Are Above & Beyond destroying their reputation?

[Magdelayna]

Reputation for what? They make totally different music now compared to the 2000-2005 stuff...thats still my favourite era from them. The stuff they played after 2010 on their compilation mix cds was terrible imo. That Trance 2.0 stuff or whatever u wanna call it.

 

[Peenuts]

If we were talking about their productions, they've gone rapidly downhill after Group Therapy for me. I started listening to trance a few years prior to that, so i am somewhat partial to some of the earlier Trance 2.0 releases they've put out.

But even when their own output has been sorely lacking in quality, they've done a good job with the Anjuna label. They still sign quality music to their labels from time to time. Their branding and design is second to none. Compare them to the many Armada labels who have somewhat faded into mediocrity after the social-media era despite being headed by popular names (e.g. ASOT, Coldharbour, Flashover).

 

[marcopm]

I listened to their ABGT 500 set, which is full of ID-IDs (mostly new stuff of theirs) and... I don't know... everything sounded so bland to me. Not strictly bad, just not memorable at all.

Their deep warm-up set was more interesting to me than their main set.

 

[JohnnyBarefoot1992]

Honestly, no, I don't see them ruining their reputation, they are still extremely popular worldwide, especially in the U.S. like some people have already mentioned, I mean, let's face it, they created a sound of their own with a community of their own and, for the most part, they're being quite consistent in that, ever since they officially dropped the "Trance" label in late 2012 when TATW officially came to an end they have been able to create such a massive community of loyal supporters which I have yet to see anywhere else, plus they produce a lot of different stuff these days, they're not just stuck in that horrid Trance 2.0.-template that used to flood the scene for the greater part of last decade, I've seen a lot of very interesting deep, progressive and even some Techno-ish stuff coming from their labels. You may not be a huge fan of theirs because of their massive detachment from their more classic Uplifting and Progressive input back in their golden years (2003-2010, more or less) but you have to kind of respect them for what they're doing, plus, three people together for more than twenty years? That's a huge achievement these days! Seeing how many groups/projects/whatsoever split after a few years, Above & Beyond still being together after all this time is quite noteworthy, it's not everyone that can claim this feat, in my very honest opinion.