The Current State of Trance Music?

[Max Kane]

We haven't had an indepth discussion for a while on an issue that is so wide ranging we could go on forever, so I thought it high time we did (plus Briggsy hasn't had an excuse to write an essay for a while!).

I got to thinking about where trance music sits currently whilst on a long and tedious drive the other day and it quite saddended me how my passion for it is wilting to a point where I really couldn't care less anymore

I don't wana turn this into an auto-biography but put simply I've grown extraordinarily tired of a lot of aspects of 'the scene' and wondered how our loyal clientel are feeling?

I'm sure (as this is a Judge Jules board) we all came here with some alignment and affinity to trance music. I know that a core of the board still loves their trance but, while not wanting to go on a glory years style reminiscence, trance is about as dull to me now as it has ever been.

I guess my tastes have changed (which is inevitable) but even so I still loved going to trance nights up until around 12 months ago, now I really find myself apathetic towards doing so.

From my personal point of view I just don't see any promotions, events or specifically DJs to get excited about at the moment.

I found myself typing paragraph after paragraph so I will summise and just say that, from my point of view, the producers and DJs in the past that kept my attention (Markus Schulz, Paul van Dyk, Armin, Marco V, Sander van Doorn, Gareth Emery, Jon O'Bir, Gabriel & Dresden, Above & Beyond, Anjunabeats, Coldharbour, Electronic Elements, etc) have.. well... to be honest just gone shit!

I feel my resentment of the way Anjuna has gone down the pan is what has brought a lot of this on but I now find myself having little or nothing to do with trance at all. Even the Prog Trance which I so loved is as stale as hell (I could name on one hand the number of artists that still seem relevant) and I find my sets now have pretty much nothing at all which could be considered 'trance' in any way.

With Briggsy's 'retirement' and the board DJs diversifying all the time I just wondered how we all view things?

Oh go on, have a vent! Lets see if we can't have some fisticuffs!

[Number2Fan]

Personally I'm bored of trance now. I realised this when I went to last years Global. Don't get me wrong I still love the old tunes with an absolute passion, I hold many older trance DJs in great esteem. J00F, Jules, Ornadal blah blah, including Armin and Tiesto when they were starting out, but now given the choice between a new trance set or a new DnB or Dubstep step I wouldn't pick trance, in fact I didn't.

The last trance tune I genuinely wanted to play over and over was 'find yourself' and now I don't even listen to Jules anymore. After many years of regular listening I can't understand why he plays some of the records he's playing now. There are occasional good trance tunes popping up but none of them can evoke the gut churning feeling I'd get in 'the old days'

Of course I'm not that young and really lived through the most amazing trance years and so may have been spoiled, if I were a new listener now I would probably feel differently. I feel the same way about house, rave, old skool, jungle and even pop. I do believe trance has now run it's course though, just the same as those other genres.

And as with Pop I just feel like it's either rubbish or I've heard it all before, only better.

[Number2Fan]

Tried to edit in Hard House into that post but it's impossible on the iPhone. So stick it in yourself just after House.

[Quadrant]

I've always been more a music collector than a raver, but we have been saying for years that the digital boom has brought a strong feeling of dilution to the dance music market. We all have our niche loves within House and Trance and their many sub-genres - perhaps this feeling is just reaching deeper now.

There are perhaps one or two gems a week which take a long while to seek out and add to the collection, and most of those I get from listening to people's mixes on here. That's no way as much as I used to find!

We must not discard our Trance love; we must just look harder and filter out the samey tunes in order to find the gems.

[milkybarkid]

Right, here's my take on it.

It's a weird one probably contrary to the common consensus, but bear with me. I sold my decks back in 2002 after 5 years due to financial/ personal issues, and from about 2004/5 onwards, I stopped listening to as much dance. I never lost my love for the older stuff and continued to go back to that frequently, but I just wasn't half as interested or excited about current trance at that time, so I drifted away from staying 'current', while expanding my dance music tastes from mainly listening to trance. Then last year, my circumstances allowed that I could buy decks again, the first time I'd used them since I sold my vinyl ones. After much debate, I went for it at the end of the summer last year, and bought some cdjs. Much of my toiling over the issue was the fact that I wasn't sure if I'd like current trance, or would I just move on to some other style and would I still feel the same love I had before. Nevertheless, I still loved dance, even if it wasn't trance that I grew up on, so thought if I didn't like trance, I could find plenty I would like.

So, a few months in, I have to say, I'm loving a lot of stuff at the minute. In fact, I'm re-discovering a newfound taste for trance. Ironically enough, this is fuelled by people who are the subject of a lot of debate on here recently, Arty, Mat Zo. It's probably almost exclusively the fact that I've almost had a complete trance blank for a few years, but possibly this is why they are so popular to newcomers?

That said, I find it very similar to what someone else has said, for every one decent tune there is, there's twenty crap ones. So many tunes start off promising, only to be let down by another Rank1/ generic trance riff that's been done to death. It's so frustrating. Another thing I noticed (and this may be just me), but too much emphasis is put on production now, rather than the tune itself. So many times recently I've heard tunes that had so much gloss and effects, but no substance. A lot of them don't have the playback feature after a certain period of time too, although this is surely also a product of over-saturation of the market.

