Elektricity and High Contrast emerged with their Liquid Drum & Bass sound, my thoughts were that this was more like what Happy Hardcore should have evolved into. The trouble with Jungle/Drum & Bass initially was that it was too dark but this sound was much more uplifting without being too cheesy and was still breakbeat rather then having the kick drum which is what happened to Happy Hardcore.
However in recent times I have noticed similarities between Happy Hardcore and EDM. There have been examples of EDM tunes I've heard which basically sound like slowed down Happy Hardcore.
Take "Slide" by Calvin Harris ft Frank Ocean & Migos for example, you have the piano, the chipmunk vocals and the noise that kicks in after 38 seconds, all commonplace in Happy Hardcore albeit much faster than in this tune.
Then there's "2U" by David Guetta ft Justin Bieber which has a lot of different sounds you'd hear in a Happy Hardcore tune, but again at a much slower pace. David Guetta has even done the chipmunk vocals on another of his tunes, "Bad".
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure if they had slowed Happy Hardcore down to that sort of speed it would have been a disaster. But the fact of the matter is that EDM is huge worldwide, the DJs make a shit load of money from it and can sell out big venues on their own. Happy Hardcore used to bring together all the big name DJs at an event that would attract around 3000 people. Yet the difference between the two genres isn't that great.
The thing is though EDM is ridiculed by many too. I'm not a fan myself, the example tunes I posted above are rather weak, they have no oomph, particularly "2U" which never seems to start. It's as if they've taken the worst Happy Hardcore tune ever made and got rid of anything good about it. Generally though, many people who ridicule EDM are the same people who ridiculed Happy Hardcore.
Another similarity is that a big EDM track of last year was "Cola" by CamelPhat & Elderbrook which was nominated for a Grammy Award. One of the two members of CamelPhat is Mike Di Scala who back in the day was a Happy Hardcore DJ called Recon. Also Happy Hardcore DJs Gammer and Darren Styles are doing EDM music these days.
On that basis you could say part of Happy Hardcore has evolved into EDM.
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