Bonkers Part 11

 

As I said in my previous Bonkers post, I don't remember if I bought Bonkers 10 or 11 first but I did buy them around the same time. Of the two, it was Bonkers 11 that got more listens.

With the first 3 Bonkers albums of the 21st century by this point I've not been overly keen on the Hixxy mixes, though they all get better towards the end of the mix. With Bonkers 11 though he finally has a mix that I can enjoy listening to from beginning to end.

I'm not going to pretend it's anything other than the cheese fest it is. The opening track "Heavens Above" is incredibly cheesy and at the start I'm thinking here we go again, but at the end I'm singing along. The best track though is the 2nd one "24-7" by Eclipse aka Ham. 

The next track is from Recon who was a member of Ultrabeat, one of the acts responsible for commercial dance versions of hardcore tunes. This is him doing a hardcore tune though. 

The inevitable blip in the set comes courtesy of Ultrabeat - Feelin Fine (Darren Styles Remix). Basically Styles makes a hardcore tune, Ultrabeat turn it into a commercial dance track then Styles remixes it back into a hardcore tune. I can understand why it got included though.

In the Sharkey mix a track of note is "John Peel Is Not Enough" by CLSM. The record is about how Radio 1 had plenty of dance music shows but the only DJ to play hardcore is John Peel and his show wasn't even a dance music show. This ultimately led to Hixxy doing a mix for the John Peel show followed by a one off hardcore show on Radio 1 presented by Hixxy and Sharkey.

The highlight of the Sharkey set though is "Sounds Legit" by Brisk & Ham. Aside from that it just sounds like a typical freeform set that doesn't really do it for me.

Onto Scott Brown who's set has now extended to 19 tracks with the first 13 being hardcore and the final 6 being gabber. The stand out track in the hardcore section is the last one "Fly With You" by Scott Brown. I remember thinking what a tune the first time I heard it.

Aside from this the stand out tunes in the hardcore section are the two Brisk & Ham ones, "Angel Eyes" and "Taste The Rainbow". On that basis I shouldn't be picking a DJ who has the best set, instead the glory should go to Ham for having stand out records in all 3 sets.

Whilst I don't remember when exactly I bought Bonkers 11 I do know that the newest Bonkers at the time was Bonkers 12. Again I don't remember if I bought Bonkers 11 or Bonkers 12 first, but more on Bonkers 12 next week.