Overall, I enjoy a good techno tune, or electro tune as much as a trance tune at the minute, which is something I thought I'd never say, but I still think there's some quality trance about. As was said before, it just takes a lot more searching to find it.

[leonard1one]

This might seem overly simplistic, but I think it comes down to the law of diminishing returns. What you have had a lot of becomes samey, and you like it less. Or get totally fed up with. There's only a certain level of real variation and newness you can get within any given genre of music. I love Dance music from chill out to techno - not hard techno, it's just an annoying racket. But I also really like good hip hop, R&B, rock, heavy rock etc. Variety is the spice of life. Dance is my biggest love. But if I just listened to Dance I think it would eventually become stale for me. That's just natural. More often becomes less. But I still believe there will be more good trance tunes. As someone has said we will just have to look harder for them.

[Max Kane]

I've always enjoyed a massive range of music. I still listen to a whole host of genres and to be honest I save dance music for DJing (by and large).

[JasonB]

I listened to anjuna worldwide with activa yesterday and found the full 2 hours quite boring, he played all samey stuff, he might as well just banged out all his own productions and remixes really, would sound the same!

I listen to Jules and TATW each week, theres some good trance about and some average, I don't buy any more really though.

[leonard1one]

I wrote a post on this topic using a smart phone. It was incredibly insightful, a work of pure genius, and I think provided all the answers to all of the ills of the Dance scene. But though I had signed in, when I came to post it I had become signed out. So it is lost forever. If I write another post and it's total bollocks don't blame me

[Neuro]

I wrote a post on this topic using a smart phone. It was incredibly insightful, a work of pure genius, and I think provided all the answers to all of the ills of the Dance scene. But though I had signed in, when I came to post it I had become signed out. So it is lost forever. If I write another post and it's total bollocks don't blame me

There is a mechanism in the board software to cater for this. If you try to reply to a thread without logging on, you'll get an error message but underneath you will also be presented with your post in a text box so you can copy it there and then, for pasting later. Sorry if you lost your post though.... it's annoying when that happens.

[Tremor]

I still manage to find plenty of Trance that I like each month and hence the monthly mixes keep coming. One thing I have noticed though is that if I'm honest I couldn't name many tunes that I played in a set say a couple of months ago when listening to it back. This is the problem with the MP3 market. I tend to find tunes that are good enough to buy because the cost of a track is so little compared to when I bought vinyl. However, there is no longevity to tunes any more. They are here one minute, gone the next. If I played a monthly mix I did from my vinyl days I'd still be able to tell you every track name, artist, remix and label just from hearing a short sample because I played those tunes over and over, not just once or twice to feature in the latest monthly mix. I spent a lot of money on those vinyls so it goes without saying it would be imprinted on my memory for years. Now there is no physical item to hold and look at when you buy a tune and I rarely bother thinking about the artist and title etc except when making the tracklists.

I think all this says something about the current state of trance. It is an over saturated market and as many others have said, it becomes harder and harder to find the gems. Those gems will be the rare tunes that I will know the name, artist, label etc from hearing a short snippet even a good few months after it was out. That for me is now the test of a good tune - how much impact does it really have on me long term.

[Number2Fan]

There is a mechanism in the board software to cater for this. If you try to reply to a thread without logging on, you'll get an error message but underneath you will also be presented with your post in a text box so you can copy it there and then, for pasting later. Sorry if you lost your post though.... it's annoying when that happens.

That 'mechanism' doesn't work very well on iThings. However, I have noticed now that mine stays logged in, which is much better. X

[Max Kane]

I still manage to find plenty of Trance that I like each month and hence the monthly mixes keep coming. One thing I have noticed though is that if I'm honest I couldn't name many tunes that I played in a set say a couple of months ago when listening to it back. This is the problem with the MP3 market. I tend to find tunes that are good enough to buy because the cost of a track is so little compared to when I bought vinyl. However, there is no longevity to tunes any more. They are here one minute, gone the next. If I played a monthly mix I did from my vinyl days I'd still be able to tell you every track name, artist, remix and label just from hearing a short sample because I played those tunes over and over, not just once or twice to feature in the latest monthly mix. I spent a lot of money on those vinyls so it goes without saying it would be imprinted on my memory for years. Now there is no physical item to hold and look at when you buy a tune and I rarely bother thinking about the artist and title etc except when making the tracklists.

I think all this says something about the current state of trance. It is an over saturated market and as many others have said, it becomes harder and harder to find the gems. Those gems will be the rare tunes that I will know the name, artist, label etc from hearing a short snippet even a good few months after it was out. That for me is now the test of a good tune - how much impact does it really have on me long term.

Very much agree with this.

It links in to the ealier mentioned 'disposable' nature of music now. Producers can simply saturate the market with tracks or remixes (Deadmau5, Gareth Emery and countless others) to get their name out there and quality suffers.

Lables can take chances on inferior tracks because it is so easy to put them out there - they hardly even need artwork anymore! Back in the days of vinyl you had to invest in a track a lot more and hence quality was much higher

[Briggsy]

Briggsy hasn't had an excuse to write an essay for a while!

