Unpopular trance/electronic music opinions

Archon

Gagi
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Jun 27, 2020
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The gold standard for golden-era trance is the Tiesto Silence/Suburban Train/Goldenscan remix/Tears of the Moon sound.
This sounds like something you read on Reddit twice and embraced it like a fact.
No matter how much I tried to like it, I couldn't get into 76 other than Precious, and that is largely because it's essentially an Airwave track.
Don't hear the influence honestly. You have a collab with Airwave on 76, and this isn't it.
Imagine and Mirage (the album tracks) are some of the most technically complex tracks Armin ever made. They sound like they took Armin weeks to create and arrange, and the production in them is top-notch. There's so much attention to detail and ambiance that you just don't hear in his earlier productions.
Which is all a perfectly valid reason to prefer something, and knowing you also like pop, it makes sense for you to like these two albums more (believe me, I love them too). Of course they sounded technically more proficient, I mean that's what 5-7 years of producing constantly does.

I can accept taste, but I just believe Armin' s best and most special work came much earlier. And even though he had some tracks that might sound 'dated' to you, I think you still need to give his (older) discography a chance.
 
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Magdelayna

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Jul 13, 2020
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The gold standard for golden-era trance is the Tiesto Silence/ Suburban Train/Goldenscan remix/Tears of the Moon sound. I'm not saying Tiesto is a good producer, but instead the team responsible for making that sound.

Apart from Silence,some of the most overrated Tiesto tracks imo.

Try these :

01 Delirium - Innocente (DJ Tiesto Remix)
02 Sarah McLaughlin - Sweet Surrender (DJ Tiesto Remix)
03 Lost Witness - Did I Dream (DJ Tiesto Remix)
04 Dave Matthews Band - The Space Between (DJ Tiesto Remix)
05 Aria - Willow (DJ Tiesto's Magikal Remake)
06 Salt Tank - Eugina (DJ Tiesto Remix)
07 Paul Oakenfold - Southern Sun (DJ Tiesto Remix)
08 Delirium - Silence (DJ Tiesto In Search Of Sunrise Remix)
09 Dumonde - Never Look Back (DJ Tiesto Remix)
10 Lunatic Asylum - Cabal (DJ Tiesto Remix)
11 Allure - We Ran At Dawn (DJ Tiesto's Magikal Remake)
 

Progrez

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Jun 17, 2022
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This sounds like something you read on Reddit twice and embraced it like a fact.

Don't hear the influence honestly. You have a collab with Airwave on 76, and this isn't it.

Which is all a perfectly valid reason to prefer something, and knowing you also like pop, it makes sense for you to like these two albums more (believe me, I love them too). Of course they sounded technically more proficient, I mean that's what 5-7 years of producing constantly does.

I can accept taste, but I just believe Armin' s best and most special work came much earlier. And even though he had some tracks that might sound 'dated' to you, I think you still need to give his (older) discography a chance.
Precious sounds like this track below.

 
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dmgtz96

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Jul 13, 2020
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This sounds like something you read on Reddit twice and embraced it like a fact.
You'll be surprised to hear that is my actual opinion. I think that style was very innovative and sounds modern/revolutionary. Nothing else from that era sounds so clean and well-put together.
Don't hear the influence honestly. You have a collab with Airwave on 76, and this isn't it.
Precious sounds like a darker version of Alone in the Dark, as if it were inspired by Alone in the Dark. And yes, to me it sounds more Airwave-like than Slipstream.
Listening to Slipstream again, it actually feels more like a Fire & Ice track.
Which is all a perfectly valid reason to prefer something, and knowing you also like pop, it makes sense for you to like these two albums more (believe me, I love them too). Of course they sounded technically more proficient, I mean that's what 5-7 years of producing constantly does.
Exactly, what's what I like about Imagine & Mirage. Armin's production skills peaked with those two tracks.
I can accept taste, but I just believe Armin' s best and most special work came much earlier. And even though he had some tracks that might sound 'dated' to you, I think you still need to give his (older) discography a chance.
Maybe. There's a charm to his earlier productions, and they do sound more original.
 

dmgtz96

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Jul 13, 2020
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Not that it matters today, but:

"Intelligent dance music" should have never been a term. From a modern perspective a lot of these tracks would have fallen under ambient/glitch/breakbeats/drum & bass/Electronica. IDM was just a catch-all to somehow sound better/alternative to what already existed, even though IDM already fit into established genres.
 
