Microgenre Moment: Hardbag

Ever wanted to throw down some obscure music knowledge to impress friends and strangers alike?  In Microgenre Moment I try my best pass along some basic Wikipedia overviews and links to relevant videos to get you up to speed on a specific sub-sub-genre of music.  I guarantee these posts will grant you the intellectual high ground in your next music-centered conversation.

"Hardbag was a genre of electronic dance music popular in the mid 1990s. Having evolved out of the handbag house scene in 1993-1994, the genre enjoyed massive, albeit brief, popularity, with several hardbag releases achieving positions in the upper echelons of the UK chart. It was at the time sometimes confused with Nu-NRG, yet the styles were discernibly different."

"The popularity of the hardbag genre reached its zenith in 1995 with releases by Candy Girls, Rollo & Sister Bliss and Mrs Wood all crossing over into the mainstream. Indeed, the sound began to meld with happy hardcore, evident on tracks such as "Forever young" by Interactive and "Rainbow Islands"- Seb."

"By early 1997 the hardbag craze had died down, and the sound began involving into what was to eventually become UK hard house. Labels such as Tripoli Trax expounded this sound via releases such as "Bells of revolution" by Lemon 8 and "Raise your hands" by Knuckleheadz."