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| quote: | Originally posted by Ishkur
Somewhere in my guide, I wrote:
"the trance template of breakdown-build-anthem...made this strange, space-age music suddenly acceptable to the sonically docile masses....This cookie cutter, paint-by-numbers formula...reformed [trance] into a neverending series of pop jingles...the quirky kind of music with only a niche market [was] no longer long, unwieldy, repetitive and unresponsive, it became a familiarity....a powdered, sugar-coated pop schmaltz...for easy digestion by [those] who would never think to even blink at trance in its raw incarnate....the musical equivalent of drowning a meal in ketchup so you can't taste the original flavour anymore.
In doing so, it stopped becoming trance."
All your objections are proving me right.
I said it before and I'll say it again. I don't hate trance. I hate BAD trance. And Rank One - Airwave is the poster boy for really bad, baudy, fluffy fake trance.
(Why is Cobalt the only one who's figured it out?) |
I totally understand what you mean with "not trance" and I agree with that definition as I hate cookie-cutter stale fluffy trite formulaic trance as well. But I also think that you're kind of missing the point with some of these examples. You have an obvious bias against trance coming from Europe and tend to prefer the oriental/non-European variants. Fine. But from a purely musical perspective, one has to recognize that within the basic structural formula of European trance truly amazing music has been made. The concept of a formula is a Western (European)idea that stems back to the 17th century with the euro dance music of the day (ie. minuets, sarabande, gavottes, guiges, allemandes, the waltz in the 19th C. etc.). Composers such as Bach, Handel, Mozart, Strauss and so on took those dance music formulas (that are ESSENTIAL for white people all over the world who just don't have the same soul or funk to get down on the dancefloor naturally) to another level. I think the best exponents of european trance production and djs have managed to carry that concept forward.
Also, I loved your examples this time even more because they just go on to prove how complex and diverse the styles played by my favorite djs are. From acid trance to breaks to swedish techno to the so-called progressive house/trance and even minimal techno to the Gouda kind of anthemic european trance, produced with class, depth and originality. I found samples in all of these groups of tracks played by one of those djs you love to hate for supposedly being all cookie-cutter.
I enjoyed the new section on downtempo and the shoutout to minimalism. However, I think minimalism and ambient were VERY instrumental in the creation of trance (both european and oriental) because it stresses similar aesthetics, music made by a process. Minimalism is done with a western art music bias because this was the background of all of its composers, even if it gives prominence to oriental music as a great influence, it's all about the Euro bias in its approach to music making. It was funny when you described some anthem as having 3 notes in its melody as if that was something bad  Minimalism. That's what the best trance is all about, turning that formula into a process.
I agree with the hating on Children, I never liked that track and it did indeed give trance a bad name from my perspective. It's just Yanni with a kick. And trance and bass does indeed rule. The amen break thing was hilarious. You should do a clownstep def. as an extension of jump up. That would be funny and it wouldn't be more legit than "not trance". Just an idea. Later....
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