Bonkers Part 19

 

The reboot of Bonkers never went beyond one album. What came next was the next chapter which also never went beyond one album.

It had been 2 years since the last Bonkers album had been released. Over that period it's fair to say the popularity of dance music commercially had dwindled to it's lowest point. In 2009 though we were seeing what would become known as EDM. I'm not going to pretend that dreadful cheesy commercial dance music didn't exist before EDM because it did. EDM did take that aspect to a whole new level though.

Bonkers was now owned by All Around the World records and when it comes to commercial dance music that label was more or less as big as it got. 

This album was 3 CDs with Hixxy and Sharkey joined by Chris Unknown who was mixing his first Bonkers album. A notable difference is that Sharkey was CD1 and Hixxy was CD3.

The Sharkey mix is probably the cheesiest Sharkey mix I've ever heard. I'm not sure whether this is still supposed to be freeform but amongst it's tracks are a couple of Scooter remixes. The final track is titled "Freeform will Never Die" but I dare say from the perspective of a freeform fan from back in the day that it already had died if this mix is anything to go by.

Chris Unknown was once simply DJ Unknown and had been in the shadow of DJ SY for years. This takes cheesiness to another level, Sharkey's mix is much more serious in comparison.

The Hixxy mix is largely a history of set but keeping it all 21st century. A bit pointless in a way but if the music on the Sharkey and Chris Unknown mixes are the best 2009 had to offer then it's most welcome.

It had been 10 years since the dark days of 1999 when Bonkers 7 looked to be the last ever Bonkers. The 10 years that followed had it's moments, but the UK hardcore that happy hardcore evolved into generally speaking isn't my cup of tea.

There have been no Bonkers albums since but as far as I'm aware it never officially ended. Since then some of the DJs involved have kept going and others have moved on.

Hixxy has kept on going though his Raverbaby records seems to be no more with the last release coming in 2011. I got the impression from his interview on the 90s rave podcast that he's more involved in the business side of things these days.

Sharkey retired around 2011 to become a teacher as did Kevin Energy with Nu Energy coming to an end at the same sort of time.

Dougal still seems to be around but Essential Platinum records appearing to come to an end in 2012.

DJ SY stopped playing upfront hardcore in 2012 but still does old skool sets. His Quosh records ceased to exist but Chris Unknown then started UKN records which hasn't seen a release since 2014.

DJ Vibes has been seemingly semi retired since the 90s and still seems to be the case now.

Scott Brown is still going and his Evolution records still looks active albeit no 2021 releases are listed on discogs.

Darren Styles, Gammer and Recon have all moved on to EDM with Recon being one half of Camelphat who have had Top 40 hits. 

Brisk founded a sauce business and moved to Australia and Ham is still active in music but no longer makes hardcore. Next Generation records is no more.

What appears to be the case here is that hardcore scene completely fell apart around 2011/2012. Bonkers has been inactive for nearly as long as it was active for.

There are talks about a come back for Bonkers and that it won't be a nostalgia trip. Quite how it would work I don't know.

This brings us to the end of the Bonkers story so far. I'd say the best way to describe it is as the happy hardcore equivalent of Top of the Pops. It spanned different eras. Some like myself were there at the beginning but grew out of the newer music somewhere along the way. Some will have been there nearer the end and the beginning may have been before their music memories began. Some kept on going from beginning to the end.

We have our era of Top of the Pops but when we watch an old episode we find there's never one where we like every single record. Much the same with whatever our era of Bonkers was. But it's something we'll no doubt continue to go back and visit.