| Product: |
Trance in general |
| Date: |
25/08/01 (114 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: ., ., .
Disadvantages: ., ., .
Maybe if I wanted to be really original, I’d open my opinions by getting straight to the point and being immediately relevant. Y’know, rather then making the usual, side-ways, long-winded attempt to be different, as is so common among myself and other members of the dooyoo semi-elite who are all trying to be as good as Alk (with varying degrees of success). But I’m not. I’m a fragile, in-secure little writer. I have to zigzag. I have to serve you my thoughts in a unstable dish of tongue-in-cheek arrogance and subtle quirkiness, complimented by a (confident) conversational tone, and finished with a generous sprinkle of muted naivety that you secretly notice but dare not high-light.
I’m not writing much on Dooyoo at the moment, in fact, this is my first opinion in almost a month. I played it safe with the last one, so I thought this time I’d jump in at the deep end with a mildly controversial, self-gratifying rant at a genre (which is a concept stupid in it’s self, but dooyoo set the rules, not me). And, sadly, I’m as confident about writing a well-argued and well-tempered piece as I am about you, one/some/all or you, slapping a bright orange ‘ignorant’ sticker on my fore-head. I’m not ignorant. Honest. Not musically at least. And I want people (that’s you, btwlolroflimhobrb) to realise that. I’m just honest. And I’m sure you’ll tell me I don’t understand, because I’d do that too if you told me my beloved punk/prog rock/metal/ezio isn’t what I believe it is. It’s important that people (that’s you, repeatchatin-joke) accept that I appreciate their love, because I share it, just not in a way that allows us to agree, and I’m allowed to say that – just as you’re allowed to rise slightly in your chair and type ‘you’re wrong, so, so wrong’ in a frantic key-board assault (that’ll contain spe
lling errors you can leave a second comment apologising for).
I don’t like trance music. I don’t like dance in general.
“Who gives a (comical rearrangement of ‘fuck’) if you don’t – it’s a matter of taste, fool”
Yup, it is. But so is my opinion on a film, or book, or condom. As for helping you make better decisions – even hypocrisy of the Speakers Corner aside, Dooyoo must realise (as should you), that NO ONE writes to ‘help’ others for any other reason then to help themselves. If you write through a genuine desire to help someone on the other end of web page spend their money wisely, rather then because you like money/compliments/time-killers, I suggest you aim your good intentions at a more worthy cause (like, um, the RSPCA or something).
I don’t like trance music, because I think it is a little shallow, and I think it serves an extremely limited purpose, and because I can’t help comparing it to rock. Is that cool with you guys? I consider it a pleasant sound. I think it can be just as in-powering, inspiring and enjoyable as anything else, just never nearly as heart-feel or personal. Maybe it’s different for you, and I’ll accept that, I just can’t begin to understand how.
Oh, and I’d be easy to bang on about how ‘simple’ it is to DJ. It’s so tempting to go in the opposite direction I had planned, by grabbing you and your glow-stick by the scruff of the neck and screaming “How can picking computer-generated beats and samples then merging them together be anywhere near as skilful as playing a live guitar solo?”. But arguing the toss over how ‘hard’ it is to create trance music on a computer as opposed to learning an instrument isn’t particularly helpful (though I do happen to think the arrival of ‘music’ computer games have kinda made a mock
ery of the art as a whole). I know it’s a skill. I’m not daft. I no it’s not just ‘clicking a few things on a computer screen’ or any other statement of that ilk. It’s having the ability to listen. It’s knowing what sounds compliment the other. It’s knowing what gets everyone jumping about. It’s a skill, and fair play to them – I couldn’t do it, and probably neither could you.
But trance music can never be there to help me cry out the final, salty tears, cured up like a child on my bed. Trance music can’t reassure that everything will be ok. Trance music can’t hold my hand, either through the good times or the bad, and it can’t travel through my ear-hole and beyond my mind to the thirsty mouth of my heart, and that’s why it can’t be my friend. You can tell me about how technical accomplished the song is, but you can’t tell me it has any heart. That’s why I don’t like it, and that’s why I class it entirely as ‘music’. I’m sorry. I’m not invalidating your love, I’m just making clear that I can’t understand it, and not through lack of trying.
I’ve worked in night-clubs across the country, and I see the love. I see the euphoria. I see the way people draw from the music, and breathe through it, and feel it flowing through their veins. And that’s as real as music can be, and as fair and good as fair and good can be. But how can it be there for you outside that environment? How can you listen to a trance song, and relate to it. How can it be beautiful, or special. How can the lyrics fill you, and make you nod. How can it speak to you. I know how jazz speaks to jazz fans, and I know how rap speaks to rap fans, and I know how most types of music I don’t particularly enjoy speaks to most people, but trance/dance/club/hard-house/everything else… where is t
here heart? Where is it?
By it’s very nature, by it’s very arrangement – how can trance music share with you a part of it’s creator? The beats you hear have been created. They’ve been created and repeated by a computer. Where’s the room for error? Where’s the drummer, throwing everything he has in to every hit of his instrument? Or the guitarist, patiently allowing a life-time of practise create a sound from his own hands? Where’s the song-writer and singer, pouring every drop of emotion into his words, HIS words, and inviting you to share something so special and real you KNOW what he means without ever having saw his face or shared his life? Where’s the shared passion and unspoken connection between the band/orchestra members? I don’t see it. I’ve looked, and I don’t. I see music that consists of skilfully-placed samples, that can move you to dance and smile and be happy and feel alive. But rock music can do that. Rock music can make you throw your head about so hard you can’t move your head for a month. But rock music can also follow you anywhere – into depression, into nostalgia, into joy or fear. Trance music, through it’s very being, can not. Or least not as far as I can see.
Hopefully by now you’ve realised I’m not here to rant on stupidly. I don’t want to dislike trance music, I’d rather I liked it and I’d rather it did all the things for me music does because then I’d have more choice in what to listen to. But I guess the problem is, the thing I just don’t get it, is how trance music, or any computer-generated music, can or could ever translate the thoughts and emotions of it’s creator. Because to me – trance music is made for it’s audience, while rock music, and most rock music, is made for it’s creator, by it’s creator. That’s why pop music is shallow.
That’s when bands ‘sell-out’. That’s when it stops being music, and it starts being a limited and slightly blunt tool. I like music I can share, and try to understand, and feel tears rolling down my cheek because of. I don’t like something I know is trying to make me dance.
Anyway, I’d best quit now. I hope I haven’t enraged any trance fans – it’ll be a much, much greater achievement if I haven’t. That’s something many sensationalist Dooyoo-ers should realise. If trance music makes you who you are, and if you drink from it and feed from it, then the last thing in the world I’d want to do is deny you it. And, as a good friend once told me, one of the most important lesson’s you’ll learn is that sometimes the people you most love and respect simply don’t agree, and it doesn’t mean a thing. Just read, feel what you have to feel, and understand that I love you, and I wouldn’t want you any other way.
Oh, and ignore all this 'star rating'
and 'recommend to a friend' jazz won't you?
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