Paul van Dyk: Trance These Days Is Cheesy Shit

Paul van Dyk gives Trance Energy‘s flummoxed interviewer an earful, calling most of today’s vocal trance “really cheesy shit music”.

“To be really honest a lot of the stuff, when we started in the early 1990s and then suddenly it was called trance there was a deeper feel to it,” said van Dyk, “and a lot of the music that is being called trance these days is actually really cheesy shit music.”

via Beatportal

22 thoughts on “Paul van Dyk: Trance These Days Is Cheesy Shit

  1. I think all trance made since 2002 is "cheesy shit".
    trance has been dead for a long time. Very few new acts have done anything since it's peak back in the day.

    I think it's so easy to make a trance track anyway. A few cheesy chord changes. A off tempo bass line. The break down. The "supersaw" or a variant. And your done.
    It's just so by the numbers anyone can do it.
    This is why its boring.

    How many times can you just write the same song?

    I have a JP-8000 for sale if any "trance" producers want it 😛

  2. Perhaps it's unfair to generalize all trance artists, but I tend to agree, the genre has been beaten to death and the situation is made worse by the cookie cutter approach that so many trance musicians take, like Dajebus said, "by the numbers". If you are using the same softsynth or rig that the next guy/girl is using, and following the same 'code', then yeah, you are just adding drops of water to a full bucket. Sometimes a genre can be re-vitalized by an artist or group throwing the proverbial 'monkey-wrench' into the works, something radical and dynamic and therefore 'different'. But what artists could save trance, and then we must pose the question, is trance worth saving? (and I think Dajebus nailed it- 2002 was the expiration date!!!)

  3. Hi! How much do you ask for the Roland JP-8000? Is it in perfect status? Do you have any accesories to it (flightcase, tutorials, etc)? Where are you from (country, city, etc)?

  4. Sorry Dreamweaver. I was making a joke on how "trance " people love that keyboard. Problem is I love it too. And not just for the supersaw.

    They show up on eBay all the time.
    AND you get much better sound out of a softsynth anyway.

  5. I was thinking it was a joke (a good one), but I gave it a try! 🙂 The "trance" people love the Virus synthesizers too (and the JP-8080). Some of them are moving toward softsynth, but the veterans still stick to the hardware…

  6. Haha the dyk was ALMOST saying his own music was cheesy shit, im wondering if the so called 'deeper meaning trance' was when he was paid an obscene amount of money to spin his own and his mates cheesy shit. God i love this man, he's a cheesy fuckin genius!

  7. Plenty of over done trance stereo types, but then what genre isn't overdone? I happen to think theres a lot of really excellent trance at the moment if you look for it, but thats probably because I havent listened to it much at all over the last 10 years. Maybe you lot are the full buckets and not the genre.

  8. 2002 was the expire date for many genres such as hip hop and R&B, I don't see any point of trying to save these genres because some CEO's at the recordcompanys wants to rip us for cash.
    Totally agree with RuDeBoY, PvD probably needs to dig "deeper" in his pocket for that extra buck, maybe he's bored over at his dayjob!?

  9. European savants or great artistans who seemed to have started the trance revolution, are groups such as Goryella, and even System F with old school Ferry Corsten sounds, and the well famous dj Tiesto. Even before tiesto had become famoso, with what we call progressive trance, much vocal trance not so much instrumental had seemed to kill the high or (euporia) that we had recieved from club stations like TranceEnergy, before 2000, i can go on and on but basically it is true trance that is produced in america is well CHEESY, to fully understand the feeling and perspective on trance we must just focus on it and lose the need for media or puplicty because music, come before any fame or glory(wealth).

  10. I gotta agree with Van Dyk!

    But I think that when he says that a lot of the music that is being called trance these days is really cheesy shit – he's referring to all the music that all the other DJs are playing!

  11. You guys forget about Orjan Nielsen, Activa, Gareth Emery, Super 8 & Tab.
    These are some of the newer acts which are very good.

    Besides, Trance merged with Techno to make Tech-Trance, that's where the big stuff happenes nowadays, (Mark Sherry, Tempo Giusto..)
    If You don't like Tech-Trance, Techno or House, stop being a hater, real Techno and House is not Repetitive shit like some people say. So that would be Your problem if You can't evolve from Trance to Tech-trance all I'm saying.

  12. IDK respects for pvd nd his music but i say trance will never die no matter what! as the world is spinning its years so is the music so you cant expect the same>new elements of trance will always evolve.

  13. This article is old but still relevant to today’s electronic music scene. The people here who complain that trance is dead, I say to them that pure trance still exists in Goa trance and progressive psytrance. Most European trance never followed what earlier trance did in the early ’90s, most of it made the music more fluffy as time went on in the 2000s. Whatever is called “trance” these days is really electro house wrapped up in a melodic shell. I think it is time for the electro “trance” producers to take a note from the early 90s trance and also follow that path that Goa trance and progressive psytrance have taken these days. Paul van Dyk better had remember his days with Cosmic Baby, those where his best days.

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