The first thing that comes to mind is the commercial shizzle like Vengaboys and all that. So I guess that's my answer.



On a side note, I absolutely hate Awakening, Airwave and Conspiracy by Rank 1 (And Marco V)!!!!

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quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J I think it was the moment when Rank 1's Airwave became a huge hit.

I'd have to disagree. Trance on the whole was whored from 99/2000 on uk radio etc. They tried to capitalise on the popularity like many at the time, trance was mentioned everywhere because it sold at that time. Airwave was one of many great tracks around at the time, but trance had many better tunes after this period. Compare that to motorcycle for example as I mentioned, and the repsonses of some others, and trance AFTER this period has never been great, far too many vocal tracks or tracks that get old quick.

I understand it's 'cool' to criticise anything that was popular during that period, and indeed a good amount of this comes from the people who were riding the wave of popularity it had back then. Sadly for any of us who were fans before, and after 99/2000 we've had to suffer in the genre we love, and finding quality music 7 years on is a hell of a lot harder...

quote:

Originally posted by Ian I understand it's 'cool' to criticise anything that was popular during that period, and indeed a good amount of this comes from the people who were riding the wave of popularity it had back then. Sadly for any of us who were fans before, and after 99/2000 we've had to suffer in the genre we love, and finding quality music 7 years on is a hell of a lot harder...

Stop giving me that crap. I'm not bashing anything because it was popular- but I fucking hate Airwave and have done since the first time I heard it. It represents the moment when the over-the-top dramatics that Ferry Corsten had introduced were just taken too far. Like someone else said, trance was taking itself too seriously and Airwave was simply the first noticable instance of that for me- it was so overblown and somehow became hugely popular without anyone ever thinking "Wait- this is an absolutely ridiculous track".

ATRC wasn't the moment when the rot set in. I'm not even sure it had anything to do with the decline in trance. It just came out at the time where the ideas really dried up, and the new ideas (McProg etc.) just weren't as good. And 2003 was a gash year for trance. Absolutely gash. 2002 hadn't been brilliant, but you could still buy a compilation or hear a mix and hear a dozen genuinely high quality tracks. But by 2003 you were sifting shit for gold-dust. That was when the rot got so extensive that the whole thing collapsed.

But Airwave for me was a sign that the anthem was out-living its welcome. Suburban Train was the last genuine anthem to get life out of the formula.

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Mixes:
> Maximum Elevation [Progressive House]
> DI.FM 26th Anniversary Guest Mix [Progressive House]
> Live @ Dance:Love:Hub London, 11.10.2025
> Higher Peaks [Progressive House]
> Dance:Love:Hub Afterparty (The Return) 23.11.24

Like these sets? Come see me play live at Kibosh in Manchester: https://www.instagram.com/kibosh.mcr/

Castles In the Sky

Bryan Adams.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J Stop giving me that crap. I'm not bashing anything because it was popular- but I fucking hate Airwave and have done since the first time I heard it. It represents the moment when the over-the-top dramatics that Ferry Corsten had introduced were just taken too far. Like someone else said, trance was taking itself too seriously and Airwave was simply the first noticable instance of that for me- it was so overblown and somehow became hugely popular without anyone ever thinking "Wait- this is an absolutely ridiculous track".

I didn't mean it in just your own direction there, but being honest, how many people do we see now who bash trance yet were into it just 12/18/24 months ago.

Airwave, well 'anthem' trance was a part of the history, like it or not, personally, on the whole I do, I respect that you can't but the problem is that too many people (meaning in general) now haven't had the luck of living through that sub-genre of trance that was an amazing part of many peoples lives.

Tiesto in concert,

for me, I was having fun with this music right up through Tiesto in concert, and after that stuff started sounding bad. I can lighten up and enjoy an anthem, but that whole pop concert thing coupled with the mcprog really ruined it. I could even deal with the god complex, it was more the mcprog that he popularized starting with tiesto in concert that bothers me. After the tiesto concert came GDJB and the fall of ASOT, from my perspective.

IMO it is the gerneal practice of subscribing to fads, of taking too much influence from the elites and not contributing any unique ideas. We let a very select few control the direction of this music. When Sasha and Digweed declared that trance was no longer cool we all followed them into prog, and then pretended like we were listening to that stuff the whole time when really it was only a few of us that did. If some more people would have just done thier own thing instead of hopping onto the proggy bandwagon we wouldnt be in this mess right now, too much fad following in the EDM world.

I haven't heard TiC, but I wasn't aware that Tiesto has ever pushed McProg.

___________________
Mixes:
> Maximum Elevation [Progressive House]
> DI.FM 26th Anniversary Guest Mix [Progressive House]
> Live @ Dance:Love:Hub London, 11.10.2025
> Higher Peaks [Progressive House]
> Dance:Love:Hub Afterparty (The Return) 23.11.24

Like these sets? Come see me play live at Kibosh in Manchester: https://www.instagram.com/kibosh.mcr/

quote:

Originally posted by Lyle No one is in any denial that trance is in sickly state right now...

except around a fourth of the entire forum population...

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Psy-T - Down The Rabbit Hole (400minute long acid set)

well, it wasnt really mcprog, but the precursors, like andain - beautiful things, and holden - nothing(93 returning). He was the first person I heard play gabriel and dresden. And I'm sure many other people had that same expeirence, im sure they were around before TiC, but tiesto I think is responsible for alot of their popularity, and for kinda starting us on the path into mcprog, before passing the baton to GDJB.

quote:

Originally posted by Zombie0915 well, it wasnt really mcprog, but the precursors, like andain - beautiful things, and holden - nothing(93 returning). He was the first person I heard play gabriel and dresden. And I'm sure many other people had that same expeirence, im sure they were around before TiC, but tiesto I think is responsible for alot of their popularity, and for kinda starting us on the path into mcprog, before passing the baton to GDJB.

there arnt any single precursors...

1 popular track leads to another of the same style as well as 50 more coppies, which can lead to a sub-genre...

You can say Beautiful things, then you can say that kinda sounds like summer calling...

then you can say tracks like Cass & slide - perception/josh gabriel - wave 3

and you can keep going...

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Time exists so everything doesn't happen at once. Space exists so everything doesn't happen to you

Motorcycle-as the rush comes & Andain-beautiful things........