Petition to Rename "A State of Trance" to Reflect its Shift from Traditional Trance Music

nightslapper

Senior Member
Oct 5, 2023
696 Posts
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I don't think I'm being unreasonable here. Let's be honest, it deviates significantly from what trance music traditionally represented. It feels more like mindless noise, contradicting the essence of the genre. If we start labelling every Euro dance and electro house track as trance, we dilute the genre's identity. My disagreement doesn't stem from hate or snobbery. When have I recently demonstrated such behaviour? The tracks featured on ASOT often lean more towards commercialism and vocal dance, formulaic edm and uplifting trance catering to a broader audience rather than staying true to the core elements of trance.
see, you strongly believe that your vision of the 'right' or as you call it traditional trance music can be applied globally to the entire genre, especially considering that there's no holy stone with the rules what is trance and what is not, what's traditional trance and what's 'deviated mindless noise'. you sure there's no hate? some producers might put their emotions in these tracks and some fans enjoy em and just because you dislike it, you think you have right to label it differently just to make trance scene your comfort zone?

just take it easy, don't try to 'fix' it, it's not how it works anyways
 

Archon

Gagi
TranceFix Crew
Jun 27, 2020
4,103 Posts
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see, you strongly believe that your vision of the 'right' or as you call it traditional trance music can be applied globally to the entire genre, especially considering that there's no holy stone with the rules what is trance and what is not, what's traditional trance and what's 'deviated mindless noise'. you sure there's no hate? some producers might put their emotions in these tracks and some fans enjoy em and just because you dislike it, you think you have right to label it differently just to make trance scene your comfort zone?

just take it easy, don't try to 'fix' it, it's not how it works anyways
Common sense on TranceFix??? Are you trying to get yourself banned???
 

Jetflag

Legendary Member
Jul 17, 2020
3,181 Posts
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I can understand your sentiment @Progrez

but from a pro-active perspective I agree with @nightslapper

“Hating” or seeking to distance yourself from what Armin is pushing forward is perfectly fine.

but this type of “tranceSJW” esq petitions are besides pragmatically useless also just spiteful, who are you to lay claim on what another person makes or spins and calls?

if you want to pro-actively do something for the music you love and “against the music you despise”, do what you currently do. And with “metta” promote that which you find beautiful. 🙏
 
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Redrot

Senior Member
Jan 11, 2022
418 Posts
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Northern California
at best it's a highly exclusive, faux-positive-wannabe-influencer pretentious bag of templated white noise and arpeggiated supersaws (in its most popular form at least). it's really not high art and all the fun has been sucked out of it, by and large all we wanna do is pander to our other beard stroking underground chums.

tl:dr - stop being so up yourselves and just learn how to enjoy all music again. not everything needs to be so clearly black and white. I'll be in my office vibing to taylor swift and maybe a little bit of k-pop
Cue the image!

I posted this set somewhere else but trance fans need to pull the cacti out of their asses and listen to more off the wall silly shit like this: https://soundcloud.com/djkitsch%2Fkitsch-rave-ghost
 

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Pokkryshkin

Senior Member
May 7, 2022
349 Posts
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In the modern ASOT radio show, there is quite a lot of trance music and it cannot be said that this is no longer a trance show. Yes, Armin himself no longer releases trance under his own name and plays more edm music at festivals. But it has to be so if he wants to stay on top. Now is not the time for trance music for the main scene, unfortunately. If you want a trance radio show without too much edm , you can listen to Solarstone pres Pure Trance Radio
 

Gijs

Senior Member
Jul 2, 2020
604 Posts
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Zuid-Holland, NL
As much as I understand the sentiment and your disapproval of how ASOT has changed over the past decade (even more radically over the past 3 years, I've noticed that as well), I don't see how and why we as fans of the "original" genre can and should have any input on how he does and names his show. It's his show, after all.

