Happy 2b Hardcore
| Happy 2b Hardcore | ||||
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| Compilation album (DJ mix album) by Anabolic Frolic | ||||
| Released | 21 January 1997 | |||
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| Length | 66:12 | |||
| Label | Moonshine Music | |||
| Producer | Various | |||
| Anabolic Frolic chronology | ||||
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| AllMusic |   |
Happy 2b Hardcore is a DJ mix album by Canadian DJ Anabolic Frolic. It was released in 1997 on American breakbeat label Moonshine Music and is the first series in Frolic's Happy 2b Hardcore series of DJ mix albums, documenting the emergence of happy hardcore music in the United Kingdom and Europe. The series itself is a spin-off of Moonshine's Speed Limit 140 BPM+ series of fast-tempo dance music compilations. The album was conceived to introduce American audiences to happy hardcore, and contains sixteen of the genre's anthems which carry many of happy hardcore's defining characteristics, such as fast tempo, frantic breakbeats, major key tonality, off-kilter, quirky keyboard effects and "semi-melodies."
Moonshine had modest anticipations for the album and their numerous promotional campaigns involved arranging for Frolic to promote the album on radio, a "whirlwind" of attention which took Frolic by surprise. The album was a surprise success, selling over 100,000 copies, a remarkable amount for a compilation of underground music. It is credited with helping increase the genre's spread in the United States and for inspiring Frolic's Hullabaloo happy hardcore rave in 1997, the first of its kind in the United States. Critics welcomed the album as a great introduction to happy hardcore, and Ned Raggett later named it the 102nd best album of the 1990s.
Happy hardcore emerged largely in the United Kingdom in the mid-1990s, characterised by a very fast tempo (usually around 160–180 BPM), often matched with solo vocals and sentimental lyrics, and also by a generally major key tone, 4/4 beat "happy" sound distinguishes it from most other forms of hardcore, which tend to be "darker". Initially, the genre was often additionally characterized by piano riffs, spacey sounds and synthetic stabs. In the UK, the long-running Bonkers series of happy hardcore DJ mix albums was the most popular happy hardcore compilation series, beginning in 1996 with an inaugural edition mixed by Hixxy and DJ Sharkey.
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