It’s safe to say that Happy Hardcore was seeing a rapid decline in 1999.
After years of success, it felt as though the bubble was about to burst.
The new releases often sounded like cheap imitations of what had gone before and creatively speaking it was a bit of a dry patch.
An end of an era
Most of the creativity had taken itself away from Happy Hardcore and toward the Freeform scene.
Many ravers of the time were tuned in to the latest sounds coming from the Drum and Bass scene as well.
1999 was, of course, a time which saw Trance dominating the clubs whilst the UK Garage scene was putting the final nails into the coffin of the happy go lucky rave scene.
That said, there are still a whole host of classic tracks released in 1999 and some of those are rightly remembered as all-time greats.
Take a look at Retroheadz top 20 Hardcore tracks of 1999.
The Collective – Alive
The Collective were Vinylgroover, DB7, Trixxy, The Society and Apple Mac and with this cheeky bootleg, they would write a track that has been remixed and re-released many times.
The track was renamed Kick It and was first featured on Bonkers 7.
On later releases and samples Trance Classic Liquid Child – Diving Faces.
Interstate – Vitality
Evolution Records would change the Hardcore landscape in a big way.
Yes, the Scottish label had been around for years but at the start of a new millennium, it created a template for fusing Happy Hardcore and Trance that would go on to become UK Hardcore.
Vitality was breath-taking when it came out and frankly, it still triggers Goosebumps to this day.
Trixxy – Sunrise
Trixxy is one of the most underrated producers of the Hardcore scene and Sunrise proves it. #
Sampling Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells to great effect this is an absolute monster of a track.
Worth noting that this was released on Blatant Beats, a label that’s also criminally underrated.
E-Logic – Run To Me
Anthem alert!
Run to me is a slab of classic Happy Hardcore that could easily have been released three or four years earlier but that didn’t matter.
It’s an absolute belter that had dancefloors singing along whenever it was dropped.
