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watje
about trance
 donderdag 10 juli 2003
This is a funny thread on tranceaddict. It so much reminds me of Belgium 5+ years ago. Underground afficionada's claiming that commercialism will kill music in general and trance in particular. In hindsight, they might have been partially right. While the total number of trance (in the broadest sense) songs produced increased tremendously, the quality couldn't keep up.
Of course one should never use the trance in the top lists as a representation of what is actually out there. Pretty much any song in a national top 40 list is engineered to appeal to a broad audience. I'm using the word engineered here, because there is very little actual musical composing being done on your average mainstream radio hit. A TV show like Idol (or whatever it is called in your country) is the pinnacle of this entire culture. And the sad thing is people are still watching and buying it.
I guess we're all consumer whores deep down bellow, that's what you get with our economy and stuff.
But anyway, to get back on topic. Judging by the comments on tranceaddict and other boards, the total number of quality trance productions hasn't dropped over the last few years. It has just become harder to find them amidst all the mediocre and bad music out there. Personally I tend to like some of the older trance better, but I'm affraid that's just coloured by my own personal memory of those early days when we had just discovered rave parties in burned down buildings and there wasn't a club on every streetcorner.
The oddest thing is that trance and electronic music in general are becoming big in the Americas, while in Western Europe they seem to have peaked a few years back. Lately Europe is really going for the r& b vibe. I guess the youth is just looking for a different identity and what's to be different from the previous generation (well, not really generations, it's more the difference between 18- and 25-year olds ;) )
Everything goes in cirlces I guess.
If the end result is that we can again go raving in burned down buildings at prices that are affordable for normal people, I'm all for it.
11:57:51 PM 
 2 days before we leave for the land of a 1000 islands and 5000 km of coast.
2:31:13 PM
© 2003 Peter Backx
Last Update: 2/08/2003; 17:35:10
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