~ Trance Out ~
Leave this tired genre to the trendy and aim for real innovation
~ By DENNIS ROMERO ~
~ Change it up: Even trance king Tiesto has altered his style ~
I’ve been avoiding it for some time, hiding this festering hatred behind my general love for all God’s genres. But I have to come out of the closet: I’m an anti-trancite.
In the beginning, I was wooed by the cyclone energy of early-’90s post-techno trance (namely that of Sven Väth and his Harthouse label). Then I was taken by the romantic, ivory strokes of BT and Robert Miles. (Who could deny the elegant innocence of the artists’ Ima and “Children,” respectively?) Then, West Coast trance acts such as Sandra Collins, Deepsky, and Christopher Lawrence added driving, aggressive, straight-line momentum to the loopy, synthetic sound. It was hard not to be uplifted by this California wave.
But by the millennium, trance had melted down into an ecstasy-fueled orgy of synth arpeggios-gone-wild. If there’s good trance out there today, I’d like to know where to find it. It certainly isn’t in the super-clubs, where Armani Exchange-adorned dorks with glow sticks and bottle-service tables have turned the trance scene into a satire about the shallowness of contemporary capitalism.
Trance has come to embody the prog-rock-like excesses of the global club scene. While the image of overpaid DJs playing other people’s music for legions of glow-stickers is an old joke, it’s still a reality in trance. Nearly three years after the British indie film It’s All Gone Pete Tong sent up superstar-DJ culture for the vacuous farce it usually is, hands-in-the-air trance jocks are still dominating dance culture. Dutch trance icons vied once again for supreme position in the annual DJ Magazine Top 100 DJs poll – Armin van Buuren beat Tiesto – and Billboard dubiously dubbed Tiesto the dance-music story of 2007. Billboard was dead wrong. Daft Punk’s resurrection, the indie-kid invasion, and the hip-hop/dance reunion (via Kanye West’s sampling of Daft Punk on “Stronger”) overshadowed trance by far last year. The trade publication’s proclamation was, however, classically human, embracing the familiar, cash-register-ringing genre of trance over a fresh flood of indie hipsters who invaded clubland in search of the new. The fact that the millennial-generation kids were drawn to the dance-punk side of things – Justice, LCD Soundsystem, Simian Mobile Disco – should foreshadow the impending demise of trance.
Much in the way Sasha Frere-Jones describes the white flight of indie rock in his fall New Yorker essay “A Paler Shade of White,” trance represents an ultra-white, soulless faction of clubland, far removed from the black rhapsody of core dance music. Just as most contemporary rock has abandoned its black roots, ultra-synthetic trance is miles away from its daddy – Detroit techno. Trance long ago made it safe for white, suburban kids with spiky hair and momma-bought gear to indulge a once-ghetto pursuit: DJing. While there’s nothing wrong with embracing white audiences, trance has done so to an unhealthy extreme. Point out the black guy at a trance show, and I’ll buy him a drink. It’s a cheesy scene, one abandoned long ago by the American dance-music trade magazines, ranging from URB to BPM to XLR8R. L.A.’s leading super-club, Avalon, went so far as to quietly close its doors to trance for its recent “Fall Winter Series” of DJ performances. Good looking out.
Perhaps worse than the wannabe rock-star spinners and ecstasy-fueled audiences trance attracts, however, is the music itself. If electronic dance music is a beacon for the future path of pop music, trance has become an anchor of same-old sounds. In recent years even its leading men – Tiesto, Armin van Buuren, Paul van Dyk, and Ferry Corsten – have eschewed the typical trance sound for more muted, approachable tones on their artist albums. BT long ago left the genre he helped to define; onetime Madonna producer William Orbit, likewise, left trance for more quasi-classical leanings. They know: The ultra-arpeggiated sound of trance hasn’t much evolved in the decade since it first appeared. And still, at their mega-hyped DJ shows, stars such as Tiesto, van Buuren, and van Dyk spin trance at its most audacious and grating – all victory signs, sky-high strings, and thin, jack-rabbit kick drums. If you’re not on ecstasy, you won’t get it.
It’s un-e-music-like to embrace the staid. It’s 2008. Time to face the (new) music, and move on.
01-03-08
Last edited by TSG on Jan-03-2008 at 06:45
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F, Lawrence, Stoneface & Terminal, Markus Schulz, PvD, Taj, and Dirtyhertz sets I caught... although the last 3 dont just play trance 
I think I was at 1015 every Saturday of last year except when I was out of town and those nights are mostly trance. I will admit that AvB and A&B to name a few were not to exciting if not boring the last 2-3 times I've caught them. Just sounded like the top tracks everyone else drops... 
It was actually full blown ARMADA (damn I'm so tired of Jenifer Renes voice) or Anjuna* tracks at times, anyone else see a label war here? 
While I know PvD does the same at least he mixes up a bit and makes things a bit more interesting than the others at least for me. Seeing him multitask behind the decks has been an awesome privilege for me at 1015. And as much as I dislike Anthem it was actually nice hearing it live w/o the vocals in Central Park but please stop dropping this track 
