well, you must be from a completely different generation. for my generation, going to a club was like going to church for someone else. it was the absolute hottest thing of our time... there were posters all over the streets, and radio stations ran contests for event tickets... for me, listening to music only at home or through headphones is unacceptable.. it's simply not enough..
I heard the best music of my life right there in clubs. our local scene was quite strong, and we were lucky to have great local DJs, thanks to whom I can say I got into better music right away. a lot of people from my high school used to go to clubs, too.. in my hometown I had plenty of friends among punks and hip-hoppers who also strongly supported their own scenes.
every now and then, you could hear some great music late at night on the radio, or sometimes you'd get your hands on a compilation or magazine with CD, but the absolute best and most cutting-edge music was, without a doubt, in the clubs...
when I listen to new releases, I usually imagine how they would affect me in a club.)
I have nothing against the era when 'Trance' was commercially successful, but it is important to note that all those popular tracks were released with the backing of giant major labels like 'Universal Music' or 'Sony Music'. without their support, I believe 'Trance' wouldn't have become so massive. once these labels lost interest in the genre, it fell into sterility.
for me, for instance, 'Trance' became increasingly weak after 2004. the basslines started to become, let's call it, asexual, and the melodiousness of some tracks had the vibe of a romantic movie broadcast on TV on a sunday afternoon.
since you started with Trance in 2008, you grew up on completely different music than I did, and you probably understand it differently, too
To give you as much context as possible in a not too long text:
I was sixteen when I fell in love with Trance. I had already heard many Trance tracks before and I really loved the sound, but I didn't actually know it was Trance.
Before that I was into a lot of different music genres and artists. When I was really young I would listen to a lot of mainstream pop music of the time, t.A.T.u. were probably first group I actually fell in love with back in 2003. Then I went to my New Age/Adult Contemporary era in 2004-2005 in which I would listen a lot of artists like Vangelis, Mike Oldfield, Vanessa Mae, Bonnie Tyler, Enya, Maggie Reilly and few others. Then I went through my Anime era in 2006-2007 in which the music I would listen the most would be partly Anime Music from the Animes I would watch back then like Sailor Moon, Ojamajo Doremi, Kaleido Star and especially Captain Tsubasa (the original 1983 TV series, the films and the OVA's, which I still watch these days) and I would listen a lot to t.A.T.u., of course.
Then in 2008 I started listened to even more different music, I would listen to Enigma, Delerium and Madonna, for example, and many of these artists had many Trance remixes of their tracks like ATB Remix for Enigma's "Push the Limits", all the Trance remixes of so many Delerium tracks like the extremely well-known timeless classic "Silence" remixed by DJ Tiësto, Airscape, Above & Beyond and so many others, and, of course, Madonna had many Trance remixes of tracks of hers by producers like Above & Beyond and Paul Oakenfold, but the most well-known of one of her tracks is Above & Beyond's remix of What It Feels Like For A Girl.
Then in September 2008 I started listening to many remixes produced by ATB, one of them was of Rank 1's "Airwave" and on September 21st of that I listened to the full original mix of that track and that was the moment I became a Trance fan.
Now, to give you even more context:
As I've said before, I was sixteen back then, so even if I wanted to go clubbing I wasn't old enough for that. And important context: Trance, at least the more commercial/mainstream form of it never really took over here.
While Armin was winning DJ Mag's number one DJ Award year after year, people barely know who he was. The only Trance DJ they more or less knew back then was Tiësto and the only track they actually knew of him was that god-awful "Adagio" cover. I mean, I remember back in 2004 or something like that some ads playing "Lethal Industry" so they probably would know that track even if they didn't know the title of it nor who was behind it, and back in the early 2000's Safri Duo's "Played A-Live" would be played many times on my school, and I always had goosebumps back then, and I still do to this day.
So, yeah, even if I would want to go to a club, Trance was nowhere the be found, forget it.
In 2008-2009 most of what I would listen in Trance were the classics and then in 2010-2011 I started paying some attention to new Trance music, although the classics would be more prevalent on my listening sessions.
So, yeah, everything you're telling me, I genuinely can't understand it. I mean, if it were the Netherlands or Germany maybe I would understand that, but keep in mind, this is Portugal I'm talking about. Everything that comes here comes late. Did you know that raves only somewhat started happening in Portugal in the late 90's? No, I'm not joking, this is how late things come to Portugal, and rave culture was one of the things that arrived quite late here.
And, once again, I never actually pictured Trance has club music. Trance music for me was above all "escape music". Because my life was not very spectacular back then, and Trance music with all the emotions, the melodies and the overall feeling of it was what made me have a more interesting life, you know?
I also don't understand what you mean by "asexual". Trance music has never ever been about sexuality to me, it has been mostly about the emotions and the overall feeling of it. And I was barely a sexual person back then, even to this day I'm not that much sexual, in fact, it annoys me conversations about that topic. (BTW, a bit off-topic, but every time someone here asks about "the whereabouts of the girls" I get so annoyed. Really, just control yourselves, you're not sixteen anymore)
But, yeah, if anything, it gave me a closer and more personal relation to the music itself without the negatives of the club/festival culture because if it were just "club music" or "festival music" I wouldn't care much about it.
For me, Trance music is about the feelings and the journey. And it that regard, Trance probably excels like no other genre of music.
But, I have to admit: These days I listen to way less Trance than I used to listen to in 2008-2011. It's not that I don't listen to some Trance tracks and even Trance sets from time to time, but I grew a lot, and I realise Trance made much more sense back then because of my general mentality and state of mind than it does nowadays because things change and I changed.
Of course, if you ask me, if there was any other genre that made me feel that emotional, has had the most impact in me and had made me fall in love with the most, of course I will always say Trance Music, but, nowadays, Trance Music is the kind of music I listen from time to time, but it's not longer my main thing, I have to be honest.
