lol In my house :P

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Originally posted by Wordsforlove Ah silence.. ace track and one of the most influential ever. I reckon this record more than any other signified the sound of the late 90s early millennium and the rise of rave culture in america. I remember sasha & digweed dropping the sanctuary remix and everybody going mental. I even saw people cry. I remember a good looking girl breaking down in tears on the dancefloor. While this record did not kill trance I reckon this record was indeed about death. Give me release Witness me I am outside* She is knocking on heavens door give me peace* asking for peace Heaven holds a sense of wonder and I wanted to believe that I get caught up when the rage in me subsides In this white wave* everything turns white when you die I am sinking• into death In this silence* Everything turns silent when you die In this white wave In this silence I believe* she is embracing death I have seen you in this white wave you are silent You are breathing but in this white wave I am free. Another brill and equally influential trance anthem that came out a few years later called As The Rush Comes also explored the theme of death. Traveling somewhere, could be anywhere There's a (coldness in the air*) (*death) but I don't care We drift deeper into sound* they are drifting into death Life goes on* the words life goes on often used after somebody has passed away We drift deeper Into the sound feeling strong* they are not afraid to die they are embracing death So bring it on So bring it on She even sings it on the hook: * Embrace me Surround me as the rush comes Records like silence, as the rush comes, rapture were indeed dark however these were not the death of trance. What killed trance is that it got too bloody big for its own good. The proliferation of music in the 90s, the internet that came and allowed people to network on an international level, the rise of pear to pear sites like napster, the accessible sound of trance which was catchy coupled with the album orientated marketing of labels such as global underground (The 1997 boxed CD GU 007 Paul Oakenfold new york sold 170.000 copies in the US alone) meant that many newcomers were entering the scene and were no longer interested in what was going on in the mainstream american scene as they happily existed outside its sphere of influence. When a subculture running parallel to the mainstream gets too big for its own good it gets shut down with some unseen media hand fueling the process. This is what killed trance mate. Not silence. What killed trance was the endless propaganda in mixmag every month about how it is no longer fashionable to enjoy it. What killed trance was the loss of influential clubs in the uk and abroad that were literally forced at gunpoint to shut down. What killed trance was the endless praise for the shallow music that went on to replace it. What killed trance was the deliberate deception towards artists and label owners from the industry coupled with the lies about how digital distribution has the answer to the decline of record sales. But let me ask you this, I reckon if digital distribution and experimental music really had the answer and they had about 6 years of it shouldn't we be talking about the increase in label revenue? Shouldn't we be seeing the dance industry recovering from the loss of physical distribution? Shouldn't we be seeing new people entering the scene that are there for the music rather then there for the drugs? But no... everytime we question these schemes we are seen as being blinkered to the bollocks they are force feeding us. There there is a big elephant in the room and mate I reckon this is a classic case of destroy and rebuilt. What we are seeing here is some dodgy media agenda. Erase the scene and replace it with a new one you want to take credit for and the people are too gormless to know any better.

silence was played to death and that cheesy synth tiesto used has been mimicked more than white and yellow rappers dressing black.

This is all very tiring. Some good points made in this thread however all this shit about "_______ killed Trance" or "________ is killing Trance" has been going on for YEARS!

I will agree 100% on this though - the ease with which a track can be 'released' through digital labels has meant that there is a crapload of new 'productions' coming out that wouldn't even warrant a test pressing back in the day. Maybe people want instant popularity/recognition/to make a quick buck and they throw these things out there in the hopes that something will stick. Some just choose to hate on Trance because it's no longer their little secret and has become popular. Some don't even know what 'Trance' is... thinking it's only relegated to the extreme-cheese-vocal-tunes-hands-in-air-omg and nothing else.... then they label other kinds of Trance as 'House', lol.

It's funny now to read what I wrote back in 2002... MP3s have helped the scene in terms of spread/reach but have also damaged things because the signal:noise ratio, as mentioned in this thread, is astronomical. Whereas before you had to spend a significant amount of time to find certain tunes (because accessibility/distribution was an issue) - now - we have the opposite problem, sifting through all the TRASH in order to find the gems.

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"In a world of illusion you only see what you feel"

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Originally posted by Swamper It's funny now to read what I wrote back in 2002... MP3s have helped the scene in terms of spread/reach but have also damaged things because the signal:noise ratio, as mentioned in this thread, is astronomical. Whereas before you had to spend a significant amount of time to find certain tunes (because accessibility/distribution was an issue) - now - we have the opposite problem, sifting through all the TRASH in order to find the gems.

+1

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Originally posted by Wordsforlove but then some drunk driver came clipped his wings off. It seems to me the same thing happened to dance music.