As others have mentioned before, even if trance isn't explicitly played on the show, people are made aware of the existence of the genre. I myself for example discovered Armin back in 2014 when I heard Save My Night on the radio and ASOT2015 was the first compilation I've listened to. When Armin started streaming the episodes on YouTube in Spring of 2016, I started to listen to the show itself as well causing me to become even more of a fan than I already was. Despite both the compilations and the show being filled with mostly big room and progressive house tunes at the time, I've still come to appreciate the older trance songs from the times before he tried to appeal to a more mainstream audience. I've distanced myself from the show itself since 2018 or so, only keeping up with the compilations, but I would not have discovered the "original" genre if Armin had chosen not to refer to his music as trance music. Therefore, I still believe that his current influence on the genre as a whole is pretty good at best and neutral at worst.

Having said that, I understand why you'd want to see the name change to reflect the shift to him playing (melodic) techno and progressive house and such on the show. As I see it however, we'd lose our biggest step-in to trance if he actually decided to stop calling his music trance; he is the biggest trance artist around at the moment after all, even if he doesn't always make or play it. If you're not interested in whatever it is he plays, there are thousands of other trance artists, labels and platforms around who could satisfy your needs: as mentioned, he himself recommends some of them as well.

So to summarise: no, I do not believe Armin needs to change the name of his show. I'd even say that it'd be detrimental to the genre if he did.


We need ASOT to acknowledge this shift away from traditional trance music by changing its name accordingly - perhaps something like "A State of Turd". This may seem harsh but it reflects our disappointment with how far ASOT has strayed from its roots.​
I would also like to advise you to remove this from the petition, as I personally think the goal in general is already unattainable in and of itself. Wishing to change the name to this or whatever other derogatory phrase you can think of makes the entire petition nothing more than your average internet meme (unless you're truly serious about this, then I'd call it an above average internet meme).

[Edit: rephrased some sentences.]
 
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Aug 23, 2022
164 Posts
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"Petition to Rename "A State of Trance" to Reflect its Shift from Traditional Trance Music"

I agree, but... this should have already happened around 2006-2010.
 

Progrez

Elite Member
Jun 17, 2022
2,245 Posts
1,090 Thanked
As much as I understand the sentiment and your disapproval of how ASOT has changed over the past decade (even more radically over the past 3 years, I've noticed that as well), I don't see how and why we as fans of the "original" genre can and should have any input on how he does and names his show. It's his show, after all.

As others have mentioned before, even if trance isn't explicitly played on the show, people are made aware of the existence of the genre. I myself for example discovered Armin back in 2014 when I heard Save My Night on the radio and ASOT2015 was the first compilation I've listened to. When Armin started streaming the episodes on YouTube in Spring of 2016, I started to listen to the show itself as well causing me to become even more of a fan than I already was. Despite both the compilations and the show being filled with mostly big room and progressive house tunes at the time, I've still come to appreciate the older trance songs from the times before he tried to appeal to a more mainstream audience. I've distanced myself from the show itself since 2018 or so, only keeping up with the compilations, but I would not have discovered the "original" genre if Armin had chosen not to refer to his music as trance music. Therefore, I still believe that his current influence on the genre as a whole is pretty good at best and neutral at worst.

Having said that, I understand why you'd want to see the name change to reflect the shift to him playing (melodic) techno and progressive house and such on the show. As I see it however, we'd lose our biggest step-in to trance if he actually decided to stop calling his music trance; he is the biggest trance artist around at the moment after all, even if he doesn't always make or play it. If you're not interested in whatever it is he plays, there are thousands of other trance artists, labels and platforms around who could satisfy your needs: as mentioned, he himself recommends some of them as well.

So to summarise: no, I do not believe Armin needs to change the name of his show. I'd even say that it'd be detrimental to the genre if he did.



I would also like to advise you to remove this from the petition, as I personally think the goal in general is already unattainable in and of itself. Wishing to change the name to this or whatever other derogatory phrase you can think of makes the entire petition nothing more than your average internet meme (unless you're truly serious about this, then I'd call it an above average internet meme).

[Edit: rephrased some sentences.]
But the thing is other labels do follow him in a way and whether or not we like he does have some influence on the genre. The number of people who want to produce the euphoric trance has become almost become extinct and the stuff being churned out is not up to quality. A number of people have distanced themselves from melodic Trance JOOF being one of them and so has Airwave as well. I want to hear euphoric melodic trance/hard trance too sure the deep hypnotic stuff is good but the feel good summery and cold dark euphoric melodic trance tracks don't get made anymore. It's not progression, nor is it evolution it's sounds more depression to me.
 
