quote:

Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles "Anything with a lot of melody and open emotion is basically equivalent to the bombastic epic trance of today. Therefore if you defend music that has a lot of melody and emotion you must be defending it out of mere nostalgia, not because it actually offers something that epic trance doesn't." ^ Looks to be the road this thread is heading down.

Not anything with lot of melody, anything with the "emotional melodic" qualities of trance (e.g. deep-techno producer Vince Watson has jazzy melodies, not bombastic and epic)is not equivalent, but probably strongly related to modern epic and progressive trance. IMO there are not big aesthetic differences between modern stuff and e.g. mid-90s epic-house/progressive trance stuff etc (and ofcourse no difference at all with end-of-90s epic-trance other than the fact that epic-trance was new back then and hence more pioneering whereas todays epic-trance has better production and maybe slightly more complex melodies). You disagree?

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Originally posted by PETRAN You disagree?

I disagree. There are a number of differences.

For one, almost the whole entire sound of the progressive trance from 1995-2000 is basically unheard of today. A lot of this has to do with, at least I think, the technology used to produce the music.

Music up to 2000 was mostly hardware generated, rack synths, effects racks, midi sequencers, hardware mixers. Yea there was computers but most of it was for arrangement and not instrumentation.

I think this has a huge aesthetic difference to the music.

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec there's nothing wrong with liking something. i'm only inquiring into /why/ one likes something. i don't believe there's a such thing as "just" liking something

I was just saying because you seem to really look down upon people who like that stuff.

I like the way that older stuff sounds, the energy it has and the way many of the tracks develop. I mostly enjoy the darker dirtier stuff, think Digweed's old GU comps. I can't listen to modern prog/trance at all really, but I still love the older stuff, and in my case it can't possibly be nostalgia. I'm young though I suppose, so maybe it's just my tastes being very underdeveloped.

whatever

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Originally posted by enydo I was just saying because you seem to really look down upon people who like that stuff. I like the way that older stuff sounds, the energy it has and the way many of the tracks develop. I mostly enjoy the darker dirtier stuff, think Digweed's old GU comps. I can't listen to modern prog/trance at all really, but I still love the older stuff, and in my case it can't possibly be nostalgia. I'm young though I suppose, so maybe it's just my tastes being very underdeveloped. whatever

I'm sorry if I offended you - what I wrote was in no way intended to be personal to you or to anyone. I'm just talking about the music itself.

People like the same thing for many different reasons.



Anyways I think it's pretty undeniable that the subject matter of many of these tracks is exactly what I described. Like I said, you might like how they sound regardless of that layer of thematic content. Music operates on several different levels like this.

That being said, if you're not interested in that content then doesn't it seem superfluous?

My liveset at barton hall for instance was designed to be like a trance set minus all of that junk. (except for stella which is a guilty pleasure of mine ) i'm not afraid to say I can be terribly nostaglic.

I love me some mid-90s prog cheese.

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Originally posted by Joss Weatherby I disagree. There are a number of differences. For one, almost the whole entire sound of the progressive trance from 1995-2000 is basically unheard of today. A lot of this has to do with, at least I think, the technology used to produce the music. Music up to 2000 was mostly hardware generated, rack synths, effects racks, midi sequencers, hardware mixers. Yea there was computers but most of it was for arrangement and not instrumentation. I think this has a huge aesthetic difference to the music.

First of all i think that producers were used right from the mid-90s. Even in the case of using hardware, the production-quality can be different (and it was, for f*cks sake it was almost 10-15 years ago!) but the structure and overall ideas and aesthetic were...exactly the same! I mean developing arpeggios, diva-vocals at times, epic melodic lines and pads giving you impressions of unicorns etc (just kidding with the unicorns i personally like them).



I'm not saying that the mid-90s trance wasn't different, it was but just not that hugely different, and to tell you the truth the approach and concept was identical! It was the production-techniques of the era and the absence of previous similar music that (naturally) resulted in the (small IMO) difference. Now i'm not even saying about the end-of-90s trance. That was almost exactly similar.




The only reason that people view today's epic and progressive trance as of lower quality in comparison to 90s epic and progressive trance is simply because the sound is relatively similar and hence they are naturally bored of it (same concepts, ideas etc.)accusing the sound itself for their boredom. Truth is that this is how music is. A lot of music not just trance, at least the music that has been here for a while, can stay similar (with similar concepts, ideas) for quite some time. The ideas and concepts behind modern mainstream-rock stuff are NOT that different from the ideas and concepts of some 90s mainstream-rock stuff. The same goes e.g. for modern deep-house and many other genres. Peoples preferences usually change faster than the music itself. This doesn't mean that the sound doesn't have quality for a "new-comer" to the genre. Its quality is comparable/similar to the older epic and progressive sound.

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Originally posted by nefardec People like the same thing for many different reasons.

This might be one of the factors which makes people swap from a style of music to another when they find themselves identified to people they do not like and try to reach for a more elitist sound.

At a point you fall into that jaundiced zone (as montana called it) and you are ripped between love, memory and elitism. If you fall for the latter and change your listening habbits - after a few years one becomes an "elitist" on every genre. What happends when one feels one has conquered all electronic sounds?

(do I make any sense?)

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Originally posted by Chimney What happends when one feels one has conquered all electronic sounds?

Then you forsake music entirely and retreat to a temple and meditate.

Or maybe you go back to all-acoustic live folk rock. Or classical.

Or maybe you start listening to noise to cleanse your brain of all those cheesy melodies you ingested over the years?

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec That being said, if you're not interested in that content then doesn't it seem superfluous?

I suppose I am interested in content like that, to an extent. Every once in a while I just get a huge urge to throw on something upbeat and raucous. Then, maybe a couple hours later, I'd be more inclined to put something on like one of your sets for instance. My tastes are quite varied inside and outside the world of edm, but I'm always astounded by the huge schisms that exist within edm. It comes with the territory I guess seeing as most of the sub-genres are so vastly different while sharing similar aspects.

And don't sweat it, I wasn't offended just curious. I also agree entirely with what you said earlier about trance etc.

Different strokes for different folks I suppose, I just find myself liking lots of different things inside the world of edm. Who knows though, I'm only on the verge of turning 21, maybe in a few years time I'll move on.

quote:

Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles I love me some mid-90s prog cheese.

I love it too! I will take mid-90s "cheese" (and cheese is a dirty word...lol) anyday in comparison to any modern hipster-techno stuff.

And its bloody stupid to call anything which has some kind of emotional-provoking melody as "cheese", capable of releasing "unicorns", but i guess that those melodies are no cool in our modern cynical technocratic society lol.

quote:

Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles Then you forsake music entirely and retreat to a temple and meditate. Or maybe you go back to all-acoustic live folk rock. Or classical. Or maybe you start listening to noise to cleanse your brain of all those cheesy melodies you ingested over the years?

What's your current position?