Lost my attention in modern Goa Trance and im speaking from producers perspective... and it's gonna be long but worth of read imo.
Today Goa is one of most limited Trance styles, even more than that Offbeat Prog most of us can't stand. There are so much rules these days which you have to follow just to get released, to play somewhere? Even worse. Sometimes I wonder if we as producers even have a freedom to do what we like or think we do and that people will actually support that.
Expectations and personal tastes of few will eventualy kill Goa scene, not 'bad' producers themselves. We are small scene struggling to survive but all we do is bitching around and killing wish of new or producers that already gave a lot on scene. Those that we still praise from 90s, well 99% of them don't give a thing for last 20 years and didn't contribute to scene at all while you have new guys doing and putting everything they can so this scene could go on and so they could really enjoy in life as an artists and all fun it brings.
If you are not like Etnica, you sucks, If you are not like Tim Schuldt its too boring, it's not dark enough. If you have modern bassline you are Fullon. It's not 90s Goa ripoff, well it sucks. You see problem now?
Every single style in Psychedelic Trance genre have been developing since it's beggining, every couple of years style changed itself and most of them for better. And people there actually accept that because they understand 2005 Full on is 15 years old and it was good for that period, now is different and good for today. Progressive from early 00s was also good, but Ace Ventura is killing it now and killing it big for 2020 and people fucking love that. Remember Twisted System back in 2004? Fucking best Twilight ever. Well Ajja is king now sorry. Goa trance, 95 MWNN and Etnica, 2005 crazy Filipe Santos, 2010 Filteria, today... who knows?
Every music was good for its period, some survived for 20-30 years, some not. But everyone moved on, new music, new generations, everyones having fun big time, parties and festivals bigger than ever, more music than ever for each and everyone but not for us Goa people. To us nothing is ever good enough specialy when you don't want to ripoff music from 25 years ago doing over and over same things, we just want same music, same style, same group of artist playing here and there.
As an artist you are forced to do what others (label, promoters, scene?) want just to get released and get some attention from people so you can feel welcome on scene. So you make what they want which is maybe musicaly better but technicaly it's crap and everyone knows it but it's ok because it sounds like 90s. Maybe you got lucky to get booked on them few Goa Trance festivals and play for a bit bigger crowd so you get bigger and better promotion. Then you want more and more, why not to play for even more and even more often but oh wait you can't.
Nobody want too book you, all promoters booked you already, so you are not interesting to them anymore, lets try others but nobody ever fucking heard of you. You would like to play on Boom or Ozora, all of us want but wait they never heard of you because marketing in Goa scene is one worse ever because they are not daring to invest at least 50euros in their digital promotions of your releases for which you are obviously not payed enough or not payed at all. Second thing, remember that you sounds like 90s, technicaly/production wise it's crap so is your music to 99% people out there because you couldn't use damn boring 'fullon bassline' or 'fullon kick' and now your music sounds ears bleeding on big systems and who da fuck want to put this guy on stage in front of 50000 people? I personaly would never, only if he doesn't brings me tons of money.
50000 people won't hear Goa Trance just that few days, where are tons of other big parties and festivals? If labels and agencies know what people really want today, why they don't force artists corectly and invest in them? You know that 50k on artist pages means a lot to get booking? Make his artist page on facebook get 50k likes! People like fancy produced videos of artists playing, doing interviews or studio sessions? You are fucking manager, so fucking make that happen! Is it really that hard?
People on dancefloor love modern sound, so fucking force your artists to have production quality of Astrix instead of forcing them to boycott fucking EQ in their projects. And last thing but most important we forget if we want to survive is because we don't know how to sell product (read music). Literally we are worst there. You release something but 90% of scene don't have a clue that release is out. Are we doing business because this artist-label-parties-scene stuff is business after all, or we just satisfing our personal taste and personal frustrations?
Are we as people, giving enough and fucking DECENT support to guys doing this music? Hell no! Even worse is that their damn labels don't give them decent support, just opportunity to get more money or promotion for their own name.
I am here with you for 11 full years, 2500 posts, active for so many years. Meet some of you and become good friends in real life. You know my alter ego but some of you know me as a person. We have some history here right? Let me take a personal example so I don't target any other artist...
My latest release 'Imba - Liberation EP' was released 2 and half months ago, to be exact 73 days and yet not a single review on it. How and why? Not that it's most important thing to artist but to most of us it has value. We came here because we value some thing here and some words can inspire us to keep doing it. I would really love to read some words from some respected members in scene, good or bad but I would love just to discuss and see.
- Is it possible that nobody heard it yet for 73 days? Hard to believe that.
- Is it possible that nobody could spare 10-20 mins to write it for 73 days? Hard to believe that.
- Is it really that terrible that nobody wan't even to think about it? Even harded to believe that not because is mine but because I saw/heard it on dancefloor.
Even in promo post only 2 people left some comment...
This example is just one small thing of many, not most essential for survival of Goa music but to some people could mean a lot.
How often you sent supportive msg to artist, new or older just to thank him and make him feel right and happy for doing this?
How often have you shared artists music or party videos on your social media just as support?
I haven't recieved msg here in ages and just simple Thank You would mean a lot to me or someone...
Artist is not producing music just for themselves, not this type of music as you can't live from it. If they don't feel connected with people they will stop, one by one. I asked myself many times why? Yeah I am enjoying, I love this music and love the lifestyle, traveling, playing and fun but for who?
Morphic Resonance who is very much loved here or in scene generaly, who gets lots of attention... got same questions on our last meeting. Many guys does...
And here we are back to beggining, the people for whom we are doing all of this. First of all is: can you say that you as listener/party goer/Goa Trance lover doing enough for Goa Trance so it can survive and be good? Are we artists only guilty because scene is like this and you lost attention?
We are too lazy to comment, talk, support someone which takes just couple of minutes but we are always ready to bitch artist who lost months or even years on some release just because he is not Etnica and he is not 90s. This is not 'Mom got me a toy I didn't want', it's far more important than personal expectations and taste. If you want scene to survive ofcourse...
I didn't want to offend anyone with this post and I hope nobody found offended. Just pointing some main problems and I hope that you will think about...