Jul 20, 2020
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Portugal
Trance should have died gracefully in the mid-2000s when its popularity started to fade away and/or should have gone back to its underground roots to rediscover itself (and preferably look for inspiration from the early years, especially 1993, 1994, and 1995). With this healthy and respectful attitude and its dignity intact, trance would have had the chance to rebirth like a phoenix and start gaining momentum again in the modern days, similarly to techno (which had/has a massive resurgence in its popularity). What famous and influential trance producers did, however, is they tried to artificially keep trance afloat by slowly injecting more and more commercial sounds into it, aiming at the lowest common denominator, this way slowly homogenizing the genre and stripping away all of its identity. This eventually resulted in a malformed mish-mash of electronic music that lacks any creativity, distinctive sound, and originality, and is anything but trance.
Wow! Thank you! This is what I've been saying for years! You have pretty much encapsulate everything I've been saying about Trance not dying gracefully when it was the time for it and being kept afloat like a Zombie, it's pretty much the same thing as The Simpsons. Really, thank you for saying this! +1000 kudos from me!
 
Jul 20, 2020
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Portugal
Yeah, to me Imagine and Mirage sound more professional, like they were recorded with state-of-the-art equipment at a professional studio
I don't know if they were produced that way but that's not necessarily a good thing, a lot of tremendous Trance classics were produced with the technology available at their time and they still sound better than most so-called professional productions these days.
 

Spacetime

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Nov 6, 2021
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Trance should have died gracefully in the mid-2000s

I strongly disagree. Trance has so much left to give. I don’t see it going anywhere even for another 50 years. With Ai it might survive for enternity, it god knows what form and brilliance. Genres should only die when the fans stop.

let’s say we stopped at 2005 as you suggested and we loose 100-300 great tracks from the last 20 years. Is that a good thing? A good thing to never hear what Enigma State made for us in the last few years? All the amazing parties that took place and made people happy. There is no good reason it should die prematurely as you are suggesting. It is an amazing genre and we should keep celebrating it and encouraging new generations to give it a try.
 
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SaltAcidFatHeatAcid

Senior Member
Jul 19, 2022
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I strongly disagree. Trance has so much left to give. I don’t see it going anywhere even for another 50 years. With Ai it might survive for enternity, it god knows what form and brilliance. Genres should only die when the fans stop.

let’s say we stopped at 2005 as you suggested and we loose 100-300 great tracks from the last 20 years. Is that a good thing? A good thing to never hear what Enigma State made for us in the last few years? All the amazing parties that took place and made people happy. There is no good reason it should die prematurely as you are suggesting. It is an amazing genre and we should keep celebrating it and encouraging new generations to give it a try.
Better to burn out than fade away, eh? The quality issues and lack of interest have definitely led to more of fade. I think of it more like paper being stained and wet, until its no longer of value. That's trance in 2023 for me, a soggy wet unintelligible piece of paper ready to be flushed.

I'm not one to regret though, so I appreciate the good stuff that did come out in the tougher years. But. The pandemic really put the nail in the trance coffin for me. It put a damper on fan attendance at the few shows major cities were getting, in the US anyway. There were visa and visa fee changes as well (>>>$$). This means that you won't be seeing lower to mid-tier artists outside of a small same-continental geography anymore. Just your headliners most of us are very sick of or can't relate to. I don't think most people understand how small the trance fanbase is, and how little money it generates compared to other genres. It's deeply unpopular and has only become moreso. Just take a look at any multi-genre fest lineup. Trance is mostly gone outside of the remaining events that focus on the genre.

I do think it is rebirthing, subtly, indirectly. In this early stage though, artists actively avoid their productions sounding 'too trancey', from my own observations. Lots of us on here are following this underground sound very closely. Some on here don't ever really see trance in the music. But I suspect there will be offshoots of forward thinking more traditionally trancey releases on the way, if the sound continues to appeal to fans and grow. Or maybe it dies too, who knows. I hope not.

