These were, in our opinion, the most representative trance tunes of an unforgettable year … for better or for worse.
A few days, and the year of the great pandemic will close its doors: it would be useless to repeat it, but it has been an extreme, difficult and exhausting year. A lot has been said it in recent months about the repercussions for the music market and on the artistic and cultural sector in general which, all over the world, was swept away like by a river in flood by the emergency; emergency that, apparently, it may end next months of next year thanks to the arrival of the vaccine.
Since last March we are no longer on the dancefloor, we could not do it, but the music continued through improvised DJ sets from the houses of the most famous DJs and then over time, after the summer, with increasingly elaborate shows from various locations, but always without crowd: without us, in short.
Trance music, as it happens repeatedly in alternating phases every few years, during 2020 has been “retouched” by different genres: from a genre, which we can define as “dark” progressive and above all from a new deep house style, very loved by admirers of the genre and not, giving as final result a “dreamy” progressive-trance sound, familiar until a few decades ago, within more commercial rankings: this is the case of british duo CamelPhat, for example, which, although not strictly trance, with their “For A Feeling” (vs. ARTBAT) last spring, they were able to “rearrange” some epochal trance atmospheres (often featured on their album “Dark Matter”).
On this musical trend, one of the news of the year was undoubtedly Tiësto’s rapprochement with these sounds: we therefore hope that his alias VER: WEST (“5 Seconds Before Sunrise” the track with which he presented himself last July ) continue to producing spectacular songs and maybe even something more purely trance.
Like them, also the Anjunabeats’s talents Tinlicker, and it’s from them that we start with this selection of ten of the most famous trance tracks of this “unforgettable” year (they are not songs chosen through the our personal preference, but chosen for their success during this year), and it’s in fact of few months ago their amazing cover of a classic trance track by Robert Miles in a progressive key, which we listen to again during their last live: “Tinlicker x Robert Miles – Children”:
The legendary Gareth Emery tells of having composed this song in a particular moment of his life: however, released at the beginning of the pandemic, it has become a symbolic song of trance during the emergency, thanks to the slogan “You’ll Be OK”: this track is part of the latest album by the made in UK dj released last summer “The Lasers”. Let’s listen to the sweet “Gareth Emery feat. Annabel – You’ll Be OK”:
Armin van Buuren, we know, is unstoppable: almost a release every week, from trance to house music to pop music. Not even in the year of COVID he managed to stay still and remained at the top of every chart of the trance genre. Among the numerous releases of 2020, collaborations remained his strong point. We report a double: The first one, with MaRLo, fresh from last year’s success with “Lighter Than Air” (with Feenixpawl and Kamila Bayrak), “Tune Of The Year 2019”, which this year has repeated the same sound together with Armin van Buuren with the explosive follow-up “This I Vow”; the second one, instead, with one of the confirmations of recent years that this year has found its definitive consecration, we are talking about the Fatum (of which we also point out the impressive remix to “Gabriel & Dresden feat. Sub Teal – Coming On Strong”) who, together with Armin, have composed “Punisher”.
“Armin van Buuren & MaRlo feat. Mila Josep – This I Vow” and “Armin van Buuren & Fatum – Punisher”
Another unstoppable phenomenon ? But Above & Beyond, of course ! The kings of Anjunabeats label this year, among the numerous releases (above all, we cannot fail to mention “Reviere” with the enchanting Zoë Johnston), have conquered the charts with a song played for the first time in 2013: after seven years, the progressive-trance cover of the famous 1983 New Order‘s song been released: let’s back to jump with “Above & Beyond – Blue Monday” !
Giuseppe Ottaviani is certainly not the latest arrival in trance environments, but he is having his definitive consecration only in recent years: this year, our walls have vibrated thanks to the uplifting sound of “Giuseppe Ottaviani – Till We Meet Again” !
The collaborations of Ferry Corsten‘s UNITY project continued during this year too: the most appreciated was the one with Ciaran McAuley where the Rotterdam DJ and producer actually reproduces the sounds that often characterize his aliases, such as Gouryella. Here is the wonderful “Ferry Corsten & Ciaran McAuley – Mo Chara”:
Well, the current track is what now seems to be considered the trance song of 2020 (psss … but we don’t say it out loud !): the collaboration between the Egyptian duo of Aly & Fila and Plumb announced earlier this year is by far one of the most beautiful and well constructed record of the year. The original version is a soft-pop song from a few years ago by the american singer from the album “Beautifully Broken”: Aly & Fila have renamed the song thanks to their unmistakable uplifting sound, giving us a vocal-trance masterpiece. Here is “Aly & Fila with Plumb – Somebody Loves You”:
Let’s go back to Armin van Buuren: during this year, with AVIRA, he made a fruitful collaboration that gave birth to an EP: three songs (“Hollow” feat. Be No Rain, “Illusion” and “Mask” with Sam Martin) that strongly summarize the “dark” progressive fold mentioned at the beginning, a trend re-proposed by several authors this year and that Armin was able, as usual, to grasp, giving fans three new progressive-trance pearls. We can listen them here in sequence:
This was one of the most prolific years for Moldovan DJ and producer Andrew Rayel: after “Stars Collide” (with Robbie Seed feat. That Girl), he produces the catchy “Everything Everything” (feat. Oliva Sebastianelli): this track is a autentic bomb but the Cosmic Gate, who in the last few have specialized in some massive remixes, remix the song: it’s a poem, as usual.
The most “avid” trancers in recent months have loved this remix; the uplifting touch of Darren Porter lifts up the already fantastic song by MaRLo with HALIENE: the dreamy voice of the American singer, among the most present in the trance panorama of the last years, enhances the explosion of trance sounds of “Say Hello”: