Monday, April 23, 2018

Flight 643 by Tiesto

Arguably this isn't hardtrance.  Discogs calls the original mix simply trance, while it calls the original release (with its four versions) a combination of progressive trance and tech trance.

I heard it first as part of a bootleg mashup, though, with Randy Katana's "Play It Louder", which is also (arguably) not hardtrance, but since it samples very prominently the acid bass line from the Pump Panel Reconstruction of New Order's "Confusion" it is certainly acid trance.  And at some point, progressive trance, hardtrance, acid trance, and tech trance are all fairly hard to tell apart, and the dividing line between them isn't very easy to define.

In my collection of "hardtrance" I readily admit a fairly decent number of acid techno, acid trance, early hardstyle, and tech trance and even some of the harder ends of regular trance as all "on topic" for the collection, so Tiesto's "Flight 643" easily makes the cut.

Tiesto is often called, of course, the "father of EDM" which is certainly overstating things.  What he is is an EDM DJ who managed, better than just about any of his colleagues, to go mainstream, get mainstream attention, and become a producer and remixer for mainstream musicians.  This may be related to the so-called "selling out" of trance generally, although often that is billed very specifically to Robert Miles' song "Children"

But regardless of whether or not you think trance sold-out, became ridiculously cheesy and formulaic or not, well, this is a good song.  I do tend to think that mainstream trance did become rather predictable and boring, but the stuff that kept getting harder was still awesome for many years to come.

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