It was every record store clerk’s biggest headache. The customer was in his late teens, perhaps early 20s. He was dressed in baggy raver jeans, with a skate brand t-shirt and baseball cap. All crisp and new. He was looking for a style of electronic music he could only refer to as “hardcore house.”

The year was 1999, and I had found myself working at a record store in suburban Detroit well known for its dance music selection. The American rave scene was hitting an apex, and because of that, my coworkers and I were used to dealing with newbs to the music.

I knew that a specialist store like ours could be intimidating to the uninitiated. It had only been a few years since I’d first braved the massive stacks of vinyl myself, utterly unfamiliar with the thousands of names that appeared printed on the sleeves. What sort of music did these mystery discs contain? How would I learn these thousands of new artists and imprints? Most importantly, how could I identify the records that contained the music I had so recently and deeply fallen for, heard for the first time in warehouse parties, devoid of any clear descriptive characteristics? It wasn’t like you could hum these tunes (thump-thump-pew-pew-PEW) or recite the lyrics of these mainly instrumental cuts. It felt like something you had to know. And if you had to ask…

Empathizing with the enthusiastic consumer, I tried my best to identify what he was talking about. Our well-sorted selection contained a few “hardcore” records, which in electronic music terms meant fast, heavy and aggressive beats—almost metal-esque in its aesthetic. There was also “happy hardcore,” which took ridiculously sped-up breakbeats and added chipmunk vocal samples to the blend. It only took a few seconds of each to realize this wasn’t the “hardcore house” in question.

Focusing on the “House” portion of the description, I pulled a few records from Bad Boy Bill, an upbeat DJ from Chicago who was a huge draw in the area and often one of the first DJs that new fans were drawn towards. My client spent a few moments with each record before sheepishly admitting this wasn’t quite what he was looking for either.

Sensing my growing frustration at his inarticulate description of the music he wanted but that’s name he did not know, the customer offered to just browse a bit on his own. I agreed to let him explore and excused myself to go back to the cash register.

Several minutes passed when, out of the corner of my eye, I caught the customer excitedly nodding his head at the listening station, clutching the headphones against his ears. I walked over at took a glimpse at the rotating sticker at the center of the record. It was a track by local techno hero Richie Hawtin—a stone cold classic of the techno genre to be sure. I chuckled as just as surely no one had ever called that record “hardcore house” before.