Happy hardcore
Haha just had a flashback to my youth and started trying to find new happy hardcore releases… Seriously anyone have anything to go on?
my wife wants me to mix some HHC for her so I went a searching and discovered that they now call it nightcore, or at least that’s the closet sounding to what I heard around late 90’s.
UK Hardcoreis another name for HHC. HMU via PM.
I wanna be a hippy 
lol, classic.
If you want an idea of the stuff that is out there, particularly UK hardcore, I’d recommend checking out DJ Cotts who does a weekly radio show for HappyHardcore.com. All of his shows get posted to his soundcloud page, and he also has a fairly active Youtube channel with loads of extremely high quality video mixes showcasing new & upcoming releases. Plus, being a huge supporter of the hardcore scene in general, all of his posted mixes have track lists and/or video annotations with the artists/track names/label details.
In my opinion he is one of the best sources for getting a taste of what is currently out there, and his sheer energy & enthusiasm that comes through in his mixes (particularly the videos) are very representative of the scene as a whole.
I’ve been a fan of happy hardcore for around 10 years now (here in the UK) and there is so much cool hardcore music being produced these days that as someone who’s into a lot of different dance music genres, I am finding it difficult to keep on top of- exactly the way it should be! 
Nice will check it out lol I think last tome I really listened to any was back in like 97-99
Yup that’s the sound I was looking for… What I’d expect the progression of it to sound like however it still has same kinda bubblegum sound it did then
Found this thread now, funny, I went through some of the old happy hardcore tracks I used to listen to. My music preferences has changed a bit since then (late 90s), but quite fun to take a trip down memory lane.
i just pictured high pitched male vocals in the vein of a chipmunk 0_0
Ah yes… Technohead… Flamman & Abraxas… The same people that were behind Party Animals and Patrick Jumpen.
This, and nightcore, is what I’m gonna go check!
Dj cotts YouTube channel is by far exactly what I was looking for… High pitched female vocals real bubble gum cheese sound hard kills and drops… lol I should pickup some tracks and see if I can still mix this shit haha… I was never a big fan of hardcore/gabber I felt it was just way too over the top the and lacked any melodic sounds… Much the same as hard trance lacked a lot of the progression epic trance had but hard trance as enjoyable for me more then hard style or gabber or hardcore
I always enjoyed the happy / feelgood vibe on happy hardcore.
(That’s why I’m still getting ecstatic over the Live at London vinyl by Charlie Lownoise and Mental Theo when I drop it on the TTs)
I used to like the large raves where there would be a hardcore stage, Jungle stage, Trance and so on. I couldn’t take hardcore for 24 hours but for 3~4 hours at a time it was just fun but I would always need an ear chases after it.
Yeah I agree that’s kinda what I grew up going to were the multi genre ones there’d be a few stages normally 3+
I never minded any of the warehouse jungle parties I went to… Personally I’ve never cared to mix jungle/d&b but never minded listening to it…
@lucidstrings
Bootlegs aside, it’s less bubblegum but still fun/melodic/handsintheair sounding. Futureworld (the label) is kind of the more “serious/mainstream” side of hardcore. It tends to be a bit more dnb/dubstep/electro influenced than what hardcore traditionally sounds like.
Artists I’d recommend: Outforce, Joey Riot, Gammer, Darren Styles, Fracus & Darwin, Al Storm. You’ll pretty much get the full spectrum of hardcore with these guys.
Labels I’d recommend: GTYM (Go Tell Ya Momma), Futureworld, Lethal Theory, Hardcore Underground. All labels of the aforementioned artists.
If you’re looking for new mixes, I just put out a new one that kinda covers all bases if you’re interested.
Those are exactly the feeling it used to have. I must have just been looking in the wrong places because when I looked for hardcore stuff it was all a lot darker.
I find there is quite a lot of crossover (even with the same artists) into the ‘nu-energy’ sound which is kind of the fast bpm of hardcore with the sounds of trance/hard trance. I love it, but it is certainly a lot darker than the UK hardcore sound.
The gabber sound seemed to get really popular in the hardcore scene back in around 2008, loads of the raves we went to had whole rooms playing nothing else! But it’s popularity seems to have declined again since then, and as a further bonus the quality of the normal hardcore stuff just keeps getting better & better.
As mentioned in my previous post, if you like both hardcore & trance then the nu-energy sound is well worth checking out. It’s like a perfect fusion with the speed of hardcore & the melodic buildups of trance. As someone who was really into the hard trance scene back in the early 2000s I absolutely love it. I’ve found that hard trance these days has gone far too much down the hardstyle route, being all about the crazy loud bass lines and harsh sound effects. Nu-energy has a lot more in common with the older hard trance stuff (all the Tidy/Tidy Trax releases etc), it’s just generally faster.