Bonkers Part 8

 

In 2001 I went into a random record shop and the nearest they had to happy hardcore was a United Dance 92-97 anthems record. I did however get chatting to the owner and one of his regular customers and they were optimistic that happy hardcore was on it's way back with Hixxy starting a new label called Raverbaby.

By the end of the year I'd more or less lost all interest in the scene but then in 2002 it was growing in popularity which led to the return of Bonkers. When it was released I was very much out of the loop. I'd not been to a rave for around a year and it had been even longer since I'd bought my last tape pack. I therefore saw Bonkers as an opportunity to get back into it.

What we now had what was a big 6 of record labels. The longstanding ones were Evolution which was run by Scott Brown, Quosh which was run by SY & Unknown and Next Generation which was run by Brisk & Ham. All things freeform were on Nu Energy which had several labels within it. Hixxy had Raverbaby and Dougal relaunched Essential Platinum. 

The Hixxy mix had 14 tracks on it, 11 on Raverbaby and 3 on Evolution. The opening track was a remix of "Get Into Love" which just seems pointless. The 2nd track tells us Force & Styles are no more with Styles now collaborating with Breeze with "You're Shining" which is basically a "Heart Of Gold" for the 21st century except nowhere near as good. 

The mix doesn't really come to life until track 4 which is a remix of "Elysium" called "Elysium Plus". It was now starting to remind me of the most recent raves I'd been to where "Elysium" stands out head and shoulders above the rest despite being played in pretty much every set.

Speaking of which, we have "Just Accept It" by MC Storm. I was at the Slammin Vinyl where this tune made it's debut with MC Storm himself MCing along to it. Doesn't work for me though, MCs should stick to MCing at raves.

The next tune to grab my attention was "Black Magic Bad Magic" by Styles & Breeze but we're now 3 tracks from the end of the mix. But these 3 tracks are the best in the set except perhaps "Elysium Plus".

Onto Sharkey and given freeform isn't my thing I didn't have great expectations about this set. It was filled with mostly Nu Energy records. Freeform had evolved from just sounding like sped up trance, but was still a bit on the boring side.

The final mix came from DJ SY which was an old skool set, or more precisely a set of tunes which appeared on the first 2 Bonkers albums. It was because of this that DJ SY never mixed another Bonkers album, he wasn't happy about the fact he didn't get a choice in what tunes he played.

I think this shows, despite this being from my era it was a bit disappointing. The inclusion of "Toytown" and "Steam Train" obviously didn't help.

What had become apparent from this album was that the new era of happy hardcore, or UK hardcore as it was now known wasn't really for me. The fun had been taken out of it but tunes like "You're Shining" showed it was still as cheesy as ever.

After a handful of listens this album sat un-played for almost 2 years. Then in 2004 hardcore seemed to be rising in popularity again and was getting played by John Peel on radio one. I also went to my first up front rave in years so dug out this album to listen to as a warm up to that as it was the newest hardcore I owned.

The Hixxy mix started to grow on me and I bought some newer Bonkers albums. One I didn't buy though was Bonkers 9, but thanks to the internet I've now given it a listen. More on that next week.