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The best trance ever was made before 2000...


Lemmiwinks

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It's sort of a "democratization" of music making.

 

If close to anyone can become an artist the absolute amount of above average releases should increase because of the normal distribution of talent. The previous distribution curve of talent was biased towards high amounts of talent because of the need to invest in equipment etc (see my original post). When the threshold to make music is lowered the distribution curve of talent will get the shape of a typical normal distribution curve since talent is normal distributed. It means that the amount of good and bad releases should equal each other. Our experience is however that the amount of average and below averages releases has increased whereas the growth of above average releases has declined.

 

My theory is that psytrance is (more or less) dead and therefor the above average talents in general do not make psytrance. If you were to look at electronic music as a whole then you will find that the absolute amount of above average releases have increased. If you look at a particular genre of electronic music - like minimal techno - you will find that the amount of above average releases is higher than the amount of below average releases because this is the most inspiring sound at the moment, and that's where the talent is at the moment. The same could be said about IDM a few years back, and about psytrance pre 2000.

 

interesting thoughts... or it could also be that good minimal techno is easier to make than good psytrance... ;)

 

Also I'd like to point out that softsynths aren't really that new, Propellerheads released the RB338 (303, 808 and 909 emulator) in 1997. I remember that already then people would say that just about anyone could make electronic music and that it was no longer necessary to invest in proper studio equipment to be a producer.

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Umm yes, Trosk is 100% correct.

 

Good artists don't dally behind in genres that already peaked producing the same old music, they move on, and psytrance has become for the most part a wasteland for inferior artists just copying something that was already done.

 

This moving on is just adding something new at least, which probably takes them beyond "psytrance", which is a quite narrowly defined concept.

 

Also I think there's less effort and life put into the music now for the reasons it's easier to release and the audience is quite large and stupid.

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Some time has to pass before we get that "classic" feeling from music. I still remember thinking nothing of a lot of new music in 2001 or whatever... now looking back a thin slice of it has the same classic feel that the mid-nineties Goa style has. Today I was listening to Cosma - Nonstop on my bike ride home and I was just blown away with how deep and emotional it is. I think it isn't a matter of the best trance being made before 2000... but the fact that you need to wait a while for a critical threshold of positive memories to crystallize into nostalgia... this has one interesting corollary: if you aren't listening to new music in a similar way to how you listened to old music you won't ever develop anything like the same feelings for it. Flashback to the nineties... if you were going to golden parties and having peak experiences and tracking down rarities on vinyl and treasuring every find, well... you aren't going to ever have the same feeling for a bunch of new stuff you mass download and skim through on earbud headphones or whatever. There is a funny sort of chicken-and-egg story in here if you stopped going to parties years ago because the music lost its magic. You have to ask whether the magic is gone or whether you no longer participate in a way that lets the magic of new music work on your consciousness.

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Some time has to pass before we get that "classic" feeling from music. I still remember thinking nothing of a lot of new music in 2001 or whatever... now looking back a thin slice of it has the same classic feel that the mid-nineties Goa style has. Today I was listening to Cosma - Nonstop on my bike ride home and I was just blown away with how deep and emotional it is. I think it isn't a matter of the best trance being made before 2000... but the fact that you need to wait a while for a critical threshold of positive memories to crystallize into nostalgia... this has one interesting corollary: if you aren't listening to new music in a similar way to how you listened to old music you won't ever develop anything like the same feelings for it. Flashback to the nineties... if you were going to golden parties and having peak experiences and tracking down rarities on vinyl and treasuring every find, well... you aren't going to ever have the same feeling for a bunch of new stuff you mass download and skim through on earbud headphones or whatever. There is a funny sort of chicken-and-egg story in here if you stopped going to parties years ago because the music lost its magic. You have to ask whether the magic is gone or whether you no longer participate in a way that lets the magic of new music work on your consciousness.

