Wednesday, September 28, 2005
State of Trance....
"A State of Trance 2005"
How could you not enjoy this?
How can you really go and say that the second disc is no good? Okay...before I get ahead of myself I'll start from the top.
First of all, the first disc is definitely Armin at his finest. He's doing all the things that all the Arminheads just LOVE. very vocal, melodic. Yes, a great trance CD. With disc 2, he changes his tone quite a bit. But no, I wouldn't say he is experimenting, I think he's branching out...and making a better sound.
Honestly, I don't know...maybe the people that review this poorly don't listen on a good soundsystem or just some bad speakers. If you put this CD in your car, you will probably jump out of your seat dancing. The second disc doesn't want you to lose your dancing feet. Fine, the beginning is sorta slow, but when you start getting into it, it goes from a slower...deeper kind of beat-oriented music to more of a dark type of dance. If I may say so, it has a very "new york" feel to the end of the CD. The simplicity of the beats and the very few added synths and vocals help give it just a pure plain dance feel.
This is 100% entertainment and will definitely make you dance. If you wanna stick to what you know, then yea, maybe disc 1 is the only thing you have to worry about. But I enjoy the second disc much more, being that I'm not a complete Arminhead. I've seen him before, and I'm seeing him again next weekend in NYC. He's amazing. Buy his CD, and you will be thrilled, I promise!
5 stars. Armin made a masterpiece!
Disc 2 is actually pretty good!
Contrary to what appears to be the featured review for this album, I'd like to say that disc 2 is actually pretty good and simply has a focus on deep rythmic groove edging a little on D&B in places. I certainly wouldn't classify it as "bad techno blitz"! It fits just as well in the Trance genre as anything else out there, although it certainly has a different feel to it - more barebones with fewer breezy synths and vocals. This is probably why disc 1 is called "Light" and disc 2 "Dark". You might need some decent speakers/headphones to fully appreciate the bassy undertones of disc 2.
Through years of listening to trance I understand that there are some people who just don't like anything rythmically orientated. To some degree I have the same problem - pure D&B/Techno doesn't do it for me at all, but disc 2 falls on the right side of the line. Don't be afraid to buy this album.
Disc 1 is great, and disc 2 is also good as an alternative style, and it's never bad to diversify a little. Who knows when you'll want to throw on something more upbeat? ;)
THE RUBBER BAND MAN
REMEMBER THAT OLD SPINNERS SONG, THE "RUBBERBAND MAN?" THE LYRIC SAID, "EVERYTHING HE DOES, SEEMS TO TURN OUT RIGHT... HOW DOES HE DO IT Y'ALL? I DON'T KNOW." I WOULD SAY THAT THOSE WORDS APPLY TO VAN BUUREN'S WORK. I AM ONLY REVIEWING THIS LATEST CD SET AS A FINAL WORD ON ALL HIS WORKS.TO REVIEW THEM ALL WOULD BE REDUNDANT. THE MAN IS AMAZING, AS I HAVE YET TO HEAR AN ALBUM I HAVEN'T LOVED TOTALLY. I WANT TO THANK AMAZON FOR TURNING ME ON TO HIM AND BEING THE CAUSE FOR MY BUYING HIS ENTIRE CATALOGUE. I HAVE NOT BEEN AFFECTED BY ANYONE ELSE LIKE THIS; I JUST CAN'T GET ENOUGH. THIS ALBUM IS A TYPICALLY WONDERFUL IN A RAMPED UP, BEAUTIFUL, RHYTHMIC VERSION OF FERRY CORSTEN OR TIESTO AT THEIR BEST. THAT IS VAN BUUREN'S GIFT; I FIND HIS WORK EXCITING AND COMPLETELY SATISFYING. I WILL TAKE A MOMENT TO SAY THAT THE WEAKEST ALBUMS IN THE COLLECTION I FOUND WERE, "IN MOTION," AND,"ENGLISH," WHICH I CALL THE, " d.i.y.," CD BECAUSE IT IS A SERIES OF SEPARATE TRACKS, ALL GOOD, BUT PUT TOGETHER WITH NO RHYME OR REASON.I FIND MYSELF PUTTING THEM TOGETHER IN A SERIES THAT SOUNDS MORE LIKE A NORMAL CD. TO SAY THAT ONE CD BY VAN BUUREN IS WEAKER THAN ANOTHER, IS LIKE SAYING ONE SUN IS NOT AS BRIGHT AS ANOTHER....WHO CARES!
