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The commodification of trance
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
Stuff like turning trance events into "concerts," compilations with DJs' heads on them, t-shirts, making fans into a "market," intense focus on individual big-hit tracks, etc.
Good or bad? |
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| wotyzoid |
| I like t-shirts, shows support to edm in general. I love big outdoor concerts, brings edm to the masses. Marketing fanbase is a horrible thing to do and rockstar djs and dj faces on compilations are also horrible. Some stuff just matters on how well its executed. |
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| Dan1584 |
| Arena shows can be a great experience and I think it's a natural step forward. |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| quote: | Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles
Good or bad? |
Ancient ing history. It's been going on for a decade now, and look what's happened to the music in that time. Go figure. |
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| Spirit5 |
Bad and good. I think trance music should expand a little more mainstream (get more people introduced to it), but without totally conforming to pop structure with 3 or 4 minute tracks. To me, trance tracks are meant to be more than 6 minutes long, so none of those "radio edits". I also think the DJ Worship thing is stupid..the focus should be on the music, not the DJ.
Besides that....the concerts can be a good idea but they should better done. I think a combo of a concert and a festival works....sort of like a psy festival, but with melodic or epic trance. Something where people can be taken on this journey (I know it all sounds so pretentious but the idea behind trance I feel is to do this, not just make people dance).
I think the use of true live (more so than Tiesto In Concert or Armin Only) instruments and singing, coupled with DJing would be a good idea. More live acts would be nice....if only there could be more "trance bands"...sort of like Faithless (I know they aren't technically all "trance" music)....the use of live guitars and some percussion. Maybe something more like Mike Oldfield's or Tangerine Dreams's concerts. Slower trance music that is more organic. Schiller does concerts, and the music he produces is pretty close to trance (some of it is trance).
I don't really think DJs do that anymore..it's more about playing the latest hit tracks in almost any order...one after another, which I think makes them almost Top 40 Trance DJs. I think psy trance DJs might do this better, but I personally prefer the more melodic style. I think modern trance CDs are more about showcasing the latest tracks as well. I think a little bit of that is fine but that seems to be more the focus, esp in trance music. |
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| Spirit5 |
| And the other stuff...it's done with other music (T-Shirts) so I don't see the issue there. A lot of people like to identify themselves with a specific band, singer, genre etc. Done minimally, it can be ok. |
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| s3nate |
| quote: | Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles
Stuff like turning trance events into "concerts," compilations with DJs' heads on them, t-shirts, making fans into a "market," intense focus on individual big-hit tracks, etc.
Good or bad? |
Mostly bad. |
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| basilisk |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
Ancient ing history. It's been going on for a decade now, and look what's happened to the music in that time. Go figure. |
Haha, that's what I was thinking. Trance is already mainstream, get with it. |
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| Imagin |
More people into trance the better. Albeit the old school heads will say how this influx of people is bad for the genre. But lets think about something for a minute.
People say that theres so many bad tracks, and very few good tracks. But yet a few years ago, you didnt have as many people into the music. Some of them who turned out to be damned good. Others who are no so much. Rap has the same phenomenon. Theres just so much music coming in, that people swear things are going wrong. When its going exactly right for its intention. To bring new people and fresh ideas to the genre.
Just with so many copycats and people without that knack, it seems like things are going downhill. |
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| Surfmorworkless |
| quote: | Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles
Stuff like turning trance events into "concerts," compilations with DJs' heads on them, t-shirts, making fans into a "market," intense focus on individual big-hit tracks, etc.
Good or bad? |
I think it's bad.Only for reasons that i think the underground should stay underground.I think this has alot to do with what has happened to trance.The evolution of trance into it losing it's identity.Imo. |
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| Spirit5 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Surfmorworkless
I think it's bad.Only for reasons that i think the underground should stay underground.I think this has alot to do with what has happened to trance.The evolution of trance into it losing it's identity.Imo. |
Why should trance stay underground though? What's wrong with music being inclusive..rather than exclusive? I think the problem is that things try too hard to be mainstream (i.e. the stuff like DJ Sammy, Ian van Dahl, Lasgo, which are hardly trance) rather than just stay as it is. Maybe not the hard or trippier sounds though like with full on psy and hard trance, they might not go over too well, but I could certaintly see the melodic/epic variety becoming more mainstream, as it already has been a little more in Europe.
I just see the attitude about trance music being or should be underground as being elitist and exclusive...meaning for a specific group/sub-culture rather than as a way to include more people of all types. I think, unlike some other genres of music like Heavy Metal, Punk and Rap, trance being mostly instrumental and melodic...it has what it takes to appeal to more people all over the world and doesn't neccessarily have a cliquey group (though I think Psy has a little more...esp with the hippie/ravers but there's more people than those who are into it). This is what I think makes trance good.
So the underground should stay underground, but trance in and of itself I don't think should. But certaintly..there's styles of trance and EDM that have a more "underground" sound that I don't think will appeal to the "mainstream". The really glitchy IDM, gabba, hardstyle, hardstep, speedcore, full on psy, hard trance....just some styles which I don't think would go over too well in the mainstream. |
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