You seem to be suggesting we force ourselves to listen to crappy music with some idea that in 10 years we won't think it's crappy anymore? :unsure:
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You seem to be suggesting we force ourselves to listen to crappy music with some idea that in 10 years we won't think it's crappy anymore? :unsure:

 

Way to zing Basilisk dude :o ...

 

I'm reading it as a little bit different message and I would probably agree with him.

The whole experience of qualifying a tune or an album a classic is a function of the music AND the listener with all of his/her

moods, life stages, situations and perspectives.

I would also agree with the fact that some time needs to pass before one can look back and classify something as a classic.

If an album stands the test of time well, it certainly satisfies one of many criteria for becoming a classic in my book.

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Well let me explain... we listened to old music thinking "wow this is awesome" and now we're listening to new music thinking "wow this is crappy". That's what the entire thread is about. So unless you think we should PRETEND the music is good and it will magically turn into a classic in 10 years, you're not really saying anything.

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Guest antic

Well let me explain... we listened to old music thinking "wow this is awesome" and now we're listening to new music thinking "wow this is crappy". That's what the entire thread is about. So unless you think we should PRETEND the music is good and it will magically turn into a classic in 10 years, you're not really saying anything.

Well, this seems to be exactly the root of your problem - you hardly enjoy any of the recent releases, while in fact many of us still are able to find a lot of stuff for which we can say "wow, this is awesome", even though with the flood of crap flowing in this is admittedly much more difficult.

 

On a general note, I'd argue that talent has a normal (Gaussian) distribution - for me either someone is talented or not, there's no half-way here, so therefore it seems that the distribution is bi-modal (binomial) or something ;). There are thousands of producers / artists that just 'write' music because they can (it's relatively easy as Trolsk proved), they find it as a way to get some money, some recognition, some 15 minutes of fame, maybe even to get laid ;). And there are talented people, who always release quality stuff and although I'm not always able to enjoy it (it's not my style, e.g. suomi and prog), I can recognise it and appreciate it as such.

 

I also agree that for the release to become classic some time has to pass - some releases are so different, daring and innovative, that only few months or even years after you're able to appreciate their 'classicness' - that for example happened to me with Koxbox' Dragon Tales, which I hated initially.

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I cant agree or disagree with music being better fifteen years ago, with me it happened the other way around , i got so used to the 'modern production' like you people call it; that I found the past releases lacking in a lot of ways that wasn't as dynamic as the material that i was introduced to. maybe it sort of spoiled the entire feeling that i was supposed to have with old goa trance if i had discovered it back in the day but i still am not sure whether its regrettable or not. Though there are those releases here and there that i keep discovering through reviews on here that are pretty good.

 

well one thing is for certain that the quality has gone down since 2005. come back ghreg on earth, derango, psykovsky, procs and the gang!

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Well, this seems to be exactly the root of your problem - you hardly enjoy any of the recent releases, while in fact many of us still are able to find a lot of stuff for which we can say "wow, this is awesome", even though with the flood of crap flowing in this is admittedly much more difficult.

Look at the thread title: "The best trance ever was made before 2000..., why?" Sure we can enjoy some decent new music, but pretty much everything becomes crappy compared to (is not as good as) the old goa trance music.

 

Anyways, this is definitely not an issue of nostalgia because:

1. I never even heard of goa trance 10 years ago, I've only heard it all after 2000, when it was already dying.

2. Some great goa albums I've only heard for the first time very recently ago and I can still realize they are great album.

 

I also agree that for the release to become classic some time has to pass - some releases are so different, daring and innovative, that only few months or even years after you're able to appreciate their 'classicness' - that for example happened to me with Koxbox' Dragon Tales, which I hated initially.

Why? I could tell after a couple weeks of Solar Fields - Moments that it was a great album and a classic of 2009.
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hehe so many different views in this thread that I don't even know what to think anymore :) I do agree with Basilisk in a way, indeed it takes some time to appreciate something for a classic, just while reading his comment I thought of The Delta. I remember I didn't like it one bit when I first listened to them but today looking in restrospective I love that dark mechanical feeling, and even come to regret the fact that "dark trance" moved on to 160+BPMs with screechy sounds thrown on top.

