quote:

Originally posted by PETRAN There were letters of clubbers in '99 describing how they danced and cried at the same time, raising their hands into the air when tracks such as "Synaesthesia" or "Saltwater" were played. I guess that "Trance" was always the most emotional of the lot, right from the start,

I disagree. The idea that "trance" is the most emotional is most likely due to how shallow and obvious it was post-96. It's like saying shitty pop bands like Simple Plan were more emotional than the works of Miles Davis because the latter didn't have any whiney self-centered spoiled-brat lyrics about how life isn't fair and you don't know what it's like to be like me.

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When bread becomes toast, it can never go back to being bread again.

quote:

Originally posted by PETRAN Do you thing that any of today's EDM (and i'm talking about all genres)is capable of eliciting any strong emotional reactions to the individual, or is it all made for the purpose of shaking your ass without much feeling occuring on the inside?

Real dancemusic should drain your head from emotion and thought, just like passive meditation will let you focus on the 'nothing'.
That itself can be the 'emotional reactions' you are talking about, but in a different way.

That's how i feel and that's always the way that works best for me.
No emotional breaks/melodies (or vocals!) that demands your attention.



But much lies within the eyes (ears) of the beholder, i'm sure you can get 'lost' in Tiësto's latest stuff if you tried real hard

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quote:

Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles For reals?

Well... partially. I find analog sounds warmer. Nothing sounds more human than a broken synthesizer

Music made exclusively by using digital may sound a bit sterile. Even dj sets sound better to me when they have that vinyl crackle running in the background.

There needs to be more love for imperfection.

___________________
"All revolutions are the sheerest fantasies until they happen; then they become historical inevitabilities."

Speaking of Deadbeat, Loneliness and Revelry ftw.

Emotion is thoroughly out of style. Which isn't to say people don't like it or search for it.

Let me use an example. I'm currently reviewing Dave Seaman's new Renaissance mix- the Masters Series Part 10. Listening to it, I found myself comparing it to Seaman's old mixes for Renaissance, such as the Mix Collection Part 4 in 1997, as Dave's stated intention was to encapsulate the current sound of progressive house, where as the 1997 Mix Collection did just the same for 11 years ago. My basic conclusion was that prog house has lost a lot of energy and a lot of emotional overtness, particularly in the last few years, as it tries to lose its image of music for the 90s and stay relevant.

However, checking out the Resident Advisor review of the same record, I read this:

"...Seaman evaporates the goodwill he’s built up by moving into the big room with a string of peak hour builders so cheesy and melodically overblown that you’ll wonder if you’ve been teleported back to the late 1990s."

To me, a self-confessed fan of the 90s progressive sound, this new mix was the sound of prog trying to cut itself down to a more sparse, reserved sound. However, to the trend-following RA guys, it's "cheesy" and "melodically overblown" simply by being prog house. I mean, the peak-time tunes we're talking about here are typified by the use of Who Killed Sparky? by Sasha, which I'm sure everyone is familiar with. Compared with what Sasha was making and playing in the late 90s, this could not be called "cheesy" and especially not "overblown".

RA conclude their review with this damning judgement:

"In the end, The Masters Series 10 sounds like little more than a repackaged late 90s Global Underground mix or any of the numerous others Dave Seaman has already done for Renaissance in the past."

And there it is. Its emotional content automatically render it dated and interchangable with the music of the 90s. Emotion is not cool, it isn't forward-thinking and it isn't edgy.

___________________
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/

I blame the Internet.

I think the most emotional dance music provokes emotions you already have rather than attempt to force their own upon you.

There is a lot of dance music that presents emotion in a very roundabout way, like trance music that uses classical melodies and fake string sounds, obvious breakdowns, huge buildups, vocals, etc... that's really easy for most people to get into because it is a sort of social sign for emotion


what i am interested is more a basic emotional response in the guts, visceral, one which is arrived at and intuited rather than adopted or mimicked. (everyone reach for the lasers!)

For me this basic emotional response is instinctive, unconscious.


I don't listen to music to change my mood. I change my music to fit my mood. I drown myself in it.

related to drowning and to what i find emotionally/spiritually important in dance music are these words from mircea elidade's "the sacred and the profane"

quote:

The waters symbolize the universal sum of virtualities; they are spring and origin' the reservoir of all the possibilities of existence; they precede every form and support every creation. One of the paradigmatic images of creation is the island that suddenly manifests itself in the midst of the waves. On the other hand, immersion in water signifies regression to the preformal, reincorporation into the undifferentiated mode of pre-existence. Emersion repeats the cosmogenic act of formal manifestation; immersion is equivalent to a dissolution of forms. This is why the symbolism of the waters implies both death and rebirth. Contact with water always brings a regeneration... The aquatic cosmonlogy has its counterpart - on the human level - in the hylogenies, the beliefs according to which mankind was born of the waters. The Flood, or the periodical submersion of the continents (myths of the atlantis type) have their counteraprt on the human level, in man's second death, or in initiatory death through baptism. But both on the cosmological and the anthropological planes immersion in the waters is equivalent not to a final extinction, but to a temporary reincorporation into the indistinct, followed by a new creation, a new life... In whatever religious complex we find them, the waters invariably retain their function; they disintegrate, abolish forms, 'wash away sins'; they are at once purifying and regenerating. their destiny is to precede the creation and to reabsorb it...

I find this immersive quality in dub techno and deep house for instance, or the thickly layered, undulating formlessness that is detroit techno. It provides a return to a basic emotionally mutable state (the water). a 'framework for freedom'. In the midst of this sea of possibility, emotions surface and take form

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J Emotion is not cool, it isn't forward-thinking and it isn't edgy.

I don't think that's true across the board. I think our emotions have changed.

But there are some things in my opinion that are basically emotional that are undeniable.

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Originally posted by nefardec I don't think that's true across the board. I think our emotions have changed.

You think our emotions have changed in less than a decade? I don't accept that for a second. I think the dominant attitudes towards emotion in our sub-culture have changed, and most people will swallow the ideological myths around this shift, re-aligning themselves to the new ideology. Superlatives of beauty, emotion and cheese are being used all out of proportion today, usually by the people who have accepted the aesthetic upheaval of recent years without being critical of it.

___________________
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 paulandrews Music made exclusively by using digital may sound a bit sterile. Even dj sets sound better to me when they have that vinyl crackle running in the background. There needs to be more love for imperfection.

+1, couldnt agree more.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J And there it is. Its emotional content automatically render it dated and interchangable with the music of the 90s. Emotion is not cool, it isn't forward-thinking and it isn't edgy.

I think this is quite relative. One man's cheesy is another one's soulless garbage. I'd say there is no place for big catchy hooks.

Try to listen to this, it's something that's considered 'cool' now, even on RA: http://mp3.juno.co.uk/MP3/SF305184-01-01-01.mp3
The emotions are there, they are just more subtle.

___________________
"All revolutions are the sheerest fantasies until they happen; then they become historical inevitabilities."