By 1990, techno had become a catch-all term denoting anything less traditionally soulful than house music. Hardcore techno was the first fully fledged genre of European rave music. DJ's in Holland were taking techno tracks that were meant to be played on 33 RPM and pumping them up to 45 RPM instead, creating beats that often exceeded 200 beats per minute.

As early as 1989, DJ duo Fabio & Grooverider were experimenting in a similar way. They conducted experiments with house music records that employed breakbeats and sped them up to similar speeds of 200 beats per minute. They did this with records that had noticeable breakbeats such as music produced on the "Shut Up & Dance" record label and songs like "Humanoid" by Stakker. This sort of experimentation help pave the way to the rise of UK Hardcore.

UK Hardcore was then influenced by Prodigy's 1991 anthem "Charly" and Acen's 1992 "Trip To The Moon." This new style served as the introductory rave sound in many North American cities. In cities like Chicago & New York the influential sound was house music but in suburban areas and rural towns, hardcore was the first "techno" heard by most people. And raves soon began cropping up all around the United States, including cities like Pittsburgh, Dallas, and Milwaukee. By the end of 1993 hardcore fizzled out in most of those towns as their local flavors emerged.

In Canada, Toronto took on an "all hardcore" personality. Ravers and party promoters essentially copied everything that was going on in England and between 1991 & 1993, England raves were huge on the new hardcore sound. Don Burns (aka Dr. Trance) had a notion to take raving in a commercial direction with an idea that rave music was for "mass enjoyment." He wanted to spread culture and did this through the use of Toronto's airwaves. Burns was a figureman in a seven partner company called Nitrous - the same company that hosted events in the CN Tower and the Ontario Science Museum.

In 1993 there was a concensus that hardcore was becoming too mainstream as the music was brushing airwaves throughout the US, Canada & Britain. Some producers began to develop what was at the time known as darkcore by stripping the elements of hardcore and making it "darker" with less pitched up vocals. All of the euphoric and happy elements were taken from it. This was the beginning of jungle. In response to this movement a different group of producers took the "happy" elements from oldskool hardcore to create happy hardcore.

With the rise of hardcore came an influx of drug use in the rave culture. The whistles and toys that were first seen in England at Danny Rampling's Shoom events became prominent everywhere hardcore was represented. Children's party accessories like glowsticks were suddenly also very popular and dancers began wearing excessively large T-shirts, wooly hats and children's bookbags.

In 1994 the Criminal Justice Act was passed which led to the crackdown of many illegal raves, outlawing them and preventing a large number of massives from taking place. This law also increased police powers of unsupervised "stop & search" along with an entire section that covered collective trespass & nuisance on land as well as a dedicated section to raves.

This episode is a look at some vital hardcore tunes that were released between 1991-1994.

Tracklisting:

Prodigy - No Good
Codene - Hilton Park
Vol 2 - Turbo Sound
Ramos & Supreme - Crowd Control
Prodigy - Out Of Space
Subdoh - Seduction
Yolk - Bish Bosh
Unknown - Mayday Anthem
Tyrrany - Off Me Head
Unity - Unity (FSOL remix)