 

That said, just like bwhale, I remember that back in the days it was instant love with the music, I didn't need time for it to grow on me, I remember I had this tape recorded in the mid 90s from a french underground radio show (so you see, after all this kind of music wasn't THAT hard to get back then, at least not in these parts...) with stuff like Prana - Scarab, MWNN - Teleport, Hallucinogen - Space Pussy and so on. I must've listened to that tape for YEARS, most of the time not even knowing the name of the artists/ tracks until many years later. And it just so happens that it's those very tracks that I still hold close to my heart today...

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Sentimentality. If you'd found the best of the best today NOW, you'd feel just the same. Quality is a psycological matter.

Nope. I clearly said I don't have long attachments to some of these albums. For me I try to judge is the music complex, intelligent, interesting, meaningful, creative, etc, there's no sentimentality "omg I remember listening to this on the beach in goa 15 years ago" involved. Some goa releases I only heard this year and I can still notice that they are even better than some psy releases this year, even though they were made 10 years ago.
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Nope. I clearly said I don't have long attachments to some of these albums. For me I try to judge is the music complex, intelligent, interesting, meaningful, creative, etc, there's no sentimentality "omg I remember listening to this on the beach in goa 15 years ago" involved. Some goa releases I only heard this year and I can still notice that they are even better than some psy releases this year, even though they were made 10 years ago.

I was writing about social tendencies, not universal laws. You're on a different path, manufacturing self-identity by playing the roles of old school Goa rebel and forum troll. It just so happens that you're dead wrong if you arbitrarily think no new music exhibits complexity, intelligence, and meaningful creative ideas comparable to the acknowledged Golden Age classics.

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I was writing about social tendencies, not universal laws. You're on a different path, manufacturing self-identity by playing the roles of old school Goa rebel and forum troll. It just so happens that you're dead wrong if you arbitrarily think no new music exhibits complexity, intelligence, and meaningful creative ideas comparable to the acknowledged Golden Age classics.

No you're dead wrong. Sadly I'm convinced you've never actually understood any old school goa music, since your top 10 and essentials lists are laughable.

 

Oh, and you're trying to manufacture self-identity or fame or something by promoting newer psytrance and releasing stuff for free on your personal website. :rolleyes:

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No you're dead wrong. Sadly I'm convinced you've never actually understood any old school goa music, since your top 10 and essentials lists are laughable.

 

Oh, and you're trying to manufacture self-identity or fame or something by promoting newer psytrance and releasing stuff for free on your personal website. :rolleyes:

Radi?

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Bit-head was almost a shock though when I first heard it. Really different, great.

http://www.myspace.com/bithead1

Hello everyone!

Interesting to see some praises on my side project Bit-Head. I started doing it to make something different with no genre-borders and tried to gave it a bit of my goa hint. Glad to see you guys enjoy it . It's something really.. .. wicked i should say :).

Thanks everyone.

/Filipe

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1. I never even heard of goa trance 10 years ago, I've only heard it all after 2000, when it was already dying.

This is a crying shame for you! Even though you love oldschool you have never heard it in it's proper context. Have you ever even been to a party with 100% oldschool tunes? Those were fantastic days, I really think the parties were better pre 2000 for me as the DJs played what I wanted to hear. Nowadays there are some fantastic albums being produced but the DJs mainly play identi-kit crap that works only for the dancefloor. Even at a party I want something for the head.

Although you profess to love the oldschool sound I doubt you will ever truly be able to understand it as you missed the sentimental years. For most people music is not a mechanical breakdown of its elements but the feel the music and hormones were rampant when we were young and can play a big part in how we feel about music, they help us open the door and see that what lies beyond is often greater than the sum of its parts.

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