i remember 2002 was the year for monster trancers
Midway - Monkey Forest
Marc Aurel - Running
were two of my very favorites, i have to admit i dont look for new trance as much as i used to but i think thats because i no longer spin and dont mix anymore (financial reasons, not cuz i dont like the music anymore). but i do agree that there arent the same powerful tunez in 04 like past years, i still like the new trancers coming out but they have seemed to change from previous years. i mean, hell, it used to seem like TA was updated with a slew of new monsters every week, now in the past year or two TA's website (not forum) activity has dropped incredibly.

i dont know what the change has been or exactly when it started doing this, but i'm just calling them how i see them.

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Originally posted by Boomer187 first off, have you really given pop a true chance. I notice you term all that music under one term with negative connotation, especially on this board. I can see why lots o people would dig the music that gets played over the radio and on mtv, a lot is over produced and does not have any lasting power. But that is their thing, people like music for different reasons than you do. also inregards to trance is turning to prog-trance, maybe its that you like that type of music, not that music is heading in that direction. I mean you listen to more music that you like than that music which you dislike, correct. So if more and more of the music you hear is more prog-trance style than epic trance, you can see where your tastes are now. The only reason I say peoples tastes in music change over time is that it is painfully obvious in my own, I guess I can call it uneducated music listening life. I started off with metal in the late 80's, then moved on to harder metal and death metal. Then I would go through blues stages, and occasionally listen to metal, then move onto the new music that is going on til eventually I never pulled out my death metal cds. Even when I listen to some good death metal nowadays I know my taste has changed, I don't like feeling I get from it like I used to. same goes for EDM, I like that feeling trance gives me when I hear a certain song, however I can already feel that taste is changing and I like the feeling another genre of edm is giving me. Hell I started out loving techno, then some funky house, now its trance. It sure is a long journey from death metal. I think most people deny the fact that your taste changes over time because they are under the impression that we are static, and we cannot change. Which is way false, it is not a bad thing to have changing taste buds for music. Its all good and well, as long as you are listening to what you like and not putting down what you dislike. Its all good. oh and I forgot about my gangsta rap days, but no one likes to talk about those days. that stuff pumps ya up.

Never quite hit the death metal phase but I hear exactly what you are saying.

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Originally posted by ASOT100 if trance is bothering u so much stop listening to it and go away not so hard is it?

Exactly, i totally concur. I AM A TRANCEADDICT. I listen to other genre's of music too (alternative/rock/ska), cause soemtiems i get so damn sick of trance. But then, i always go back, and it sounds just as good as the first time. if you stop listening to trance for a good while, you'll love it ever more when it comes back to you. In short, you could say you're taking it for granted??

i will agree with a lot of you when you say that the quality of the productions has faltered slightly but not in the same many of you think. its just that trance already reached its pinnacle and as with anything else what goes up must come down. now is the time of rebuilding and reconstructing for the sounds of trance.....

hopefully soon there will be new, innovative, and creative tracks just as it was back in 1999-2001 era. i think its all just a matter of time. quality is quality in music just as in art and anything else, so i dont buy that whole tastes crap. we just gonna have to wait and see is all

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One of the things I tend to notice that are differences between trance from the late 90s and now is proportion of melody and bass. Trance today has not nearly as much melody as it did in the late 90s, yet it has very complex basslines and beats. Late 90s trance is simpler, yet has great melodies that make it memorable. For example, listen to the first few tracks from Paul Oakenfold - Tranceport. I guarantee they have very simple beats and basslines, yet the melodies fluorish.

Actually, let me add to that. Trance these days tends to have just bursts of melody instead of it occurring throughout the entire tune.