TA is dead because trance is dead. It's that simple. People were kicking lumps out of each other here even when the forum's traffic was booming. Even J00F's own forum gets about three posts a day now, and that's effectively a fan club.

We all jumped on the promised "deep trance revival" circa 2011 and it never went anywhere. What's left to discuss? Naff psy-trance and Armin's latest monstrosity?

___________________
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/

Last edited by SYSTEM-J on Mar-01-2018 at 11:26

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J TA is dead because trance is dead. It's that simple. People were kicking lumps out of each other here even when the forum's traffic was booming. Even J00F's own forum gets about three posts a day, and that's effectively a fan club. We all jumped on the promised "deep trance revival" circa 2011 and it never went anywhere. What's left to discuss? Naff psy-trance and Armin's latest monstrosity?

Oh I'm sure there's lots to discuss. But then I didn't actively jump on any "revival" circa 2011 so I can freely act like a naïve Dutch kid. From the twenty-first century trance-like music originating in other corners of the electronic music world some of which, I think, Woony rightly referenced in one of his posts in this thread, through Platipus's revival (if that's an acceptable term there) to at least part of what John 00 plays which may be "naff" and un-trance to you but not necessarily to others. For instance. There's a lot of trance that bears little to no meaning to me personally (the "mainstream" side of it). There's all kinds of releases from the psy-side that I consider outrightly boring. Doesn't stop me from continuing to look for new music that I consider sufficiently trancy to call trance. I discovered Rickard Berglöf's solo EP on Tribal Vision and considered it partly nice and trancy. I've been listenening to some of James Warren's Visceral and heard stuff I'd play early in a "trance" set. Just a few random things that came to mind while typing this reply on my work break.

Naïve?

So many of your posts re trance and progressive I consider very informative, adds to my knowledge, but not necessarily everyone jumped on the same anti-bandwagon. Far to easy to just declare trance dead & consider it should be over with.

But then what I take from this thread is that categories are only becoming increasingly useless. John 00 for instance may not agree at all about some of the music I consider "trance"; whereas, say, Woony might not agree with some of the things John as DJ and I as audience both consider very "trance". Thát's a discussion probably going nowhere.

I'm still here, not ashamed of telling that I love Uplifting or the 90's stuff others think is crap.
Like you said John, we all have to do it, running away, looking for forums with just fans that match your taste is not helping.
Accepting that there are people here with different taste is one part and at the same time very welcome.
It's totally ridiculous not a single DJ shares an opinion about Armin's recent productions which are far from trance.
And maybe the people who are complaining and sound negative actually are the real trance fans who also find those less known productions released by smaller labels.

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Longest (classic) Trance playlist on YouTube (5000 tracks released up to and including 1997), click here

What I find so funny about this is that anyone from early 90s wouldnt consider 1999 "trance" to be really trance at all. It's just going round in circles with labels.

Paul Van Dyk himself infact called 1999 trance "really cheesy shit music". That is on video

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1999 Mix series

Rare Vinyls spinning on video If you like that sort of thing

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J TA is dead because trance is dead. It's that simple.

surely both TA and trance could be dead independently?

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quote:

Originally posted by the-sixth Paul Van Dyk himself infact called 1999 trance "really cheesy shit music". That is on video

hahaha. i wonder what the paul in that video would think of the vonyc sessions

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quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J TA is dead because trance is dead. It's that simple. People were kicking lumps out of each other here even when the forum's traffic was booming. Even J00F's own forum gets about three posts a day now, and that's effectively a fan club. We all jumped on the promised "deep trance revival" circa 2011 and it never went anywhere. What's left to discuss? Naff psy-trance and Armin's latest monstrosity?

Jack, I really like you as a person, we've had many deep enjoyable chats about music.
Comments like this on a dedicated Trance forum are counter productive. Maybe consider heading to another place where your tastes are more aligned.

Trance is currently being reborn, but its over in the Melodic Techno and Progressive World. History is repeating itself, Laurent Garnier did the same thing creating a melodic version of Techno in 1990 that sparked a Trance scene. I was blessed and lived through that period and witness the birth of Trance.
As per history, the Trance world get to work evolving on this, making more uplifting versions, deep versions, vocals versions. Think Oliver Lieb, HOOJ Choons, Platipus days.

The Trance world has got lost for the last few years, for example I love the harder driving Prog style of Trance, but couldn't find it, so Psy became a band-aid to fill that void, until now as I'm finding more as the organic overflow from other worlds are heading our way.
I think Psy has become a band-aid for many others too from what they tell me.

Trance is such a unique versiitile genre, with so many different wings, euphoric, vocal, tech etc.
This makes an awesome musical journey in a club or festival when programmed well, we all play our part.
What I don't understand is people picking holes and telling Progressive Trance producers its not uplifting enough, when it was never intended to be uplifting, other guys do that and do it well. All this in-house fighting isn't helping, just accept some play and produce deeper others dont. They are musical tools for different reasons, no different than in the past.

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Originally posted by Midlothian Oh I'm sure there's lots to discuss. But then I didn't actively jump on any "revival" circa 2011 so I can freely act like a naïve Dutch kid.

Well, lots of us did. We genuinely bought into J00F's mantra for a few years, and no doubt he did good business out of that renewed enthusiasm. After years of pessimism about new trance music on this forum, 2010-13 saw quite a lot of commitment to trying to revive it under this new, J00F-led banner. I did my bit. I went up and down the country supporting his events. I sifted agonisingly through Beatport trying to find the little gems of high quality modern trance that could be assembled into a mix. And eventually, three or four years had elapsed, and the whole thing was going nowhere. No new, young DJs were coming through. No producers were growing in traction. The sound never broke out into the wider world. You looked at everyone's tracklists and saw they'd all found the same five tunes that had come out in the last month and were halfway play-able. It was torturous. And that was probably what broke the back of TA's lingering community. We had enthusiasm and boosterism here for a while, and it didn't save the forum or the scene.

