THE UK SCENE

In 1988/89 - which was the beginning of the UK dance and rave scene - the first people knew of real dance music as we know it today was through pirate radio. In particularly in London there was Kiss 94FM (before it became legal and moved to 100FM), and there was Centreforce. Both of these stations individually had a following that was greater than any official radio station. And the reason why? They played music like no other - which was the original Chicago and Detroit House from the USA, and tunes of a style that even to this day don't have a label.

Unless you were a club DJ back then laying your hands on the tunes was impossible. The public had to make do with albums like the 'Deep Heat' series - which started off as House albums but quite frankly carried a bit of everything - even trashy pop. However, if you listen through old House albums of that period you may hear tinges of what was to become Rave and Hardcore. For example - tunes like Silver bullet's '20 seconds to comply' (which was effectively a rap track) carried a Hardcore beat used in many a Rave tune.

1990 brought with it 'fad' music that had the shortest life-span ever - Italian House. The Italians had created their own brand of House containing sharp vocals and rolling beats, and after what appeared to be a tiny bit of interest in the UK the music stores suddenly became flooded with it - most of it making the pop chart. Tunes like JD's 'Good Vibrations' and the 49ers' 'Touch Me' were played at many a Rave and always went down a storm.

Chasing up from the rear were acts like K-Klass with 'Rhythm Is A Mystery', and Moby with his unforgettable 'Go'. The lovers of smooth dance could listen to class acts like The Beat Club, who made an absolute classic with 'Security'.

During 1991 Hardcore music exploded onto the dance scene, being promoted by pirate radio stations at the time, and thankfully for all of us the 'cashing-in' acts like Technotronic, the KLF (I liked them too), and Jive Bunny all died a death.

Hardcore music followed the same style for nearly 2 years, then the music makers found that by adding pounding bass-lines they could create moody minor chords giving the music an amazing effect. The music was to become known as 'Dark'. Most Dark tracks have vocals of some sort in them, and some even have an MC doing their 'thang' throughout the whole track. Tunes like DJ Ed Rush's 'Bludclot Artattack' and Foul Play's 'Open Your Mind' were pounded out across pirate radio airwaves, and the ravers lapped up as much as they could.

During 1994/95 the music scene took a bizarre twist. The House scene had continued regardless of the Hardcore and Rave scene, but like most styles had itself evolved into two styles - House and Garage. The Hardcore and Dark scene then evolved into Happy Hardcore (as it is known now) and Drum & Bass. Drum & Bass evolved into Jungle shortly afterwards.

During 1995 the Happy Hardcore scene was seriously underground - going through a stage of maturity for a year or so before it became available to the mainstream. Today most Happy Hardcore music is made by the same DJ's who sometimes collaborate together to produce their tunes. They have a huge following in the UK now (and quite a large Internet presence) and 1998 looks set to be the year that Happy Hardcore becomes REALLY big.

Dark music is now well and truly dead. The Jungle scene seems to have slowed a lot over the last year or so and the music is going back underground, with the focus on the House and Garage music. A new hybrid style has evolved from Garage called Speed Garage (although those in the Garage industry hate the 'Speed' tag). Recent acts like Double 99 with 'R.I.P. Groove' and most of Todd Terry's latest tracks have taken the Speed Garage style and it is being well received by the public at the moment.

December 1997.

Update: Right, over the past couple of years this section has caused quite a lot of debate. Some people spotted some mistakes (thank you for letting me know), and some people have completely disagreed with what was said. At the end of the day I still believe it is a fair representation of how events took place (it's how I remember it anyway), but if you want to do a re-write please let me know rather than just argue the toss over minor issues. For anybody interested in the UK scene: Speed garage never really took off in the way that I'd hoped it would; Happy Hardcore is now getting more diffcult to purchase which is causing it to go back underground; 1999 was the year of trance (and I thoroughly enjoyed it); and although there was an 'old skool' revival during 1999 it never really got off the ground which was a shame. Oh well ...

January 2000.

THE US/CANADIAN SCENE

This section was supposed to be created by Hektic - but I've been waiting for over a year so I reckon I've been let down (a bit of sarcasm there I think). Would anybody from the US/Canada like to write a short summary of the scene for this page? Please let me know. Of course you will get full credit for your work. Thanks.