Briggsy hardly bothers coming on at all now even to write one line

But back on topic - I've been bored of Trance for a while. I'll stay clear of essays and just put points as to why:

1. Everyone (even those that used to produce 'boshy' tunes) has slowed down - the 140bpm peak-time sets have been replaced with 132-136bpm sets.

2. The majority of Trance tunes all sound the same now. I can think of at least 7 DJs that I know of on other forums that have paid either Steve Allen or Ben Nicky to produce a tune for them. No wonder they all sound the same.

3. You have to trawl through 100 shit tunes now before you find one gem. MP3 stores have too many labels and producers signed that aren't up to scratch. That's the downside to the MP3 era.

4. Far too many tunes that have vocals for the sake of having vocals. I don't want to hear 300 Anjuna-esque fanny Trancers with vocalists warbling on about the sky falling down or Satellites.

That is all. Thank you please

[Max Kane]

Briggsy hardly bothers coming on at all now even to write one line

I was only winding you up mate.

Touchy

[Craig Bradley]

Paul van dyks remix of the hurts sunday is really good reminds me of the old stuff

[Max Kane]

Trance tends to go through trends. When it started it was very melodically driven, then it got a bit bangin, then techy and percussive, then back to melodic.

I find myself loving alot of the slower and more proggy Trance these days. I tend to play anything from 128 to 133 bpm at the mo, and anjunadeep stuff seems to be quite popular.

Alot of artists have dramatically decreased their bpm, noticeable dj's like Martin Roth and Rank1.

Lange was also quoted saying "132bpm seems to be the new 135bpm".

There's also an amazing array of talent that has shined through the trance scene in the last year and continue to evolve the trance sound, such artists like Matt Zo and Arty are taking productions to a fresh new intelligent level.

I think that's part of the problem though.

Nights have no flow anymore as all the peak time DJs want to play more and more prog influenced tracks and productions.

The warm-up acts can only go so slow and you end up with a night that never really gets going (in my experience).

I like the fact that music evolves and changes but inevitably this change leads to some people falling out of love with the music at the same time as new fans are attracted.

Beatportal did an excellent piece the other day about trance music and the current popularity of it (in mainstream terms), which highlighted that producers seem to be adopting the Guetta model of selling out.

I mean come on (no pun intended by the way) how can anyone think that Busta Rhymes sounds good on that Tiesto and Diplo record? It just sounds so forced and contrived!

[Max Kane]

I'm not querying anyone's taste here - please don't interpret the topic as that.

Prog trance has taken it's turn at the forefront of the scene and the tracks you mentioned there Noff are all excellent.

I just feel like they should be played at 11pm instead of 3am as some DJs are currently doing

[Max Kane]

It says a lot that Markus Schulz plays so late at The Gallery.

For me (and this is purely personal) he was so much better when he played more prog stuff and less tech-infused material (which he does now).

[Briggsy]

Nights have no flow anymore as all the peak time DJs want to play more and more prog influenced tracks and productions.

The warm-up acts can only go so slow and you end up with a night that never really gets going (in my experience).

Yeah, this has been my major gripe for a while - and one of the reasons why i'm not arsed about clubbing regularly any more. I used to love clubbing - but now I get bored very easily - simply because the nights don't really progress or offer any diversity.

When i'm clubbing, I like a bit of everything. I like a good proggy warm-up set, an 'intermediate' DJ such as Schulz to follow - (by intermediate - I mean, not full-on prog, but not really Trancey either), then a bit of melodic Trance towards the middle of the night, then full-on driving Trance or 'bosh' towards the end of the night. That would be the perfect flow for me. Too much of anything gets boring after a while.

Tyas at 11pm (Godskitchen stylee) is just wrong - and Schulz at 3am is also wrong.

The 'A-list' DJs all want to play at peak-time (even though they may not be suited to that time - ie, Schulz or Josh Gabriel) - and the promotors haven't got the balls to say "well actually mate, you're a 4am DJ - so either play then, or we'll find someone else that suits that time and is happy to play at that time". As someone else said, there only seems to be the Ministry of Sound that can get it right. Passion aren't too bad - but Gods are abysmal for set times (although if I said that on the Hardwick board, it would be heavily defended).

If a DJ isn't available for the time that they suit, or won't play at that time because they're "too big" - then sod em - don't book them - there's plenty of other options out there.

[Number2Fan]

See now I like a good housey warm up, a banging trance middle and a drum and bass finish.

[Briggsy]

See now I like a good housey warm up, a banging trance middle and a drum and bass finish.

That would be interesting - chilled out Trance fans on pills, and drum n bass fans with guns in the same tent. But which is better!....

[Number2Fan]

I'm pretty confident in betting the DnB fans would win the fight.

[Max Kane]

I'm pretty confident in betting the DnB fans would win the fight.

Hmm Above & Beyond fans vs Nicky Blackmarket fans

[Tremor]

Just proving how the trance scene can fluctuate week to week, I bought a fair number of new tunes this week all of which I think are very good. I can actually see myself playing them a fair bit. In a month's time it could just as easily be the opposite situation though.