One last thought. I played a very small event a few weeks ago, with a minimal/techno/prog DJ who's got a good fanbase and plays lots in Cali. A great DJ too. On the flyer, me and another were labeled as trance. He said he was planning to sleep through our sets but stuck around to see what was up. We both played the modern underground stuff and this DJ was very surprised to find something he could relate to and really enjoy. That's my hope, this not-quite-trance-but-very-trance-sounding underground sound will slowly build its fanbase, and branch out. It's way more fun to mix with other genres but it still hits me in similar ways to the best of the mid 90s sound. If we can just inject more progression and more melody, we'll be nearly there.
 
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Julian Del Agranda

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Jul 3, 2020
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Weird high voice, rather cringy song. And melodically offers very little too. Never got the hype around it.
 

erickUO

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Jul 13, 2020
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The future is unpredictable. No one predicted trance will goes electro, steroid, techno, snoozefest, templatefest, and so on.

What’s next for trance might be something you don’t like.
And after that will still be something you don’t like.
And again and again until one day it become something you really like ( i hope).

If you think the current is bad, you're just in the shit part of the cycle.
 

facade1984

Senior Member
Apr 27, 2021
322 Posts
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Sydney NSW
I have a ton of unpopular opinions but here's one and a half: a huge number of today's trance "producers" lack the raw musical talent and imagination necessary to actually write music. And more so, a lot of guys can put together big chord progressions but can't make a hook to save they life
 
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Archon

Gagi
TranceFix Crew
Jun 27, 2020
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I have a ton of unpopular opinions but here's one and a half: a huge number of today's trance "producers" lack the raw musical talent and imagination necessary to actually write music. And more so, a lot of guys can put together big chord progressions but can't make a hook to save they life
That's not an opinion...that's just a fact.
 

Progrez

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Jun 17, 2022
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This is tricky because what even is Tiesto's sound? How much was he really involved in the production of the tracks which made him famous (Silence, Suburban Train, Traffic)? How much was he involved in the production of songs from his early career, like West & Storm - Porpoise?
What is a good example of a 100% Tiesto track?

I don't think there's any, so it's hard to say that Tiesto is or isn't a good producer. And no, I'm not defending Tiesto here. I know that the brilliant, innovative tracks like Silence, Suburban Train,, Goldenscan remix, and the Tears from the Moon remix were all produced by his ghost producers and just happened to be released under his name.
He might have had some input on where the tracks went because I noticed when he and ferry collaborated the tracks sounded more ear friendly they sounded more enhanced and ear candy compared to just ferry corsten by himself.
The gold standard for golden-era trance is the Tiesto Silence/Suburban Train/Goldenscan remix/Tears of the Moon sound. I'm not saying Tiesto is a good producer, but instead the team responsible for making that sound.


No matter how much I tried to like it, I couldn't get into 76 other than Precious, and that is largely because it's essentially an Airwave track.
Imagine and Mirage (the album tracks) are some of the most technically complex tracks Armin ever made. They sound like they took Armin weeks to create and arrange, and the production in them is top-notch. There's so much attention to detail and ambiance that you just don't hear in his earlier productions. They're also decently catchy and still sound great in 2023.

The rest of the tracks on those two albums are pretty basic. But I can tell you that I'm more likely to listen to Face to Face, In and Out of Love, I Don't Own You, and Virtual Friend instead of the non-Precious tracks on 76.

That could also be the effect of Benno working with Armin, and not just Armin working by himself. Maybe the producer that I actually like is Benno.


Yeah, to me Imagine and Mirage sound more professional, like they were recorded with state-of-the-art equipment at a professional studio
Pish posh - Armin's older productions sound more authentic and human and a lot better and he was a good producer back in the day. But now he is allowing other people to make his tracks for him and he is being very lazy when it comes to producing. Listen to his remix of Tribal feel of Sound of Goodbye and Rising star remix as that track as well. His remix of Janeiro were exceptional despite the cheesy vocals. Older tracks focused more on grooves and percussions rather than pads.
 

Hensmon

Admin
TranceFix Crew
Jun 27, 2020
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UK
The big UK trance DJ’s are totally indistinguishable from each other and should morph into one dj.

Not sure I agree. Who are the big ones now? Solarstone, Activa, Thrillseekers, Will Atkinson, John 00 Fleming, Above & Beyond... I'd say they are all notably different.