Not familiar with Trance but i'm always willing to listen to something long enough to understand what it is even if I don't end up liking it.
While doing some research I ran across this on the Listology site: Top 400 trance tracks of all time
What struck me first was the detailed requirements for making recommendations to the list.
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These are the rules for posting recommendations. If you break one, I will ignore you. Read them before making a suggestion:
1.If you suggest even one track that is already on the list, I will ignore all other tracks in your suggested list. Use edit/find (on this page), or hit control-f to search out tracks before recommending them. Don't just whip your playlist off into the comments, I want you to make sure it's a)better than some of the tracks on this list, and b)NOT ALREADY ON IT, before you suggest I add it. This list is massive, and the base of tracks it was selected out of is even bigger. I don't mean to be a jerk about it, but I don't have the time to sift through records that are already on the list. Plus, that tells me you didn't think about your suggestion.
2.If you've been listening to trance for less than 9 months, you have a DJ Mystik track on your computer anywhere, or you still (seriously) find tracks by typing "trance" or "techno" into a file sharing program, then please don't suggest anything. Your recommendation is going to be stupid. No, trust me. It is.
3. Don't post "I can't believe [insert probably stupid and derivative track here] isn't on the list! What gives?!?!?" or anything even remotely close to that comment. What gives? If it's really such a masterpiece and it's not on the list, then I probably haven't heard it, dumbass (Or I've heard it, it sucks, and you just have no taste). If you make that comment, I will ignore you. In fact, if you even think about making that comment, don't bother posting, your suggestion is going to be stupid. There are literally millions of trance tracks, and there is no possible way anyone could listen to them all (I've only heard tens of thousands). Although the best tracks tend to bubble up into underground recognition (and no further), there are likely dozens of masterpieces that have gone unnoticed - this is what I'm looking for. However, there are hundreds of thousands of piles of derivative crap that directly steal from classics and never go anywhere. These appeal to newbies who haven't been around long enough to hear the originals (and to E-tards who have no memory of any tracks they've heard at any events), which is why no one who hasn't listened to trance for over 9 months should post here. If you don't know enough about trance to know that more records are released than could ever possibly be listened to, you don't know enough about trance to make an intelligent suggestion, and you're wasting your time.
4. If you have ever, EVER in your life shouted "TIIIIEEEESSSSTTTOOOOO!!!!" or said anything along the lines of "OMG OMG OMG Tiesto is such a God OMG!" don't post here, because you're an idiot. He can play records. Calloo, calay, he belongs on Mount Olympus.
5. Do not write a post stating something like "that's just your opinion! [boring derivative crap] is a masterpiece, you just won't open your ears!" [Stupid derivative crap] is not a masterpiece. You just haven't heard enough trance to know that [stupid derivative crap] doesn't have a shred of originality in it.
6. If you don't like at least five trance tracks produced before 1995, don't bother posting a suggestion, as you know absolutely nothing about trance. Come back when you're older, sonny.
7. If you don't like acid, or don't know what acid is (and weren't knocked out by rule number 2), you're an idiot, don't post.
8. If you don't listen to at least 3 other kinds of electronic music that are not mainstream hip-hop genres or played on the radio, you have no perspective, don't post a suggestion.
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At first I thought, "That's pretty brutal."
After considering it a little more I thought, "Maybe the guy is just serious about this list and doesn't want to contend with any b.s."
Here's the first 20 tunes. Those of you that have a thorough understanding of this genre can determine the validity of the picks.
1.Humate - Love Simulation (Paul van Dyk's Love mix) [1993] [Ibiza trance]
It's amazing how little this track loses its loveliness with repeat listens. I've had it for 6 years now, and I still love it just as much as I did when it floored me on the first listen. Even the other top 10 tracks (while still amazing) have diminished in some ways with compulsive listening, but this one remains the shining gem at the top of the trance genre. This perfectly captures the beauty of a tropical sunset on a peaceful deserted island, and to this day never fails to evoke such a scene.
2.The Age of Love - Age of Love (Jam & Spoon's Watch out for Stella mix) [1992] [classic trance]
This is often erroneously called the first trance tune of all time, including by me for a very long time. Well, it wasn't. There was no "first trance tune." It seems to have slowly coalesced out of the Belgian new beat, acid house, techno, and euro-house miasma around at the time. You can look for related tracks in each of these early scenes, but none of them are "trance" per se, they clearly fall into their respective styles. And the first artists who actually set out to make "trance" were mimicking a genre that was already defined. So where do you draw the line? You don't. There was no big bang.
Also, the so-called "original mix" available pretty much everywhere is almost universally actually the (admittedly superior) Jam & Spoon remix. I finally found the real original mixes, and they're not trance at all - they're inarguably new beat. You can almost hear some trance in there, but it's a seed, at best.
That said, this version is a fantastic track, and still one of trance's first. It's beautiful, ethereal, and above all, entrancing.
3.Energy 52 - Cafe Del Mar (Three N' One mix) [1998] [anthem trance/ibiza trance]
The track that defines everything that an ibiza anthem is, full of all of the excess and bombast of the island: pure dancable joy. The track's central hook is a long, arpeggiated melody looping such that the beginning and end melt together into an endless sphere. It sounds like sped-up 70's minimalism run through a 90's dark trance synth with a sub-tribal feel (it's the beats that do this). I'll admit, the build-up is a little bit cliche by now, but it wasn't really at the time, and for second-wave trance, it's as creative as it's going to get, and more than compensated by the spot-on anthem. In a not so surprising twist, this was initially written by one of the fathers of modern trance (Cosmic Baby), back in 1993 (they were always better at trance than the bedroom nerds and the corporate pop machine). It has gotten another remix every single year since 93, most of which are picked up by trance jocks and many of which go back on the club charts (the best is undoubtedly 1997's chart-topping Three N' One remix (although some prefer the 1998 Nalin & Kane version, and classic trance addicts will love the original)).