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Progrez

Elite Member
Jun 17, 2022
2,245 Posts
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"Petition to Rename "A State of Trance" to Reflect its Shift from Traditional Trance Music"

I agree, but... this should have already happened around 2006-2010.
Ummm, he did play some trance back then like Duende dub mix of smile and their Luna Negra track being one of them. But the frequency of terrible sounding tracks increased and they were and are still terrible sounding/chaotic in a bad way as well and very lazy productions as well.
 
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Jul 20, 2020
78 Posts
66 Thanked
Portugal
To be absolutely honest with you, I think this is pretty much pointless. Even if a lot of people sign this petition I don't think much is going to change, if you ask me.

What I've been noticing as of late is that Armin has pretty much become a mainstream Techno DJ judging by his most recent sets where half of the music played there is Melodic Techno and the other one is Big Room Techno (or Mainstream Techno, if you want), there's barely any actual Trance there, in fact, even in his radioshow this music shift has become highly noticeable which at least has one thing positive: Upboring is finally dying, yay!

But, in any case, I personally think the genre is going to die out massively and become a rather niche underground thing the minute Armin retires because, let's face it, how many big names popular and powerful enough to carry the Trance torch have appeared in the last ten to fifteen years of the genre? Very little to none at all, let's face it: The vast majority of the Trance producers who are still more or less considered influential enough in the Trance scene these days have been pretty much the same people who were considered quite influential ten to fifteen years ago. Armin, Ferry, PvD, Markus Schulz, A&F, Cosmic Gate, Giuseppe Ottaviani, and that's pretty much it. As of now, the mainstream Trance scene has been failing miserably to create a proper new generation of Trance producers who could genuinely carry the torch for the genre long after Armin retires which also proves another point: That the whole idea that Trance Music remained a force to reckon to the point of being the indisputable king of the EDM world for pretty much the late 90's and the entire 2000's decade is actually a more fragile concept that many of us will probably be willing to admit, I mean, let's face it, if Trance really ever was at the top of the EDM scene it was probably only between 1998 and 2002 and that's pretty much it. The world had pretty much moved on since then, the only reason Trance didn't fully die out to become another niche underground thing it was originally because of Tiësto and later because of Armin because if it weren't for these two guys Trance, more especifically Epic Trance, would have probably just be remembered as a thing of its time and that's it, the same way Pizzicato Prog was a thing from '95-'97, Dream Trance was a thing also from '95 to '97 and that Oldschool German Hard Trance sound was also a thing from '93 to '97, more or less, interestingly enough all these very short-lived subgenres ended up disappearing more or less at the same time Epic Trance was finally getting big which was in '98, so hadn't it been for Tiësto and later Armin the history of Trance has as a mainstream-attractive genre would have probably ended more or less in 2002-2003 which would have probably had been for the best, in my very honest opinion.
 
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Gijs

Senior Member
Jul 2, 2020
604 Posts
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There's also one other thing I'd like to mention, which is that I believe cause and effect to be reversed here: trance isn't changing because ASOT is, ASOT is changing because trance is.

Take the rock genre in its entirety for example, most people (even below my age) consider bands like Queen and the Beatles, albums like the White Album and Dark Side of the Moon and songs like Bohemian Rhapsody and Smells Like Teen Spirit to be the best of all time. Despite this, you hear very little about rock nowadays even though the genre hasn't changed that much all those years. Society constantly changes and people look for new things and new experiences to listen to, meaning that eventually any genre which refuses to evolve will die out as people will just think it's more of the same.

Trance isn't an exception to this, people considered trance to be the biggest genre around near the end of the '90s and the beginning of the '00s until it wasn't anymore. It needed to change to stay relevant and as such, Armin included more progressive house, bigroom and techno in ASOT and his sets. He could have chosen not to do it, but then trance would've ended up as all those other genres of the 80s and 90s that people will look back on and say "man that was good, I wish they still made music like that today".