Happy International Women's Day!
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| Samus Aran |
Before we start: Happy IWD! Here's an interesting piece about synthesizer pioneers I got thanks to Suzy Q. Spoilers: the article features quite some women!
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2021-03-08
So earlier today Eco asked us:
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I am well aware that as positive as this piece will reveal itself to be, Trance can very much generate the complete opposite of what I will describe below, as a result of the very same geeky passion I attribute as a possible catalyst behind the positivity.
After all; Passion breeds commitment. Commitment breeds expectation. Expectation breeds entitlement. Entitlement breeds disappointment. Disappointment breeds frustration. Frustration breeds anger. Anger breeds hatred. Passion is and always will be a double-edged sword sadly and Trance is no exception to this. Heck, I've spent the better part of my 20s giving into purist entitlement and I could get VERY... Obnoxious. Aw well. Growing up, eh? But let's not digress too much.
As Eco stated in his question, if we disregard these purist-unleashed conflicts the picture as a whole of the last 3,5 decades of Trance show a rather pleasant positivity. So let's try to Answer The Question (Do You Have Faith?? Sorry, couldn't resist):
"What is it about Trance that has made it such a positive force over such a long period of time?"
Geek 2000
I think the general positivity of Trance fans towards our genre has much to do with the personality type most of these fans seem to have. I've noticed among my Trance music friends that beside Trance music, we all share an interest in gaming. Whether we are talking about Nintendo fanboys or Sony loyalists, all of us enjoy escaping to the virtual world (to some degree), often as much as we do escaping in the wondrous world of Trancey melodies and arrangements. In short, many of us are so positive about our music because as geeks, the love have for our object of interest runs much deeper than casual music listeners. You could go as far as to argue that other music genres look down on us in a way, the same way a popular jock tends to look down on the nerdy kid in class. We are the nerdy kid: this is not my own analogy btw, either Eco himself or Mat Zo made this point back in 2015ish if I recall. We are looked down on.
When Tiesto cried after his set at Innercity all the way back in 1999, the Hardstyle/Gabber fans were disgusted by this expression of emotion. It was "whimpy" and "weak". And I hate to say it but it could have been any other Electronic Music genre, they all tend to be dismissive of this type of open expression and love for music. But geeks, geeks don't care! Trance is not cool and it never will be. It might have its moments of marketability like back in the late '90s when ID&T went full-on Trance (to the chagrin of aforementiond Hardstyle heads who felt betrayed) and get milked like a cash cow but overall people don't attend a Trance festival because it's "cool". Meanwhile over the years I've met many people that might not be all that much into Electronic Music per se "but they HAVE to go to Awakenings (spoiler: "because everyone else is going")".
Geeks love lore, world-building, history, connecting the past to the present and dear God do we LOVE to speculate about the future!! Trance music is more than just an activity you partake in for a couple of hours. It's almost like having something to take care of, like a plant. You have to nurture it, water it, give it enough sunlight for it to continue thriving. And we make that thriving happen when flock together online to tune into Pure Trance Radio or A State Of Trance or J00F Radio. We make that nurturing possible when dragging unwilling non-Trancing fans to our music events, no matter how large or small. We water it buy buying the tracks on Beatport or streaming the hell out of them on Spotify. Those moments all of us unique geeks (because even as fans of the same genre, boy are we ever so diverse on so many markers) get to unite in a mainstage hall whilst the speakers blast out those unfiltered supersaws all round us and we feel the goosebumps cover our bodies from head to toe, THAT is the pinnacle of that Geeky love celebrating its precious Trance.
Age Of Drugs
The persistent stigma that Electronic Music is a den for drug-addicts continues to be used as a stick to beat us with. Now I haven't read any statistics-based research on it but I would speculate that Trance music has fewer people that use excessive drugs or alcohol to get through the night compared to its sibling genres. I would say this boils down to our music having created enough variety and subgenres over the years to fill a whole night with enough twists and bends that you don't need any mental stimulation or sedation to enjoy the music. As a result I believe that the majority of our biggest names aren't into the "Rock and Roll" lifestyle so often glorified in artist documentaries (especially in the US)... Well that is to say for those of them that didn't overdose themselves on garbage. :/ You can spend a whole night listening to Trance perfectly sober and you can have the time of your life.
Such Is Trance
It strikes the perfect balance between groove and melody, between dancing and listening. And like all its Electronic Music siblings, Trance draws power from the layering: but not just with percussion and bass, also with melody. It's the most melodic of all these genres and as such it has the greatest appeal, even if for some fans it ends up being a genre they use to step into a wider landscape of all things Electronic. The focus on arrangements and clever alterations of main hooks and leads allows it to be genre that can tell a story without words, yet amaze, surprise, shock or wow all the same. Trance can be enjoyed across a rather wide BPM spectrum as well: 125 to over 150 if you're feeling particularly EYE-Q oldskool. A 25-BPM range!! Few other genres can reach that far without changing into something completely different (though granted, Techno can keep up hehe).
Add to that this is music that has so many formats to be enjoyed in: single tracks, (concept) albums, extended Radio/DJ sets, mega mixes... Cut and paste, and morph and merge. I am of the opinion that Electronic Music as a whole is so much more playful than its "organic" counterparts exactly because it is in its nature to be torn down into tiny building blocks that are compatible across all its genres. And Trance is like a microcosm of that adaptability: you can merge tracks with elements of so many, seemingly contrasting music genres, it gives it a bit of an "unfair" advantage almost. It can merge with pretty much anything and still sound amazing, still feel like Trance, yet be completely different. If music genres were organisms, Trance would be one of them with the highest chance of adopting and by extension, surviving whereas the other species would perish. To keep it deliciously geeky, Trance is like the Asari in Mass Effect. Elegant, wise and capable of connecting physically, mentally and emotionally with any other species.
If you combine all of these things together you are left with a genre that sticks with the majority of its fans throughout their lives. The nostalgia towards the early days only strengthens this in most and that's why Trance makes us so happy.
At least, that's what I think anyway. What are your thoughts?
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Read the DJ Mag article here
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