Meanwhile, out there in the rest of dance music, more melodic, hypnotic and occasionally euphoric music was slowly making a comeback. After a decade of minimal, tech house and ketamine, good quality pills were starting to flow out of your homeland, and people were more interested in melody and feel-good sounds again. The only problem was that it was all a good 10bpm slower than the stuff J00F had been pushing, it was hybridised between techno, tech house, progressive and classic trancey elements. It was the real "resurgence of trance music", and it happened totally outside the stubborn remnants of the trance community.

So, "trance" the scene is dead, except for its silly self-contained festivals and stages. Trance the vibe is alive and well elsewhere in the dance music world. Only problem is that nobody getting into it in 2018 is going to sign up to "TranceAddict.com" and expect to discuss it here. The word just carries connotation with circus acts like Armin and Above & Beyond.

___________________
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/

How is Trance dead exactly?

-Millions of views for Uplifting and Psy Trance on Youtube.
-Many Tracks are released each month.
-Facebook fanbase for some Trance artists are 100,000+ .
-(In my country) there are many Psy trance parties with hundreds of "normies" attending, even street parties during the day in the middle of the town.


Sure, you need to go through hours of music before you end up the 10% which is interesting to you, but trance is very much alive.


TA is dying because computers are dying, most young people are on their phone now. TA's unwelcoming atmosphere is also not helping...

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J Well, lots of us did. We genuinely bought into J00F's mantra for a few years, and no doubt he did good business out of that renewed enthusiasm. After years of pessimism about new trance music on this forum, 2010-13 saw quite a lot of commitment to trying to revive it under this new, J00F-led banner. I did my bit. I went up and down the country supporting his events. I sifted agonisingly through Beatport trying to find the little gems of high quality modern trance that could be assembled into a mix. And eventually, three or four years had elapsed, and the whole thing was going nowhere. No new, young DJs were coming through. No producers were growing in traction. The sound never broke out into the wider world. You looked at everyone's tracklists and saw they'd all found the same five tunes that had come out in the last month and were halfway play-able. It was torturous. And that was probably what broke the back of TA's lingering community. We had enthusiasm and boosterism here for a while, and it didn't save the forum or the scene. Meanwhile, out there in the rest of dance music, more melodic, hypnotic and occasionally euphoric music was slowly making a comeback. After a decade of minimal, tech house and ketamine, good quality pills were starting to flow out of your homeland, and people were more interested in melody and feel-good sounds again. The only problem was that it was all a good 10bpm slower than the stuff J00F had been pushing, it was hybridised between techno, tech house, progressive and classic trancey elements. It was the real "resurgence of trance music", and it happened totally outside the stubborn remnants of the trance community. So, "trance" the scene is dead, except for its silly self-contained festivals and stages. Trance the vibe is alive and well elsewhere in the dance music world. Only problem is that nobody getting into it in 2018 is going to sign up to "TranceAddict.com" and expect to discuss it here. The word just carries connotation with circus acts like Armin and Above & Beyond.

You also need to take into consideration the explosion of 'EDM' festivals over the past decade, this effected all genres and clubs. It was a tuff time watching clubs either close or struggle. The direct repercussions of this we are seeing today as the next generation entrance to the electronic scene is no longer EDM festivals but underground clubs, hence the mass movement we're seeing.
I see it first hand, the amount of small underground clubs and new promoters is incredible, I don't recall seeing such a movement for a long time. We all had to ride through the EDM storm, it lasted much longer than we expected.
Whats wrong with me believing in what I love? I lived through a few of the commercial fads in my 30 year career, and seen the change happen. I see history repeating itself. If you don't then you lose out.

quote:

Originally posted by John 00 Fleming Armin isn’t responsible for fixing the scene, we all are. But it can’t be done by armchair forum police puling people down. I’ve been so close to leaving Trance many times because of this, it's a horrible eviroment especially here and why no DJs come here anymore and its slowly becoming a ghost town.

No disrespect, but most of us really don't care much about the scene one way or the other, much less to the extent that we feel compelled to fix it, or even see it improve on its own. Most of us have long since moved on to other sounds. Yeah, every now and then a thread like this will pop up where we discuss the state of trance, and sure, we'll trade very general, semi-informed impressions as to how dismal it is, but that's not to say we're actively keeping tabs on what's trending. You made mention of the topics on this board, and as you can see it's a pretty diverse mix; we don't just sit around and lamenting the death of trance and pining for a return to its glory days.

The simple fact is I (and many others) are perfectly at peace with how trashy trance has become, if for no other reason than the fact that things change. And that's fine. I don't feel the need to fix everything that's broken. There's just way too much good music out there for that to bother me.

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Originally posted by John 00 Fleming There's a rise in forums popularity again due to social media being full of trolls. If you want good specialist information, head to a dedicated forum where you get informative help and advice.

I have a hard time believing that people disillusioned with social media are seeking refuge in something as clunky as these dusty old discussion forums. There are indeed some renown forums that will always remain indelible mainstays of their focus, like the Gearslutz or the BodyBuilding forums. But those boards have professional ties and are regularly used for actual business purposes. That's why you can find an engineer who helped design that synth you bought troubleshoot on Gearslutz, or supplement reps to answer your questions over on the BodyBuilding boards.

But something like TA? It's just an antiquated way for people to come together and shoot the breeze on stuff that interests them, and Reddit and Google have to really come up short before you find yourself logging onto a vBulletin.

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He traded sands for skins, skins for gold, gold for life. In the end, he traded life for sand. Afari, Tales