4.Future Sound of London - Papua New Guinea [1991] [ambient trance/classic trance]
Released in 1991, this song wasn't even intended to be trance - no one even used the word yet (although there was a fledgling sound growing in the underground house, rave, and techno scenes). It was meant to be ambient breaks, but "Papua New Guinea's" atmosphere was like little other electronic dance released at the time - ethereal, spacy, almost angelic, but still dancefloor-worthy, catchy, and even relaxing. The song instantly became a trance classic once the genre was brought into official existence in 1993, and deservingly so. Like it's predecessor "Age of Love," even today it can be played without sounding the slightest bit dated.
{arguable - ambient breaks}
5.Underworld - Born Slippy (NUXX). [1995] [classic trance/hard trance]
A melodic trance tune with stream-of-consciousness lyrics that become stranger with each listen, mainly beacuse they never really had any actual internal logic to begin with. The melody is unforgettably catchy, and contains a nice twist in the middle, in which it goes from being a wistful and pretty little ambient trancer, to a hard and abrasive swedish techno stormer, and pulls both off better than just about anything in either genre. Surprisingly, especially with this being, you know, actually good, this was a huge hit in Europe (it went to number 2 on the world chart in 1996-97), and gets at least two new remixes every year, at least one of which always goes back on the club charts (hopefully 2006 will be an exception? Honestly, they're never going to top the original). So, not only is it one of the best, it's also the most popular to still retain credibility.
{arguable - melodic techo(?)}
6.Sasha - Xpander [1999] [progressive trance]
Perfect progressive trance. A melody that, like the last 2 tracks, is atmospheric, loops on itself, and endlessly contagious, without seeming repetitive. This song is absorbing - the feeling throughout is impossible to describe, since like I said before...dancing about architecture. Just download the track. It's incredible. (Was another mega-European hit. I don't know the details specifically, but it doesn't matter).
7.Nalin & Kane - Beachball [1996] [ibiza trance]
Gorgeous, elegant, and never tiring. It's quite possible that I've listened to this track more times than any other, probably my personal favorite. Built out of tribal, yet melodic beats (the "Nalin and Kane sound"), relaxing and inobtrusive vocals, and a slow, subtle build that takes its time to breakdown. When it does breakdown, air strings and seagulls wash and flow around each other as if musically taking flight to a Mediterannean sky over a sunset-golden beach. When the breakdown ends, "Becahball" slowly floats back to earth, before spending the remainder of the track rippling back and forth between the sky and the sand.
{arguable - ibiza house}
8.Paragliders - Paraglide [1993] [classic trance]
9.DnTel - (This is) The Dream of Evan and Chan (Superpitcher Kompakt remix) [2002] [minimal trance]
This is probably the only trance track ever created with vocals worth listening to. But it doesn't rest on them, just allowing them to sparsely resonant in a minimal nothing, it raises them, gently bringing them to soaring heights with gorgeous melodies that slowly drown out the surreal beauty of the evocative lyrics. Eventually the glistening bells overtake the words entirely, taking the already flying track into the stratosphere. It's the perfect representative of minimal trance.
{arguble: tech-house/progressive house/microhouse}
10.Hardfloor - Acperience 1 [1992] [acid trance/classic trance]
{arguable - acid}
11.Hybrid - Symphony [1997] [orchestral trance]
Wow. Forget Adagio for Strings, forget Protect Your Mind, forget ****ing Airwave, symphonic trance was created and destroyed with this track. Everything trance is supposed to make you feel, and almost everything classical is supposed to do can be found here in this amazing song. Easy to dance to, creative beats (breaktrance, so they actually put some thought into them), more melodies than you can possibly count, and all this without sounding crowded or overstuffed; all of it original. They even did it without overusing the breakdown. Fantastic, it completly lives up to its title.
12.Aphex Twin - Didgeridoo [1992] [acid trance]
This track is simultaneously hard, twisted and beautiful, which is something I would have considered a nearly impossible feat until I heard this, and despite being over 15 years old, it still sounds innovative and fresh today. Built on a foundation of Basic Channel-esque foggy acid lines, Didgeridoo manages to build and break like trance, while meandering and wandering like ambient and relentlessly pounding and squiggling like acid techno without sounding forced or mashed together. A didgeridoo sets the bassline resulting in a simultaneously relaxing, funky and dark atmosphere. It can sound like a trance anthem, a techno monster, or an ambient chilldown depending on how you listen, and it's all of those together and more, and it grows greater with each listen. Didgeridoo is undoubtedly one of the greatest trance tracks of all time. Whether or not it's in the genre of "trance" per se is questionable (though a connecting thread is certainly there), but in the most elastic sense of entrancing dance music, it comes out pretty close to the top.
{arguable - ambient acid techno(?)}
13.Orbital - Halcyon On & On [1993] [ambient trance]
{arguable - ambient techno}
14.Chicane - Offshore [1996] [ibiza trance]
{arguable - ambient house/ibiza house}
15.Banco De Gaia - Heliopolis [1993] [classic trance/acid trance]
16.Choice - Acid Eiffel [acid trance]
{arguable - acid techno}
17.Ame - Rej [2005] [minimal trance/neo-trance]
{arguable - "minimal"}
18.L.S.G. - Netherworld [1997] [progressive trance]
19.Balil - Parasight [1993] [classic trance/acid trance]
20.Salt Tank - Eugina [1996] [ibiza trance]
Full list here: http://www.listology.com/...s-all-time
Music for adventurous listeners
tA
Tribal Records
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