More and more we hear of Trance dying out, turning into house, no real Trance around, so called new genres with silly names like “Trouse” (which in my opinion is usually either house that uses trancy synth sounds, or Progressive House).

I constantly have to tell people that no genre is dying out here, yes some merge, some evolve, but producers are always creating what can be called “Proper Trance Music”! Sometimes you have to dig a little deeper to find it (wading through all the commercial shit, and semi pro tunes).

My point i am eventually getting to here is that i think people perceive a genre to have changed beyond all recognition partly due to
mp3 sites filing a tune into a genre which it is clearly NOT a part of!

Just before writing this i came across some music on Beatport which i really liked, i added the tunes to my basket as usual and suddenly it dawned on me that although i was originally looking for some Trance music to mix, what i had in fact added should have been filed under “Techno”.

Now this is not a problem for me as i love many forms of Techno, and still wanted to buy the music, but it did annoy me that someone who has not been into these types of music for very long would start believing that this Techno music was in fact Trance!

Yes i know the genres can blur, as i have said previously, but sometimes the difference is so clear there can be no question!

An example of one of the tunes that got me thinking is…
Axel Karakasis- Flying Area on the “Discover Dark” label

http://www.beatport.com/track/flying-area-original-mix/1607073

…yes there it is filed under Trance, yet the sound is clearly Techno.

Again on the same label is… O’Callaghan & Kearney- Pendulum

http://www.beatport.com/track/pendulum-original-mix/1607066

Now i understand the genre of “Tech-Trance” and similar combinations of Techno and Trance, and that the particular label mentioned deals mainly in Tech Trance tunes (why i like it so much!),
But in my eyes for it to include the word Trance the music has to include some Trancey elements!

To quote the Discover label’s website…

“Often described as one of the world best tech trance labels, Discover Dark is as much about techno as it is about trance often stretching the trance link its absolute limit.”

To me that could mean the label itself deems these tunes to be a form of Trance, or that they aknowledge that it is also for Techno (i’m not too clear on that). In fact it can often be quite unclear exactly what genre to file a tune under (especially in the mixed up world of electronic dance music!), but i believe the examples shown here are clearly in one genre (may be just my opinion of course, others may disagree!)

When i used to go to more Techno nights (quite a few years ago now!), this was the kind of music that rocked those nights. No one ever mentioned any of the music playing as Trance, or Tech Trance… because it wasn’t… it was Techno!

I know these confusions can also arise from a producer being labelled as only making a certain genre (think how Tiesto gets slated now for not making Trance), often these guys never proclaim to be a Trance (or whatever genre) producer, they just like to make electronic based music! I remember Mauro Picotto getting confused for a Trance producer years ago, because he had some well known tracks that were more Trancey than his other stuff, guess what, people were surprised that he “also” made Techno (obviously he mainly made techno, and still does!).
This kind of thinking often leads people to confuse some genres (like confusing Techno tunes with Trance).

So as the use of mp3/digital download sites increase, will the meanings and defining features that make a genre what it is be slowly reduced until the music is the same but called something completely different? Maybe. It has happened before to a certain extent as genres evolved, where new terms for genres are “coined” by the media and then generally adopted by the public. If this happens more and more i believe it will only serve to confuse and annoy people a lot (well it certainly will for me!!!).

Anyway they are just my thoughts on the matter for today born out of a minor annoyance (but not enough to put me off buying the music!), and elevated to a “grumpy old man” type rant!

So am i being pedantic, grumpy, picky, whatever? Maybe, maybe not!
I would love to hear any comments from people who agree, disagree, have more tunes/genres/general thoughts related to this matter!
You can comment here, on my facebook page, or on the Trance Community forum where i will start up some discussion on this.