One day in the summer of 1998 I was spending the day in Leicester where I came across an independent record shop. I went inside and saw sections for many varieties of Dance Music but there wasn't one for Happy Hardcore. When I asked if they sold any Happy Hardcore they laughed and said no. At the same time I picked up a flyer for the next Hysteria event, arena 1 had Drum & Bass and arena 2 had Garage, but there was no Happy Hardcore.
Although Happy Hardcore had been ridiculed by many before then, I didn't really know what the state of things was at the time. Although the internet existed I was yet to use it myself. The 2 major magazines to cover Happy Hardcore, Dream and Eternity has ceased to exist whilst M8 had stopped covering it. Club Nation on ITV which did feature Happy Hardcore had now been replaced by Club@Vision which seemingly didn't, although they did feature a Dreamscape event later that summer. My only source of news really was the Helter Skelter newsletters.
Personally speaking in 1998 I started to widen my music tastes and the Happy Hardcore I was buying was more backfilling my Helter Skelter collection thanks to their offers rather than buying new stuff.
Once the tapes from the first Helter Skelter of 1999 were available I bought them. As it had been a while I was intrigued to find out how the music had evolved, but playing the DJ Vibes tape first like I always did, it began with a tune from 1996 and that wasn't the only tune on the tape I already knew. Then I played the Force & Styles tape and there was very little on that I'd never heard before. It seemed like the music hadn't really evolved at all.
By 1999 several of the bigger events such as the Pleasuredome and Vibealite had ceased to exist. DJ Eruption who founded United Dance was now making House Music with the Ruff Driverz and sold United Dance to Slammin Vinyl who made it more of a Drum & Bass and UK Garage event with Happy Hardcore being demoted to the smaller rooms. Hardcore Heaven had also been sold to Slammin Vinyl with it's founder DJ Seduction retiring that year. Helter Skelter announced that their new years eve event of that year would be there last and there were also rumors Slammin Vinyl would be calling it a day, so it was pretty much all on Dreamscape to keep it going.
As it turned out Slammin Vinyl didn't call it a day and Dreamscape who were now owned by Terry Turbo decided to drop Happy Hardcore from their events.
Away from the lack of events though, it would be the same dozen or so DJs you'd see on the line ups of all the big events in 1999. Within that there was some segregation. Helter Skelter would have Ratpack (Old Skool) and Mark EG & M-Zone (Hard Trance) as part of their Happy Hardcore line-up. Then you would have Trancecore/Freeform DJs like Sharkey and Billy Bunter which I guess you could describe as Happy Hardcore trying to be taken seriously.
The bigger problem though was of the remaining big name DJs, Seduction retired, Vinylgroover moved onto Hard House, Slipmatt moved onto House and Force quietly called it a day. Ok that's only 4 DJs but when it's been reduced to just dozen or so anyway then its quite a lot.
Another observation is that of the DJs that remained, it was only really Dougal and SY who had made their names before the scene split of 1994 but most, if not all, of them were established by 1995. None of the Happy Hardcore DJs from the final Helter Skelter of 1999 played at the first Helter Skelter in 1989 but most of them did play a Helter Skelter in 1995.
One thing I haven't mentioned yet though is the music itself. One of the main criticisms of Happy Hardcore from day one was that it was kids music. As a kid myself in 1994 I can't really argue with that. The DJs themselves though weren't much older than me, Dougal was only 18 at the start of 1994 as was Hixxy and Styles. Vinylgroover was just 17.
By the year 2000, the younger DJs had hit their mid-20s, the older DJs had hit their 30s and even the kids like me who were too young to go raving in 1994 had now reached adulthood. Had I been 25 in 1994, would I have got into Happy Hardcore?
Obviously I can't answer that question, but what I do know is that Happy Hardcore did eventually enjoy a resurgence in popularity and I didn't like the new stuff. To me it was just sped up Clubland type nonsense, but then Clubland was popular amongst the teenagers so I can see why it was like that.
When you hear what the DJs of yesteryear have to say there is a common theme going. They generally say they liked the breakbeat sound but weren't so keen when the kick drum came in. Many conversations I've read amongst 90s ravers on the internet would agree, I would agree myself. The obvious question there then is why move away from breakbeat in the first place, particularly as it was the music they were making?
Well my theory is the reason they decided to go down the kick drum route was Holland. The Happy Hardcore DJs of Holland were enjoying huge success in Holland with their kick drum sound so presumably the DJs of the UK thought they could do the same over here. It didn't work though and the ones into breakbeat started to lose interest. That coupled with the fact people liked Happy Hardcore for being ridiculous and when they tried to make it more serious it was no longer fun.
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