That is one harsh punchline to a story. Such a shame for the young lad. No wonder you're thinking about death when listening to trance! Everyone does interpret music in their own way. If you take the title literally, As The Rush Comes could quite easily be interpreted as being about love and sex, I guess for me ecstacy was to the forefront of my mind when listening to it. People impose their own values on things all the time. Btw, you should have mentioned Andain - Beautiful Things, to back up your dark-side viewpoint. I always thought that was about a girl reflecting on her life and thinking about suicide.

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Originally posted by Wordsforlove It was a great time where both the free market and the artistic expression were allowed to breath

Too right. The big labels and corporations are a lot to blame. They'd much rather promote Simon Cowells latest talentless fool than promote something they don't understand and can't profit from in the internet age.

And Silence is still one of my favourite tunes. That and Bullet in the Gun. Silence didn't kill anything.

I think most people are looking at this from the wrong angle. Music and styles change constantly, and this is the same for electronic music. Consider someone like Sasha - if you download his earliest sets (and I think there may even be some pre 1990 sets floating around), the music he plays sounds completely different to his 94-97 stuff, and that sounds VERY different from the 97-2000 "expander" days, then you have his Delta Heavy stuff, his take up of Ableton in 2004 etc etc. Trance also changed over time and most people, like myself, simply found other, more sophisticated, music (lots of people I know went from trance to prog house to house). This is also a factor of growing up and maturing - the clothes you wore at 16 and the way you behaved back then probably isn't the same to how you behave now. Trance has always been a very accessible sound due to its simplicity, hence why "newbies" to the electronic scene always seem to like it, and go on about stuff that more "experienced" laugh at. If you have just turned 18 and discovered trance then you probably don't have anything else to compare it to.

What I think is very interesting is why people always seem to be yearning for the past. If you talk to anyone over 25 they will tell you the music was much better back in the day. To some extent I agree - most of my favourite sets seem to be from before 2003, and there is something about the music back then that always keeps me coming back. I even listened to Nu NRG from Orgasmatron (may 2002), a classic TA trance set if anything, and it still sounds really good. Not to mention some of the classic essential mixes from the mid to late 90s. The fact that we haven't had any new DJs arrive on the scene for about 6 years (Masiello and Fair were the last new guys to really break through) shows that many people still trade on the reputation older DJs forged. Sasha, Digweed, Seaman, Nick Warren etc are just as popular now as they ever were.

Untalented artists, wannabes, marketers, ruined Trance.

Trance is supposed to remain underground.

However, Trance is not dead. It is still underground, where it belongs.

Are some of guys telling me you wish it was 'alive,' as in, commercially alive again? It'd be another cycle of cheesey Trance generations.

Right now the hot stuff is Dubstep and Electro-House/House. It is expanding quickly too.

Trance is not dead it is just put back to sleep after such a long time of being abused by idiots.

However, the new EDM community tends to follow along with what is popular, not what is underground, so they are following up on the new popular Deadmau5 and Rusko types of EDM. These Electro-House/House will reach a peak, and then the whole world will start making Electro-House/House songs, and most likely, there will be a cheesiness noticed in the new Electro-House/House music, and everyone will start to hate it, calling it "boring, sleepy, overrated."

The famous Djs or Trance giants have gotten bored of Trance though, which is the sad part.

After Mattinsanity said Daft Punk were over rated i can no longer take anything he says seriously.

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Lol daft punk is totally not overrated.

Wait, who said that? Hahaha


Daft punk is so underground it's not even funny.

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Originally posted by xpand_the_room ...Trance also changed over time and most people, like myself, simply found other, more sophisticated, music (lots of people I know went from trance to prog house to house). This is also a factor of growing up and maturing ...

You known what people say about kids ? They play with a toy until they get bored and have a new one.
It's not a matter of growing up, it's a matter of taste

By the way I don't think house music is in a good shape too.

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Originally posted by Dj Pluviose Untalented artists, wannabes, marketers, ruined Trance. Trance is supposed to remain underground. However, Trance is not dead. It is still underground, where it belongs. Are some of guys telling me you wish it was 'alive,' as in, commercially alive again? It'd be another cycle of cheesey Trance generations. Right now the hot stuff is Dubstep and Electro-House/House. It is expanding quickly too. Trance is not dead it is just put back to sleep after such a long time of being abused by idiots. However, the new EDM community tends to follow along with what is popular, not what is underground, so they are following up on the new popular Deadmau5 and Rusko types of EDM. These Electro-House/House will reach a peak, and then the whole world will start making Electro-House/House songs, and most likely, there will be a cheesiness noticed in the new Electro-House/House music, and everyone will start to hate it, calling it "boring, sleepy, overrated." The famous Djs or Trance giants have gotten bored of Trance though, which is the sad part.

My point exactly!

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Originally posted by Col However, EDM seems to be political for some people - it's not about the music itself but it's about what the music symbolises, where the music came from, who spins it and how obscure it is.