Bonkers Part 4

 

It was the summer of 1998, the exams were over and Bonkers 4 was out. I went to Loughborough for the day with the intention of ending my hiatus of buying new happy hardcore. Bonkers 4 seemed likely, but I was open to anything. In Andy's Records there were several compilations old and new to choose from, but what stood out was a new one called "Wow...What A Rush" which was mixed by Jimmy J who was my favourite DJ at the time and it was just £1.99. Needless to say I bought it. Bonkers 4 would have to wait.

Next up was a trip to Leicester and my mate (not the one with Bonkers 1 and 2) had already bought Bonkers 4 and we listened to it on his discman. 

There were 2 things on that day in Leicester that would suggest happy hardcore was in decline. We went into a record shop which had every dance music genre you could think of in their except happy hardcore. When we asked if they had any they laughed. I also picked up a flyer for the next Hysteria event and there was no happy hardcore there, room 1 was drum & bass and room 2 was garage.

We listened to the Hixxy mix and I have to say I was not impressed. My memory of it was crappy vocal track after crappy vocal track. We didn't bother with the Sharkey CD, he too was not a fan of trancecore/freeform and even wrote a letter to Dream magazine complaining about it along with complaining about MC Magika. It never got published, the fact Magika was one of the people running the magazine might have had something to do with that.

It was all on Dougal to deliver. Unfortunately that seemed a pretty poor mix too. A few listens on my mates discman to both Hixxy and Dougal CDs made me decide I wasn't going to buy this album. 

Fortunately I now have the benefit of being able to listen to it on YouTube at my own leisure. First up the Hixxy mix. It didn't start the way I expected, the first 3 tracks are hard trance records from Germany as opposed to happy hardcore and they're all decent. Track 4 was by OMG which was another alias of Hixxy & Sunset regime and I was expecting this to be a crappy vocal track, but no this one sounds more hard trance than happy hardcore.

Track 5 on the other hand is where we go into vocal happy hardcore. This is how I remembered it and they were the sort of tunes that made me think happy hardcore was going down the pan. Then suddenly the mix bursts back into life with "Equazion Pt.9" by Q-Tex. The momentum is kept by "U & Me" by 2 Without Heads and "Don't Go Away" by Visa, admittedly both cheesy vocal tracks but great fun. Then it gets bland again. It ends with "Better Days" by Devil Licious (aka Hixxy & Sunset Regime) which is a vocal version of "Happy Days" by Antisocial (aka Hixxy & Sunset Regime) which I'd probably like more if the instrumental didn't exist.

Less than half the tracks on the Hixxy mix are from Essential Platinum and whilst I only really like half the tunes I do think there's a good variety on there.

The Sharkey mix is predictably another trancecore/freeform yawn fest. I've listened a few times but I'm still struggling to remember any of the tunes, so we'll move on.

The Dougal mix is very much flying the flag for Essential Platinum with 11 of the 17 tracks from the label. There's also "Shooting Star" and "Sailaway" by Bang!, "Eye Opener" by Brisk & Trixxy and "Feelin Fine" by Unique which are all records I liked but were played to death at raves at the time. But I'm starting to understand why, there was little else of quality to play.

A remix of "Zurich" is the only non-vocal record on the entire Dougal mix. It's not all bad outside the anthems though. Towards the end of the mix we have "My Dreams" by Sub Ace & Aura, "Sweet Thing" by The Projek and "The Universe" by Innovate.

The latter is one of several tunes on both Bonkers 3 and 4 by Dougal plus others with Jenna on vocals, who was Dougal's girlfriend at the time. Jenna had previously been the female vocalist on a number of Force & Styles records including "Funfair" which may be the only record I prefer the vocal version to the instrumental. Jenna is a singer I've always rated, but "The Universe" is the only one with Dougal from this era that's really worked in my opinion. 

As 1998 went on I started to broaden my horizons outside of rave. By the time Bonkers 5 came out later on in the year I'd more or less stopped listening to happy hardcore so buying it wasn't even on my radar. Yet it was the first Bonkers album that I went to the shop and bought in it's entirely. More on that next week.