Best trance: old school or new school

[gencid]

Either I am too old, or I still think old school trance in general wins over new school trance, even though there is some great trance out there.

Exhibit A:
Armin Van Buuren Then
Armin Van Buuren Now

Exhibit B:
Cosmic Gate Then
Cosmic Gate Now

Exhibit C:
Airbase Then
Airbase Now

There are great tracks every now and then, like the below for instance, but in general I feel all the new stuff more or less sucks.

 

[Jarriaga-]

I prefer old school Trance because it has a certain level of purity that makes it easy to classify and recognize, unlike what you hear today.

 

[gencid]

I prefer old school Trance because it has a certain level of purity that makes it easy to classify and recognize, unlike what you hear today.

Great point. It's become harder and harder to classify trance today, especially with vocals that want to be alternative rock, rather than upbeat dance, rhythms that want to be house, but they're not quite dry enough to pass for house, and high pitch noise for the sake of being noise, rather than having an euphoric or melodic appeal to them.

I only used current artists in this post to make a point, but if we take the best of old trance and compare it to the best of today's trance, you can still feel that there was more structure, more melody and all in all a purer sound back then that what we have today. Since I posted some of my "new school" favorites in my OP, I am going to post some of my "old school" favorites in here as well.

 

[P0WERGL0VE]

Armin's Universal Religion Chapter 3 and 7 to me was the all time best trance tracks put together.

 

[Jarriaga-]

Armin's Universal Religion Chapter 3 and 7 to me was the all time best trance tracks put together.

"Theatrum [Intro Rework]" from disc 1 is my favorite opening track of all time. There's something sublime about it.

Heck, I wonder why he stopped Universal Religion? It's a lot more uplifting and consistent in style than ASOT.

 

[Jarriaga-]

Exhibit B:
Cosmic Gate Then
Cosmic Gate Now

Now that Materia: Chapter One is out I have extremely mixed feelings. I thought Start to Feel was their low point (Ignoring Yai and Sparks After The Sunset), but this album has really high highs and low lows. With Fireflies for example they gave in into the "distorted Barry White + child voice combo" many songs are using today as if chasing trends. It's awful.

On the other hand, "Spectrum", "Dynamic", "am2pm" and "Halo" in particular are all a lot more in tune with the style of Wake Your Wind. Granted it's still far from their origins, but still a thousand times better than the made-for-the-radio mess that is Start to Feel.

Hopefully Chapter Two will redeem Chapter One when listened back to back. Can't wait for the release this week.

 

[gencid]

[URL='http://www.ign.com/boards/members/jarriaga.4371414/']@Jarriaga[/URL] Where have you been, I've missed ya. Yeah, I no longer follow Cosmic Gate because I don't care for their new sellout stuff. I understand why they do it, but I don't have to like it. For some reason some of the best trance these days comes from Future Sound of Egypt and as usual Scandinavia. Talla 2XLC also keeps fighting the good fight with no concern about 'trends'.

 

[P0WERGL0VE]

Its so hard to listen to the great classic trance producers when to sellout and sounds like progressive house... its sad. Armin for the most part has stayed true but not too many have.

 

[anonymousforumuser]

I love old school trance, but new school is nice too. It’s nice to see an evolution, but some of the best trance songs were made 10 years ago.

 

[brinkllza]

I like this sh*t!

 

[brinkllza]

Really yes!

 

[DirtyMagic]

 

[japekto]

I got exposed to goa trance years ago. I prefer it over the new ones although some psytrance sounds okay. I'm not big on the genre. But, they do keep me awake at night during long road trips.

 

[Caro-Li]

i guess the best trance and EDM is from the last 12 years till now, before that i really don´t like it so much.
My favorites are Afrojack, Armin Van Buuren, Tiesto, Alan Walker, Matin Garrix, like mike, mauro piccoto and others

 

[straight_circle]

My all time favourite trance song.